Leben Und Tod Des Königs Johann
1623
Leben Und Tod Des Königs Johann
1623
Translated by Christoph Martin Wieland
The play that gave the villain his name. King John occupies a strange corner of Shakespeare's canon: a history play about a monarch so morally compromised that he becomes almost a villain, yet the drama refuses to let us look away from the human cost of power. When John's legitimacy crumbles and France backs his young nephew Arthur's claim to the throne, the king descends into a vortex of political maneuvering, family betrayal, and ultimately, catastrophic violence. John emerges as a desperate, cunning ruler, sometimes sympathetic, often ruthless, perpetually aware that his crown rests on fragile claims. The tragic Arthur subplot threads through the political machinations: a boy whose very existence threatens John's rule, whose fate becomes a wound that will not close. Shakespeare gives us a king who is neither hero nor simple villain, but a man trapped by the machinery of power he helped create. It is perhaps the darkest of the history plays, and the most unsettling.
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“Be great in act, as you have been in thought.””
— William Shakespeare
“He is the half part of a blessed man,Left to be finished by such as she;And she a fair divided excellence,Whose fullness of perfection lies in him. ””
— William Shakespeare
“Grief fills the room up of my absent child,Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,Puts on his pretty look, repeats his words,Remembers me of his gracious parts,Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form””
— William Shakespeare
“Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man; And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste, That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.””
— William Shakespeare
“O, let us pay the time but needful woe,Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.This England never did, nor never shall,Lie at the proud foot of a conquerorBut when it first did help to wound itself.Now these her princes are come home again,Come the three corners of the world in arms,And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rueIf England to itself do rest but true.””
— William Shakespeare
“And oftentimes excusing of a faultDoth make the fault the worse by the excuse,As patches set upon a little breachDiscredit more in hiding of the faultThan did the fault before it was so patch'd.””
— William Shakespeare
“Who dares not stir by day must walk by night.””
— William Shakespeare
“من نكد الدنيا على الملوكأن يكون في حاشيتهم عبيد،يحسبون نزوات الملوك تكليفا لهم بأن يقدموا على سفك الدماء،يتوهمون أقل إشارة من السلطان أمرا واجب التنفيذ،ويسيئون تأويل غضب الملوك،وربما كان صادرا عن نزوة عابرة،لا عن تفكير وتدبير.””
— William Shakespeare
“There's nothing in this world can make me joy. Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man; And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste, That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.””
— William Shakespeare
