Day 140: What I Learned: King John

King John from KoboBooks

Well first of all I learned that a lot more famous quotations came from The Life and Death of King John than I originally thought. I thought it was one of Shakespeare's least popular plays (and these days it is) but it was apparently hugely popular in Victorian times, so a lot of expressions that we think of as Victorian phrases actually come from King John. For example:


That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling Commodity,
Commodity, the bias of the world. (2.1.573) 

Talks as familiarly of roaring lions
As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs! (2.1.470)

Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton, Time. (3.1.324) 

Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back,
When gold and silver becks me to come on. (3.3.12) 

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form:
Then have I reason to be fond of grief. (3.4.92) 

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man. (3.4.108) 

Heat me these irons hot. (4.1.1) 

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. (4.2.7) 

Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones! (4.3.10) 

Here walk I in the black brow of night
To find you out. (5.6.17) 

Now my soul hath elbow-room. (5.7.28) 

I can see why this play was popular in Victorian England, since it deals almost entirely with the issue of succession to the throne and the adversarial relationship between France and England, things to which Britons could relate. It's for all of these reasons I suspect the play was never as popular in North America, which is kind of a shame because it also contains lines like this:

O prudent discipline! From north to south
Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth. 
(Act II scene i)

What a shame that university students in North America have missed out on years of giggling over THAT phrasing!

Next up: Richard II. Is that the winter of discontent one?