Rumor and Inconstancy in Philaster and A King and No King

In Philaster, both Pharamond and Arethusa are accused of having affairs—these rumors elicit strikingly different responses from the king, Dion, and others. Upon hearing report (from his own daughter) that Pharamond plans to sleep with Megra, the king warns Arethusa, “Look your intelligence be true,” continues to qualify the knowledge with the phrase “if it be true,” and sets out to find proof of the accusation. Dion and Cleremont follow suit. The king is even so cautious as to inspect Megra’s lodging first, as “if she be there, [they should] not need to make a vain discovery of [their] suspicion” (II.iv). The news of Arethusa’s supposed affair, on the other hand, is met with Cleremont’s affirmation that “doubtless, ‘tis true,” and Dion’s willingness to swear he saw it in order to make Philaster believe him (III.i). The king immediately confronts Arethusa and, since she does admit to having a waiting-boy, he accepts the claim that the boy has done to Arethusa “that good service / Shames me to speak of” (III.ii). Why do these men more willingly accept accusations against Arethusa, the princess, than those against the prince of a foreign land? Is this a gendered reaction? How is this reaction situated in a play that seems to invert typical gender representations by featuring inconstant men (Pharamond, Philaster) and loyal women (Arethusa)?


In A King and No King, characters refer to inconstancy and yielding to one’s passions by using metaphors of weather—one is likened to natural phenomena such as the wind or a raging sea (Spaconia notably reproaches Tigranes for his “faith as firm as raging overflows, / That no bank can command…The wind is fixed to thee” (IV.ii). It is interesting that Arbaces constantly likens his kingly power and control to the same elements (he claims his “word / Sweeps like a wind” in III.i and speaks of his servant “whom [his] breath / Might blow about the world” in III.iii). Is the use of wind and weather to symbolize both control (the king’s power) and the lack of resistance to a controlling force (which one should, in fact, resist) in sexual disloyalty to be seen as a challenge to the authority of the king/monarch’s word?