<p>Focusing on sixteenth-century fencing discourse in English, this article argues that artifice was an essential element of early modern technique, and that ideas about the technical arts were connected to those about representation. Alongside the so-called true art of direct combat there was the ‘false’ play, composed of feints and other artifices. Fencing was furthermore becoming absorbed into courtesy culture during this period, involved in the paradigm of necessary dissimulation. The elision of skill and deceit in feinting reflects the expansive ways in which Renaissance culture was interested in practical wisdom, which is why fencing is frequently linked to the notion of cunning. Stage representations instructively showcase the complexity and multiple facets of fencing technique: the contests of <i>Hamlet</i> and <i>Twelfth Night</i> in particular prompt us to interpret the enmeshment of truth and falsity in dramatic action.</p>