Three Shakespearean Liars

Abstract

Shakespeare’s dramatic characters mislead themselves, and (therefore) each other, in many ways and with great frequency. Hence the relative rarity of conscious lying in the plays is notable. Villains, who do employ lies, use many other techniques for self-identification and self-advancement, and their actual lies often fail to serve their perceived interests. If it is defensible for a good character, such as Paulina, to lie to protect another against a real threat of violence, then even Iago—whose few lies work, for his villainous projects, together with his reductive “honesty”—may claim for his falsehoods a plea of self-defence against the hypocrisies of his superiors. Similarly, Falstaff and Prince Hal, respectively subject of and heir to the endemically dishonest monarch Henry IV, generate, away from the King’s Court, a strong, though vulnerable, relationship with each other by the exchange of acknowledged and mutually-serviceable lies. Cleopatra expects her followers to lie on her behalf as a way of testing, to ultimate destruction, Antony’s commitment to her, and (possibly) lies on her account in defence of both her relationship with Antony and her personal dignity.