When Bastard in William Shakespeare’s “The Life and Death of King John” tells the monarch, “Let not the world see fear and sad distrust govern the motion of a kingly eye. Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire,” he’s rousing him to take the fight to his enemies. “Threaten the threatener and outface the brow of bragging horror,” the next verse goes. He should have sought a better counsel. The strategy backfires — King John is poisoned and joins Hamlet, Romeo and other tragic Shakespearean heroes.