King John Acts IV-V

 IV.i.14-26: An excellent characterization of Arthur here, and an effective, efficient, dramatic device to rouse the audience and propel the action.  In my thirst for theme, I musn't forget to acknowledge little moments like this.

80-100: Sight quavers.  this would be a tricky sequence to navigate as an actor.  Only sound has power in this world.

109-110: And so Arthur knows that his tongue is more powerful than his eyes.  

115-120: And lo, his word cools the very iron.

145-147: Hubert rightly commands silence.  Arthur's word is simply too powerful.

IV.ii.28-34: A marvelous speech, true and succinct in exactly Shakespeare's finest fashion.  Worth committing to memory and revisiting.

48: The tongue is mightier than the sword, and words than actions, according to Pembroke.  But we shall see.

68: Success!  The tongue prevails, and on a level that John has yet to suspect.

79-80: Purpose and conscience are another reflection of the two warring forces in this world.

92-94: A valid question.  John seems to have his hands on the shears of destiny, but there are greater forces at work here.

96: "So thrive it in your game, and to farewell," is as effective a kiss-off as I have ever heard.

126-127: The tongue again.  Is it to be believed or belied?

145-159: Be careful what you wish for, John!  This tongue is mighty indeed.

181-182: In this world, Mercury is indeed the greatest of the gods.

204-211: The iron and the shears are each a callback, and a metaphor.

227-234: The hand and the eye work together.  The fact, and the action.

248-253: The eye is the sign, but the tongue is the signified.

275-278: The eye lies.  John's helpless vacillation is a reflection of his reliance on it.

IV.iii.28: Words indeed are best.  But what has prevailed here?  The word or the hand?

58-60: If, indeed.  It seems not to be the work of a hand, but of a tongue, and the Bastard is the only one who sees it.

94-95: Is it not the tongue alone that caused this, though?

103: The toasting-iron, significant elsewhere, is tellingly conflated with the sword.

152-167: Faulconbridge's character gains depth here.  His loyalty all along has been to England alone, and now that it is lost, what remains?

V.i.1-5: The hand, not the tongue, is invoked here.  Shall it prevail?

5-21: Only after is the word, and the tongue, brought to bear.

46: A wrinkle in my reading.  Where in this dichotomy does "thought", intention, will, etc. fit?

55-75: The eye is a pawn in the battle between the hand and the tongue.

V.ii.8-39: Salisbury continues to be one of the best roles written here.  The metaphysical conflict at the heart of the entire play is his in microcosm.

44: If so, then the conflict is summed up here as between compulsion and respect, reality and ideal.  Perhaps to much of a stretch to say hand and tongue, though.

64: What a line.  The Dauphin is certainly full of himself.

84-88: He's not wrong though.  The word, once given, does not return until it has been fulfilled.

110: Indeed.  And I take this as admonition to continue looking (probably too) deeply into what lies under the text.

124-130: Faulconbridge invokes the tongue, even while admiring the Dauphin's stance.  He knows the inner, even as he proclaims the outer.  Perhaps this is the central dichotomy after all.

160-163: And the Dauphin sees through it.

166: Surely the tongue is not invoked so often in the Bard's other works.

182-183: I'm genuinely eager to find out the result.  Only then will my reading be clear.

V.iii.3-4: All the aforegone tempest may well turn out to be moot, which would itself be quite revealing.

13-14: A tempting juxtaposition of hot and cold, more suitable for a Galenic reading perhaps.

V.iv.9-10: Melun's turn of heart reeks of dramatic convenience--unless we take the stance that he was not wounded in battle, but by Louis' own order.

30-44: Also flimsy explanations.  Obviously, there is more to Melun's change of heart.

50-55: Also difficult to reconclie with Salisbury's character.  This whole scene is suspect.

V.v.16-20: Efficient and deep characterization in these few lines.  An actor could really make a meal out of them.

V.vi.14: Clever Bastard.  

27-35: The result of this poisoning will reveal the entire play.

V.vii.6: He does yet speak.  The tongue prevails.

13-25: . . . and even exults!

34-36: Same, John.  Same.

38-46: If I were staging this, I would have him sing these lines.

49-54: Galen is never far from the Bard's mind.

116-124: More prophetic than he could have realized.

All in all, I feel wonderfully misled.  All of the debate, the shears, the irons, the proclamations, hands, and tongues, were for naught.  Just as Fauconbridge says, 

Now, now, you stars, that move in your right spheres,
Where be your powers? Show now your mended
faiths (V.vii.78-80)

None of this made any sense after all.  The floods, the poison, the machinations, the Pope, all irrelevant, seemingly on a whim.  Tis all a checkerboard of nights and days, after all.

King John

 I.1.5-16: Already Shakespeare has established the various characters and their foils.  I remain of the opinion that this efficiency and clarity is one of his most singular gifts.

23-28: Perhaps setting up a conflict between sight and sound in this play?

31-42: If so, then Eleanor is decidedly on the side of Sound.

57-58: And John on the side of Sight.

88-91: I am already excited to find evidence for my reading.  "Accent," draws Eleanor's attention, while John trusts only his "eye".

141-151: Philip seems to plead the case of Sight.

174: Likely to be important later in the case of  Chance v. Truth.

160, 205: Philip/Bastard/Richard has adopted a policy of "No, after you."

245-280: For Richard, and perhaps he is the voice of this play, sound follows sight, and voice follows countenance, as in nature.  The Truth, of which he speaks, however, is still of unknown provenance.

 

II.1.15-16: Perhaps another dichotomy, heart and hand?

33: If so, we know where Constance and Austria fall.

50-51: The opposite order than that John predicted.  Constance's voice travels quickly.

58-59: But John's presence, even more so.

66-68: Are more than Richard here described?

79: Unlooked for, but not unheard.

121-134: Twas ever so between daughters and mothers in law.  Interesting that the "blot" is upon the supposed bastards here, and not upon the sires--the opposite of a similar conversation in I.1.

180-181: Slander and injury, sound and sight.

206-207: The trumpet and the tongue, to follow that which has already been decided in the eye.

235-239: Bullets against words.

285: What signifies this interjection? Not clear yet of what it presages.

300-304: A hilarious dig at Austria, and well suited to Richard's character.  He is his father's son withal.

312-336: Little difference between the two "trumpets".

365-375: One king is very like another.  Only the battle of confusion against peace will determine the outcome.

389-412: A confusion that Richard diffuses, to reveal a peace of his own making.

425-432: Which leaves Richard to claim the East.

474-488: A victory for Sound?

526-531: Ay,no, for Sight indeed!

 533-544: Blanche hedges her bets, whether it be sight or sound that prevails.

588-626: A new contestant: Commodity!  One whom Richard has already disavowed, but is prepared to embrace should the feeling be mutual.

 614-615: My favorite lines so far in this play: 

    And why rail I on this Commodity?

    But for because he hath not wooed me yet.

III.i.13-16 A nice summary of Constance's character, emphasized by ending four lines in a row with the same "fears", something that Shakespeare never does without cause.

32-34: One wonders whether it will be possible to find the overlap of this conflict between belief and life resonate with that between sight and sound.

39: If so, it is this: that belief and sound have triumphed, remaking life and sight in their image.

54-60: And this is reflected in the workings of Nature and Fortune as well. Any other author, one might be attempted to accuse of namedropping philosophical constructs in the hopes of appearing deeper to shallow ears.  It is already clear here, though, that the parallels are consistent and prefigure something even truer ahead. The battle, at least in Constance's eyes, rages between sight, life, and Nature on the one side, and sound, belief, and Fortune on the other with the latter currently prevailing.

78-86: And whose declaration, whose version of reality, will prevail?  If sound exert its authority over sight, then Constance has the upper hand.

137: Philip the Bastard may be the best role here, if not the juiciest.

153-166: John declares himself for sight, and laughs at words.

170: The connection made between Commodity and sight, adding the former to the ranks of the latter.

216-220: Blanche pipes up ever so briefly, to declare herself for sight, and in a way that reveals her beautifully.

219-226: The addition of faith and need crowds the battlefield.

234-262: Philip knows not how to declare, revealing the conflict between sight and sound to be unclear in his mind.  The vow of friendship and marriage, the curse of the Pope, both are of the latter materiel after all.  Perhaps all is sound, and sight is merely what we make of it.  If so, then the loudest voice shall prevail.

263: Is this, then, the thesis?  All form is formless, order orderless.

273-308: Pandulph's word salad may seem purposefully dizzying, as befits a man of the cloth, but is at least consistent with his allegiance to Commodity.

335: My reading is suddenly trembling under its own weight.  Philip here seems to declare for sound, the pleadings of chatterboxes, and the first-sworn oath, rather than the very literal hand that he holds, John's temporal threat, and furthermore of practical gain.  If this play ends badly for John, then my reading is correct.  If not, the obverse.

III.ii: It doesn't look good for Philip, and by extension for my reading.

 

III.iii.27, 35: How telling.  Twice John forbears to speak.  What does this forbear?

50-53: Aha!  sight and sound are not enemies after all, at least in John's estimation.  They are both of them lying offshoots of Sense.

70: And John is revealed in a word.  Sense is treacherous to him because he makes it so.

 

III.iv.21: Constance is surely determined to be right.  Her recent advice proving fatal, she falls back upon her former words.

39-40: Constance's complaint is that her voice was not strong enough to shape reality.

94: Philip is on to something here.  Constance may simply like to grieve.

115-126: It remains to be seen is Pandulph is the voice of fate here, or an empty cleric.

128-143: Thus far, at least, he speaks practical truth.

161-162: The imagery here calls me back to my earlier reading.  The judgement of heaven is phrased in terms of sound, whatever that may end up meaning.

186-187: Again, sound is thought to shape reality. We shall definitely see. 

 

Troilus and Cressida: Act V

V.1.37 When Shakespeare says purse, he always means something else . . .

V.i.74 I really liked this soliloquy, and wish it had taken place earlier. It gives the reader a place to file everybody.

V.i.94 Ulysses just keeps getting better as a character. Here he not only shows discernment, but virtue as well.

V.i.98 Thersites occupies an interesting place here as proxy for the audience. He executes our own voyeuristic desires.

V.ii.19 And here we are peeping at a peeper peeping at two peepers.

V.ii.109 If it is really Diomedes' appearance that has swayed Cressida, then the description of her as half of a pair of spectacles in Act IV becomes significant. Could she really be so shallow? If so, she is unique among Shakespeare's smarter heroines . . .

V.ii.133 and Thersites' meaning seems to be "Can he fool himself out of what he has seen?" Agaiin tying up the idea of mirrors and spectacles. I think I've found the idea that unlocks this play.

V.iii.1 And here's a nice complement to it: in the last scene, an opposition was set up between eyes and ears. Just as there Troilus and Cressida both in their ways wanted to stop their eyes, here Hector is on the other side of the equation.

V.iii.16 The gods are not deafer than Hector, though.

V.iii.38 Is Hector, then, the backward facing lion of act IV?

V.iii.87 Now that I have uncovered it, it is everywhere: ears can be stopped, but eyes cannot. HEctor will not hear his sister, nor his wife, but they cannot help but see the most terrible of visions.

V.iv again is Thersites our proxy

V.v.1-4exeunt pursued by a bear, so to speak. Does the action really take place offstage, between scenes? blech.

V.v.39 Or is Diomedes up to some sort of trick? Troilus does not seem "chastised" in these lines . . .

V.viii.1-4 what a lovely moment. How different Hector is from his foil!

And what a weird ending. I thought Troilus was supposed to drown at the end or something like that. Yeesh.

Troilus and Cressida Act IV

IV.i.20 An interesting image, and possibly of thematic significance. A Lion with a backward facing glare is either a complement or a foil to the mirrors discussed so much in the last act.

IV.ii 1-18 It is impossible to note the parallels between this section and Romeo and Juliet.

IV.ii.104 I'm not sure I'm buying this overdramatic side of Cressida. She has presented herself as more rational up to this point. In fact, the connection between the two eponymous lovers feels flat and far less interesting than the other dramas going on around them.

IV.iv.8-10 Her protestations ring a little hollow again here. How is it that Shakespeare has managed to make every individual character razor-clear, but the relationship itself is awkward and flat?

IV.iv.14 A pair of spectacles? In what way? Interesting.

IV.iv.59 Indeed. Does she recognize the folly of trying to be true, or feel that he has insulted by even asking that she should be otherwise?

IV.iv.104 A nice couplet, and one that gives his character a bit more depth. It even lends a little depth to this interchange.

IV.iv.126 Again with the worry that he will somehow lose Cressida's favour. What does Troilus see that we do not?

IV.v.38 This is the Cressida I like: witty and a match for any dirty old man.

IV.v.115 Stolen from Julius Caesar

IV.v.134 I just realized why this feels unfaithful to The Iliad: it's not as if Shakespeare has taken any significant liberties, but there is one significant element that he has omitted: the Olympian Gods. This moment, wherein Hector calls a truce with Ajax in light of their common blood, was originally an intervention by Zeus. How did such a significant alteration escape me until the fourth act? More importantly, how does the change affect the themes of the story?

IV.v.238 Quite so, for while all that Achilles has to offer is visible to the eye, Hector has demonstrated both courtliness and wit.

IV.v by brain must be rusty. There are still parts of this scene that feel untouched by me.

Troilus and Cressida Act III

III.i Another one? This particular play seems to have a superfluity of comic relief/fool characters.

III.i.57 Nell? Really?

III.i.113 Beauty be damned. Helen is the wit that launched a thousand ships!

III.ii.14 I can just picture Pandarus rolling his eyes here.

III.ii.18-19 the "imaginary relish" seems to be exactly Troilus' speciality.

III.ii.39 Fitting that Troilus sees Cressida as something not to be looked at directly, or too clearly.

III.ii.72-77 Eyes become a theme here, appertaining to the above note.

III.ii.190 Yes, prophet he was, but not here: in III.ii.20

III.iii.1-16 God, what a windbag!

III.iii.20 and anal retentive about his pentameter too.

III.iii.47-8 "Pride hath no other glass to show itself but pride"--It's a measure of Shakespeare's epigrammatic mastery that it takes something this awesome for me to even bother quoting it. If I noted every memorable line, I would not be a man, but amanuensis . . .

III.iii.77 exactly as Ulysses said.

III.iii.99 One mention of reflections in a scene is an epigram. Two is a coincidence. three makes a theme.

III.iii This scene felt a little wordy, and I'm not certain that I got everything out of it that was there . . .

Troilus and Cressida Act II

II.i The opening of this scene was a big WTF for me. The whole thing is 9 parts comic relief, 1 part plot and characterization.

II.i.96 kind words for a kindred spirit. If what we hear of Patroclus is true, he pulls from the same bag of tricks.

II.ii.8-25 This is the second time that Hector is the voice of reason, the second good idea he has presented.

II.ii56 "Tis mad idolatry to make the service greater than the god." I put this on my Facebook page under favorite quotes now. Please hold.

II.ii.84-89 So Troilus is not without reason after all.

II.ii I'm just noticing that Troilus ends his important speeches in couplets, as Hector does not. A nice bit of characterization through form, for Troilus is the romantic, to be sure.

II.ii.118 This is the third time that Troilus' piece of the pentameter is a continuation, an interruption of Hector's line. I love this about Shakespeare. Although it is surely not the most obvious skill of his, it is one of the most unique.

II.ii.142-145 Troilus' apple did not fall far from Priam's tree; the latter shows both the poetic traits of the former in these 4 mere lines.

II.ii It's fitting that Hector is the only one to listen to Casandra, for his warnings go just as unheeded.

II.iii.28 A great and enduring curse: "thyself upon thyself!"

II.iii.81 this is the second time Thersites has mentioned bleeding someone dry. In Galenic terms, this is a great treatment for choler, from which several of the men suffer.

II.iii.185 Achilles, for instance.

II.iii an act of import, perhaps, but not one of great imprint.

Liveblogging Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida

Dramatis Personae: I can't help but wonder if Shakespeare hasn't taken a liberty, setting the story in Hector and Paris' time. Researching . . . nope. Funny, it seems from Chaucer that it was set earlier. Researching . . .again, I am mistaken. Somehow this is comforting, for now I have a nice little context for the play.

Prologue: an interesting and appropriate choice to give the play a Greek chorus, ala Henry V.

P.10 Appropriate that this line about Paris, a pederast in some versions, ends in a female rhyme. this trick is common in pentametric verse, and Shakespeare does it elsewhere, notably in the notorious Sonnet 20. It is reasonable to assume that the trick is here purposeful, but the question arises in my mind, as it usually does when reading Shakespeare, "Do we give him to much credit?" Close reading of Shakespeare invariably reveals such tidbits, but on occassion they are so tenuous that one wonders if the reader/critic is not being a bit revisionist. Did Shakespeare really pay such attention to every syllable that we can attribute meaning to something this incidental? Does his intent even matter?

P.11 A perfect example. Does the truncation of this line, the tentativeness of it, have anything to do with the topic: Tenedos, or is it just the playwright's convenience? Does it matter?

P 15-19 If we attribute meaning to lines 10 and 11, we must not rest until these similarly irregular metrics are dissected. Yet, there is no apparent reason for it, other than that Shakespeare allowed himself some error.

P:22 A nice production option would be to steal Chaucer's conceit and have Troilus play the part of the prologue, seemingly narrating from heaven with a wise and understanding detachment.

P:29,30 a cute couplet. Stagecraft is war. Sometimes you are the victor and the play is a smash--you kill, in stage lingo. Sometimes not, and you die out there. Especially appropriate here, in light of T&C's status as one of Shakepeare's problem plays.

I.i.6-28 Already an example of Shakespeare's subtle and seemingly effortless characterization. Pandarus is characterized as earthy and practical, first by his concern with Troilus' armor, and later by his choice of metaphor. Not only that, the contrast between him and Troilus is established by the 6th line of the play; he speaks in prose, Troilus in verse.

I.i.33 Troilus is revealed to be other than a courtly lover here, for he is concerned with Cressidas orgasm.

I.i.42 a bit o foreshadowing here, in a pithy and aphoristic couplet.

I.i49 This early and off-handed mention of Cassandra feels like a master's smooth touch of exposition.

I.i.57-61 I just about threw up in my mouth here. Troilus is clearly being set up as a foolish and idealistic lover.

I.i.66 Shakespeare's experience as an actor is evident here. I can't imagine the actor's not taking a beat, so clear is the arc of the scene.

I.i.107 Is the "flood" in Shakepeare's version literal, as in most others, or figurastive. I only wonder because I know that Troilus does not drown in this version.

I.i.116-117 Again, the couplet holds a world of meaning. In some versions, Paris is Troilus mentor/lover. Troilus seeming contempt here, together with the line "gor'd with Menelaus horn" connotes, "Good. Let him get fucked for a change."

I.i.118 succesful characterization of Aeneas in one line. It could not be clearer that he is consumed with the game of war if Shakespeare had stretched this out for a page.

I can't believe that I spent that much time reading one scene. this is going to take forever, and cheap at that price.

I.ii.4 this line both sets up Hector as a foil to Troilus and touches on what may become a theme: patience. Every Shakespearean play has a word that unlocks its world, and this may be T&C's.

I.ii.7 While war is sport for Aeneas, it is "husbandry", marriage for Hector.

I.ii.17 I lost track for a moment and thought Cressida was playing the fool . . . she (as does Alexander) shifts to prose here.

I.ii.18 There is something in this characterization of Ajax; I can smell it.

I.ii the entire rest of the scene seems to be in prose. Does Cressida do so for her Uncle, who spoke thusly in the previous scene?

I.ii.244 The waiting for Troilus makes the audience (and Cressida) develop the same patience that he and Hector have want of.

I.ii.308 As if overpowering her Uncle's wit were not evidence enough of her canniness, here we have a couple more tokens. For one, she reverts back to verse for her monologue (Alexander never seems to have exited), and entirely of couplets at that, the first character in the play to do so. This shows not only her facility with language, but her clever tailoring of it to her audience. Of course, the content of her words is the real evidence of her mastery: it is she alone who has patience of all the characters revealed so far, and the wisdom to leverage it to maximum effect.

I.iii.1-8 I had to read this part four times. I wonder if Agamemnon's obscurity is part of his character.

I.iii.31-54 Nestor tries to match Agamemnon's tone, but his only trick seems to be substituting fancy words for simpler ones, especially nautical terms. On the surface, the speeches are analogous, but even his pentameter is inferior. He substitutes "Boreas" for "wind", "the strong-ribbed bark" for "boat", and "liquid mountains" for "waves", and that is the extent of his rhetoric. Not only is Agamemnon the source of the idea, but it is an idea, not a mere description. His smelted gold and winnowed chaff are poignant metaphors; Nestor just talks pretty.

I.iii.70-74 Again, Agamemnon is completely opaque.

I.iii.150-161 Patroclus' mockery may seem to have some truth in it. . .

I.iii.293-300 Again Nester parrots Agamemnon, but this time more touchingly. His affection for his late wife is apparent somehow, though not explicitly spoken.

I.iii.303 Ulysses, short of words, says it all. Somehow, Shakespeare makes it clear that this one word could mean but one thing: an idea.

I.iii.312 sure 'nuff.

I.iii.343 he hee. small pricks.