ABSTRACT
Hypocrisy, which is an attribute of the flatterers as such, is then infected into the King, who is convinced by them to use nice words in the face of his uncles, while he prepares his trap to divest Thomas of Woodstock of his role as Lord Protector: "Give them fair words, and smooth awhile: / The toils are pitched, and you may catch them quickly". Often included in the Shakespeare apocrypha, Thomas of Woodstock, also known as King Richard II part 1, discusses flattering as a form of dissimulation and self-representation in a specific political context. There are several levels of hypocrisy displayed in the play, which take the form of flattery, duplicity, simulation and dissimulation of self, and lying. Like a mimetic animal merging with its background, the flatterers are a paradigm of liquid, unstable identity, which changes according to the environment.
