145 Fun Facts About Shakespeare

Shakespeare's home town, Stratford, stands on which river?

The Avon gives Stratford-upon-Avon its name, and he never cut his ties to it: his family lived on in the town while he worked in London, he bought one of its largest houses, and he died there in 1616.

What was the name of Shakespeare's only son, who died aged 11 in 1596?

Hamnet was probably named after a Stratford neighbour, the baker Hamnet Sadler; a few years after burying him, his father wrote a tragedy whose title is one letter away. Edmund, Gilbert and Richard were the boy's uncles.

What did Shakespeare pointedly leave his wife in his will?

His second-best bed 'with the furniture' is nearly all the will says of his wife, in a line squeezed in between others; scholars still argue whether it was a snub or a fond nod to their marriage bed.

Which two monarch-named eras of England’s history did Shakespeare write across?

Elizabethan and Jacobean: he began writing under Elizabeth I by 1592 and continued into the reign of James I, who made his company the King's Men in 1603.

A Shakespearean sonnet is built from three quatrains and which closing unit?

A couplet ends the form: three quatrains rhymed abab cdcd efef build an argument, and the last two lines, rhymed gg, turn it or clinch it, often with a sting.

Which candlelit indoor London playhouse became the winter home of Shakespeare's company?

Blackfriars, a roofed hall lit by candles, held far fewer people than the Globe, but its cheapest seat cost sixpence against a penny to stand at the Globe, so it drew a wealthier crowd.

Which late play is printed first in the First Folio?

The Tempest opens the 1623 volume although it was among the last plays written; like 17 others it had never been printed before, so without the Folio it would probably be lost.

William Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, held what profession?

Glover: John Shakespeare made and sold gloves, dealt in wool on the side without a licence, and rose to be bailiff of Stratford, its mayor, in 1568 before money troubles set in and he dropped out of public life.

Which rival playwright called Shakespeare an 'upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers' in 1592?

Robert Greene's name is on the 1592 pamphlet Groats-Worth of Wit, printed just after his death; its jibe twists a line from Henry VI, Part 3 and is the first surviving notice of Shakespeare in London.

Which words open Hamlet's most famous speech?

To be, or not to be opens the prince's Act 3 speech weighing life against death; he believes he is alone, but the king and a courtier have hidden nearby to spy on him.

Which London playhouse did Shakespeare's company build for itself in 1599?

Members of Shakespeare's company built it themselves on the south bank of the Thames, and tradition gives it the motto Totus mundus agit histrionem, 'all the world plays the actor'.

Shakespeare's later sonnets address a mistress known by which nickname?

The Dark Lady is the name critics give the woman of the sonnets from 127 on; one of them refuses to flatter her, saying her eyes are 'nothing like the sun', then swears she is as rare as any.

Which character in one of Shakespeare's tragedies drowns after going mad?

Ophelia loses her mind after her father is killed, then drowns when a willow branch snaps as she hangs flower garlands over a brook; it happens offstage, and the queen brings the news.

Which Shakespeare play features a notoriously villainous king with a physical deformity?

Richard III makes its king a hunchbacked villain; the skeleton found under a Leicester car park in 2012 did have a badly curved spine, but no sign of the withered arm of legend.

Which playwright succeeded Shakespeare at the King's Men and likely co-wrote his last three plays?

John Fletcher, already half of the writing duo Beaumont and Fletcher, shared The Two Noble Kinsmen and the lost Cardenio with Shakespeare, then took over as the King's Men's chief playwright.

Which of these is often classed as one of Shakespeare's 'problem plays'?

Measure for Measure is filed with the comedies, yet its plot has a judge offer to spare a condemned man if his sister, a novice nun, will sleep with him, and it ends in forced marriages.

Who was William Shakespeare's wife?

Anne Hathaway was 26 and pregnant when she married the 18-year-old Shakespeare in 1582; two farmer friends of her family pledged £40 so the wedding could go ahead in a hurry.

Which play's love quadrangle of Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena is muddled by fairies?

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Puck, told to charm an Athenian, anoints the wrong one, so Lysander and then Demetrius both drop Hermia to chase Helena until the mistake is undone.

A misfiring stage cannon set Shakespeare's playhouse ablaze in 1613 during a performance of which play?

Henry VIII, then billed as All Is True: a cannon fired for the king's entrance ignited the Globe's thatch on 29 June 1613, and the theatre was rebuilt in 1614 with a tiled roof.

Where do Rosalind, Celia and Orlando take refuge after leaving Duke Frederick's court?

The Forest of Arden, where the banished Duke Senior holds a rustic court; there Rosalind, disguised as the youth Ganymede, tests Orlando's love in As You Like It.

Which play features a shipwreck, separated twins and mistaken identities in Illyria?

Twelfth Night: the wreck parts the twins Viola and Sebastian, and Viola's disguise as the page Cesario leaves Olivia in love with her while she pines for Orsino.

Which device is at work when the audience knows Juliet is only drugged while Romeo believes her dead?

Dramatic irony: the friar's letter explaining the ruse never reaches Romeo because its carrier is shut in a plague house, so the audience watches him die beside a Juliet they know is alive.

Who is the main antagonist in Shakespeare's 'Othello'?

Iago, the ensign Othello trusts as 'honest', wrecks him with a lie about his wife, and when exposed he refuses to explain: 'From this time forth I never will speak word.'

Which play features the line, "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players"?

As You Like It: the melancholy Jaques delivers the speech, tracing seven ages of man from the 'mewling and puking' infant to an old age 'sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything'.

What was the name of the acting company Shakespeare was a part of, later known as the King's Men?

The Lord Chamberlain's Men were run by eight 'sharers' who split the profits; Shakespeare was one of them, and that stake in the company made him a wealthy man.

Which Shakespeare play, set partly at Portia's Belmont, turns on a 'pound of flesh' bond?

The Merchant of Venice: Antonio pledges a pound of his own flesh to borrow 3,000 ducats for a friend, and Portia, disguised as a lawyer, saves him by ruling the bond allows flesh but no blood.

What do the three witches prophesy for the general Banquo?

His descendants will be kings, though Banquo will not be one himself; the promise drives the new king to have him murdered, and it flattered James I, who traced his line to Banquo.

In drama, what is the term for a speech in which a character alone on stage speaks their thoughts aloud?

Soliloquy comes from the Latin for 'speaking alone'; Juliet's 'wherefore art thou Romeo?' is one, spoken in the belief that nobody hears, while Romeo listens in the dark below.

Which Shakespeare play features the bickering lovers Beatrice and Benedick?

Much Ado About Nothing: Beatrice and Benedick swear off love until their friends trick each into believing the other is secretly smitten, while Don John's slander nearly wrecks Hero and Claudio's wedding.

Why did Shakespeare turn from plays to poems like Venus and Adonis in 1593?

The theatres were closed by plague, so he wrote narrative verse for a noble patron, and it paid off: Venus and Adonis became his most popular work in print during his lifetime.

In Romeo and Juliet, which family does Romeo belong to?

The Montagues are Romeo's family, which is the point of Juliet's 'wherefore art thou Romeo?': she is asking why he has to be a Montague, not where he is.

In The Tempest, which Algerian witch, Caliban's mother, ruled the island before Prospero arrived?

Sycorax, banished from Algiers while pregnant with Caliban, never appears on stage; Prospero recalls that she imprisoned Ariel in a cloven pine and her magic could not release him.

The First Folio sorts Shakespeare's plays into comedies, tragedies and which third group?

Histories: the Folio prints its ten English king plays in order of reign, from King John to Henry VIII, not in the order Shakespeare wrote them.

How many acts does a Shakespeare play traditionally have?

Five acts was the pattern Renaissance playwrights took from Roman drama; Nicholas Rowe, who edited the plays in 1709, tidied their act and scene divisions and marked the entrances and exits.

Which poet's first printed poem was a tribute in Shakespeare's Second Folio?

John Milton's epitaph on Shakespeare appeared unsigned among the Second Folio's tributes in 1632; nobody reading it knew the author's name, and Paradise Lost was still 35 years away.

Which play features the character Falstaff, a boisterous, cowardly, and often drunken knight?

Henry IV, Part 1 first put Falstaff on stage under another name, Sir John Oldcastle, until that real knight's descendants protested; renamed, he returns in Part 2 and The Merry Wives of Windsor.

What is the common meter used in Shakespeare's blank verse?

Iambic pentameter gives each line five da-DUM beats; Shakespeare breaks it for effect, so the witches' chant 'Double, double toil and trouble' flips to a four-beat rhythm that leads on the stress.

In which Shakespeare play does a banished Roman general lead the Volscians against Rome?

Coriolanus: Caius Martius, honoured for taking the Volscian city of Corioli, is banished from Rome for his contempt of the plebeians and joins Aufidius to lead the Volscians against the city.

Shakespeare died on 23 April, which saint's day?

St George, England's patron saint, is honoured on 23 April; the date is now also World Book Day, chosen by UNESCO in part because it is the anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

Which Shakespeare play do superstitious actors call 'The Scottish Play'?

Macbeth is said to bring disaster if named inside a theatre; an actor who slips must leave, spin round three times, spit, and knock to be let back in.

Which Shakespeare play involves two sets of identical twins?

The Comedy of Errors: two brothers both named Antipholus and their servants, both named Dromio, were parted as babies in a storm at sea, and one day in Ephesus has each taken for his twin.

In Hamlet, which Queen of Denmark marries Claudius, her late husband's brother, to her son's disgust?

Gertrude's hasty remarriage appals her son the prince, and she dies in the final scene after drinking from a poisoned cup meant for him.

Which of these plays is considered a 'romance' or 'tragicomedy' rather than a pure tragedy or comedy?

The Winter's Tale spends three acts on a king's murderous jealousy, then jumps sixteen years to a comic, pastoral world and ends in reunion, which is why it fits neither label.

Which Shakespeare play is set during the later years of the Trojan War?

Troilus and Cressida follows the Iliad from Achilles' sulking to Hector's death; it was added to the First Folio so late that it is missing from the volume's catalogue of plays.

Which Shakespearean monarch divides his realm among his daughters by how lavishly they praise him?

King Lear banishes Cordelia, the one daughter who refuses to flatter him, and is then shut out in a storm by the two who did.

Which Shakespearean play is set in ancient Britain and features a Roman invasion?

Cymbeline is named for a real British king, Cunobeline; in the play he refuses Rome its tribute, beats the invading army, and then agrees to pay after all.

Which character delivers the 'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears' speech?

Mark Antony is allowed to speak at Caesar's funeral on condition he not blame the killers, so he keeps calling Brutus 'an honourable man' until the crowd turns on them.

Which bloody revenge play is thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy?

Titus Andronicus ends with Titus serving the empress Tamora a pie baked from her two sons, moments before he kills her and is killed himself.

What was the maiden name of Shakespeare's mother, Mary?

Arden: Mary was the youngest of eight daughters of the farmer Robert Arden, yet when he died in 1556 she inherited land of her own at Wilmcote, shortly before she married John Shakespeare.

What does the parish register record for Shakespeare on 26 April 1564?

His baptism on 26 April 1564 is the earliest record of him; nobody wrote down the birth itself, so the 23 April birthday is a tradition, not a fact.

What was the name of the large Stratford house Shakespeare bought in 1597?

New Place, one of the largest houses in Stratford, was Shakespeare's from 1597 until he died there; nothing of it stands today, since it was rebuilt in 1702 and the new house was torn down in 1759.

What did the Reverend Francis Gastrell, tired of sightseers, destroy in the garden of Shakespeare's old home?

A mulberry tree, said to have been planted by Shakespeare, drew so many sightseers that Gastrell cut it down; in 1759, in a row over local taxes, he razed the house too and left Stratford for good.

The Latin epitaph on Shakespeare's church monument compares him 'in art' to which Roman poet?

Virgil is the monument's choice, though in Shakespeare's lifetime the critic Francis Meres had likened him to Ovid, writing in 1598 that Ovid's 'sweet witty soul' lived on in him.

Shakespeare's direct line ended in 1670 with which childless relative?

A granddaughter, Elizabeth, was the last of his line: his three grandsons had all died young, and she had no children from either of her two marriages.

Shakespeare's most famous stage direction has a character exit pursued by what?

A bear: 'Exit, pursued by a bear' in The Winter's Tale, as Antigonus abandons the infant Perdita on the coast of Bohemia and is chased to his death.

Which rival playwright hailed Shakespeare as 'not of an age, but for all time'?

Ben Jonson wrote the line in his poem at the front of the 1623 First Folio; the same tribute teases his friend and rival for having 'small Latin and less Greek'.

Two fellow actors compiled the 1623 First Folio: Henry Condell and who?

John Heminges, who with Condell was a sharer in the King's Men; Shakespeare's will left each of them 26 shillings and 8 pence to buy a mourning ring.

Which library holds the most copies of Shakespeare's First Folio?

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington holds 82 copies, more than a third of all that survive; Henry and Emily Folger began buying rare Shakespeare books in 1889 and spent decades building the hoard.

Which sonnet opens with the line 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day'?

Sonnet 18 praises a young man, not a woman, and its twist is that the poem itself, 'so long as men can breathe or eyes can see', is what keeps his beauty alive.

Who engraved the famous frontispiece portrait of Shakespeare for the First Folio?

Martin Droeshout was only 15 when Shakespeare died and may never have seen him; the verse printed opposite admits the picture cannot show his wit and tells readers to look at the book instead.

Which 1957 musical recasts the feud of Romeo and Juliet as a turf war between the Jets and the Sharks?

West Side Story began as 'East Side Story', a feud between Catholic and Jewish families; its creators switched to rival street gangs before the show reached Broadway.

Shakespeare's company built its 1599 playhouse from the timbers of which Shoreditch venue?

The Theatre, Shoreditch's 1576 playhouse: carpenter Peter Street and the players dismantled it over Christmas 1598 while landlord Giles Allen was away, and reused the timbers for the Globe.

Which body shut London's playhouses in 1642?

Parliament ruled that stage plays did not suit 'times of humiliation' and must cease; the ban outlasted the war, and the playhouses stayed shut until the monarchy returned in 1660.

Which American actor-director founded the modern reconstruction of Shakespeare's Bankside playhouse?

Sam Wanamaker, the American actor-director who founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust in 1970; he died in 1993, four years before the thatched reconstruction opened in 1997 with Henry V.

Which star actor of Shakespeare's company created the title roles in his great tragedies?

Richard Burbage was the first Hamlet and the first Othello; his father had built one of London's first playhouses, so he grew up in the trade and part-owned the theatres he starred in.

Which eavesdropping courtier does Hamlet stab through a curtain?

Polonius hides behind a tapestry to spy on the prince and the queen; the prince, taking him for the king, runs him through, and the killing drives Polonius's daughter mad and his son to revenge.

Whose skull does the Prince of Denmark hold while recalling 'a fellow of infinite jest'?

Yorick was the old king's jester, who carried the prince on his back as a boy; a gravedigger tosses up the skull while digging a grave for a woman the prince does not yet know is dead.

Which forest must 'come to Dunsinane' before the Scottish usurper can be defeated?

Birnam Wood: Malcolm's soldiers cut boughs from the trees at Birnam to hide their numbers as they march on Dunsinane, so the apparition's prophecy comes true in a very literal way.

Which lieutenant of Antony describes Cleopatra as a woman of 'infinite variety'?

Enobarbus, whose 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety' is the play's great portrait of Cleopatra; he later deserts to Octavius and dies of shame when Antony sends his treasure after him.

Which roguish pedlar picks pockets at the sheep-shearing feast in Bohemia?

Autolycus, the ballad-selling rogue of The Winter's Tale, calls himself 'a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles' and says his father named him after the master thief of Greek myth, Odysseus's grandfather.

Shakespeare took the plot of his Scottish tragedy from which 1587 history of Britain?

Holinshed's Chronicles also fed his plays about English kings, but he rewrote freely: in Holinshed, Banquo helps to murder King Duncan, a detail the play drops.

Which Franciscan secretly marries the Verona lovers, hoping to reconcile their families?

Friar Laurence, who also brews Juliet's sleeping potion; Friar John is the same play's messenger whose letter never reaches Romeo, while Friar Francis and Friar Lodowick belong to other plays.

Who kills Mercutio in a street duel, provoking Romeo's fatal revenge?

Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, kills Mercutio under Romeo's arm; Romeo had refused the fight because Tybalt had just become his kinsman by marriage, then slays him in revenge.

The prologue to Romeo and Juliet describes its doomed lovers with which phrase?

Star-cross'd: the Prologue's 'a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life' rests on the belief that the stars govern human fates; 'fortune's fool' is a different Romeo line.

In Othello, which gift from the Moor to Desdemona is planted as 'proof' of her affair?

A handkerchief, the first gift Othello gave her, is picked up by Emilia, whose husband drops it in Cassio's lodgings for Othello to find in another man's hands.

Which Disney film borrows its uncle-usurper plot from Hamlet?

The Lion King: Scar murders his brother Mufasa and takes the throne, and the heir Simba is urged home by his father's spirit; unlike Hamlet, though, he lives to reign.

Othello's plot was borrowed from a 1565 novella by which Italian writer?

Cinthio (Giovanni Battista Giraldi) told the tale in his Hecatommithi of 1565; in it only Disdemona has a name, so the Moor, his ensign and the rest were Shakespeare's to christen.

Edward de Vere, a favourite of anti-Stratfordians as the 'real' author, held which earldom?

Oxford: the schoolmaster J. Thomas Looney put forward Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, in 1920; the theory's snag is that he died in 1604, before the late plays were written.

Whose 1681 rewrite of a Shakespeare tragedy let Cordelia live and marry Edgar?

Nahum Tate's happy ending, which also cut the Fool, replaced the original on stage for about 150 years; the Fool returned only in 1838.

What title did Prospero hold before his brother usurped him and cast him adrift?

Duke of Milan: Prospero, buried in his books, left the governing to his brother Antonio, who seized the dukedom and put him to sea in a rotting boat with his infant daughter.

Portia's suitors must choose between three caskets: gold, silver and which metal?

Lead: the gold casket hides a skull and a scroll warning that not all that glitters is gold, the silver holds a fool's portrait, and the plain lead one has Portia's picture, which Bassanio wins.

Which moneylender delivers the 'Hath not a Jew eyes?' speech?

Shylock's speech pleads for common humanity, 'If you prick us, do we not bleed?', then turns the same logic into a case for revenge.

In Julius Caesar, who warns 'Beware the ides of March'?

A soothsayer calls the warning from the crowd during the feast of Lupercal; Caesar dismisses him as 'a dreamer' and later ignores Calpurnia's nightmares too.

Which play, probably co-written with George Wilkins, was left out of the First Folio?

Pericles, Prince of Tyre was omitted from the First Folio and only joined the collected works in the 1664 issue of the Third Folio; editors credit Shakespeare with roughly Acts 3 to 5.

Shakespeare's Roman plays drew on whose English translation of Plutarch's Lives?

Thomas North's Plutarch gave Shakespeare whole speeches: the famous picture of Cleopatra's barge, with its purple sails and silver oars, is North's prose turned almost word for word into verse.

Puck gives which Athenian weaver the head of a donkey?

Nick Bottom the weaver is 'translated' with an ass's head by Puck, and the enchanted fairy queen Titania promptly falls in love with him, ears and all.

Oberon's magic juice is pressed from which flower, turned purple by Cupid's arrow?

Love-in-idleness, a folk name for the wild pansy: Oberon says Cupid's arrow missed a royal maiden and hit the white flower instead, staining it 'purple with love's wound'.

A forged letter tricks the steward Malvolio into wearing stockings of what colour?

Yellow: the letter forged by Maria tells Malvolio that Olivia loves yellow stockings and cross-gartering, when in fact she abhors the colour and detests the fashion.

Shakespeare's first 17 sonnets urge a beautiful young man to do what?

Have children: the first 17 poems, known as the procreation sonnets, tell the Fair Youth his beauty will die with him unless he fathers an heir; later sonnets promise that the verse itself will keep it alive.

'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers' is said by a follower of which rebel?

Jack Cade leads the 1450 Kentish rising in Henry VI, Part 2; the line is his henchman Dick the Butcher's first idea for the new order, and Cade agrees.

Petruchio woos the headstrong Katherina in which Italian university city?

Padua: Lucentio arrives there to study at its famous university but disguises himself as a Latin tutor to court Bianca, while Petruchio comes from Verona to tame her sister Katherina.

The hunchbacked king cries 'A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!' at which 1485 battle?

Bosworth is where the play's king dies; the night before, the ghosts of those he murdered visit his tent, each telling him to 'despair, and die'.

The French Dauphin sends Henry V what mocking gift, implying he is a frivolous youth?

Tennis balls: Henry answers that he will turn the Dauphin's balls 'to gun-stones', and the invasion of France follows.

Henry V's 'band of brothers' speech before Agincourt is delivered on which saint's feast?

St Crispin's Day, 25 October: Agincourt was fought on that date in 1415, and Henry promises his 'happy few' that the feast will be remembered 'from this day to the ending of the world'.

Cleopatra takes her own life with the bite of which creature?

An asp, smuggled in with a basket of figs by a clown; Cleopatra calls it 'the pretty worm of Nilus', and her maid Charmian dies by an asp moments after her.

Most moons of which planet are named after Shakespeare characters, including Oberon, Puck and Desdemona?

Uranus had its first four moons named in 1852 after spirits from English literature rather than Greek myth. Later discoveries such as Juliet and Portia kept the habit going.

Shakespeare's rebuilt Bankside playhouse has which feature, said to be London's first since the Great Fire?

A thatched roof tops the 1997 replica, protected by fire retardants and rooftop sprinklers. Builders needed special permission, because thatch had been kept out of the city since 1666.

Which composer wrote the famous Wedding March as part of his music for Shakespeare's fairy comedy?

Felix Mendelssohn wrote it in 1842 as incidental music for the play. It became a wedding staple after Queen Victoria's eldest daughter chose it for her own marriage in 1858.

The teen film 10 Things I Hate About You moves which Shakespeare comedy to an American high school?

The Taming of the Shrew survives in the names: Julia Stiles's Kat stands in for Katherina, and Heath Ledger's Patrick Verona nods to the Italian city Petruchio comes from.

When Juliet sighs 'Wherefore art thou Romeo?' over his family name, what does 'wherefore' mean?

Why is the meaning: Juliet is asking why he has to be a Montague, the son of her family's enemies. She has no idea he is standing below, listening.

In Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy, the witches at their cauldron chant 'Double, double toil and' what?

'Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble' is the full couplet. The often-heard 'Bubble, bubble' is a misquote that borrows the rhyme from the second line.

Who won an Oscar for only a few minutes on screen as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love?

Judi Dench took Best Supporting Actress and joked that for eight minutes on screen she should only get a little bit of the statuette. The film also won Best Picture over Saving Private Ryan.

In Shakespeare's lifetime, who played Juliet, Cleopatra and other women on the English public stage?

Boy actors took the female parts as apprentices in the adult companies, because women did not perform on the English public stage. Professional actresses arrived only after the Restoration of 1660.

In Shakespeare's Roman tragedy, which trusted friend's dagger draws the dying dictator's reproach 'Et tu'?

Brutus is the friend addressed in 'Et tu, Brute?', Latin for 'You too?'. Nothing shows the real dictator said it: the historian Suetonius records a rumoured Greek phrase instead.

In Shakespeare's Danish tragedy, the king's ghost says poison was poured into which part of his body?

His ear took the poison as he slept in his orchard: his brother poured 'cursed hebona' into 'the porches of my ears'. The court had been told that a snake stung him.

Which Japanese director reworked two Shakespeare tragedies as the samurai epics Throne of Blood and Ran?

Akira Kurosawa moved the Scottish tragedy to feudal Japan for Throne of Blood. In Ran he turned the old British king's three daughters into the three sons of a warlord.

Which youngest daughter of Shakespeare's aged British king is disinherited for refusing to flatter him?

Cordelia answers 'Nothing, my lord' when asked to outdo her sisters' praise, and loses her share of the kingdom. The King of France marries her anyway, impressed by her honesty.

Which thane, 'from his mother's womb untimely ripped', kills the usurper in Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy?

Macduff was cut from his mother rather than born in the usual way. That is the loophole in the witches' promise that no man 'of woman born' could harm the usurper.

Which novel takes its title from the Scottish usurper's speech calling life 'a tale told by an idiot'?

The Sound and the Fury comes from the next words of the speech: life is 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. William Faulkner's working title had been Twilight.

Which birds did Eugene Schieffelin release in Central Park in 1890, in a tale linking him to Shakespeare?

Starlings were the birds, about 60 of them. The story that he wanted every bird in Shakespeare's works to live in America first appeared in a 1948 essay, with no evidence behind it.

In The Tempest, which daughter of Prospero cries 'O brave new world' on first seeing other people?

Miranda says it in the final act, dazzled by a shipwrecked court of strangers. Aldous Huxley borrowed her line for the title of his novel about an engineered future.

Which actor-director filmed Henry V in 1989 and then Shakespeare's Danish tragedy uncut, at four hours?

Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film was the first unabridged cinema version of the Danish tragedy, running more than four hours. He directed it and played the prince himself.

Which director's 1996 film keeps Shakespeare's verse but moves the Verona lovers to gun-filled 'Verona Beach'?

Baz Luhrmann swapped the swords for guns with model names such as 'Sword', 'Dagger' and 'Rapier', so the original lines still fit. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes played the lovers.

Which Spanish writer died within days of Shakespeare in April 1616, a coincidence marked by World Book Day?

Miguel de Cervantes was long said to have died on 23 April 1616, the date of Shakespeare's death. England still used the older Julian calendar, so the two deaths really fell days apart.

Which playwright, baptised the same year as Shakespeare, was stabbed to death in a Deptford house in 1593?

Marlowe was stabbed above the right eye in a struggle that began as a quarrel over the bill, the coroner's report says. He was only about two months older than Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's The Tempest is thought to echo the wreck of a Jamestown-bound ship on which Atlantic islands?

Bermuda was where the flagship Sea Venture was driven ashore by a storm. The castaways built two new boats on the uninhabited island and sailed on to Virginia the next year.

Which spirit, once trapped in a cloven pine, serves Prospero in The Tempest while longing to be free?

Ariel had been shut inside the tree by a witch for resisting her commands. Prospero rescued him, then kept him in service with the promise of freedom to come.

Which Italian composer, in his seventies, turned Shakespeare into the late operas Otello and Falstaff?

Giuseppe Verdi said after Otello that, having massacred so many heroes and heroines, he had earned the right to laugh a little. Falstaff, his only comedy since an early flop, was his final opera.

Which playwright wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and later co-wrote the film Shakespeare in Love?

Tom Stoppard won an Oscar for the film's screenplay. He also directed the 1990 screen version of his own play, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the two doomed courtiers.

Who wounds Shakespeare's Prince of Denmark with a poison-tipped blade in the duel that ends the tragedy?

Laertes is undone by his own plot: the two men switch weapons in the scuffle, and the prince wounds him with the same blade.

Shakespeare's Prince of Denmark studies in which German university town, home of Martin Luther?

Wittenberg is where Luther is said to have nailed his Ninety-five Theses to a church door in 1517, so the prince is a student in the birthplace of the Reformation.

Before meeting Juliet, Shakespeare's Romeo pines for which unseen cousin of hers, who has sworn off love?

Rosaline never appears on stage, yet she sets the plot moving. Romeo goes to the Capulet gathering only in the hope of glimpsing her, and spots Juliet there instead.

Which queen is bewitched into loving a weaver with a donkey's head in Shakespeare's fairy comedy?

Titania 'waked, and straightway loved an ass', as the play puts it. Her husband Oberon uses the distraction to take the changeling boy the pair had quarrelled over.

Which tragic lovers' story do the Athenian workmen stage, badly, at the wedding in Shakespeare's fairy comedy?

Pyramus and Thisbe are ill-fated lovers from ancient Babylon. The workmen bill their version as 'the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death' of the pair.

Which rebel knight does Prince Hal kill in single combat at Shrewsbury in Shakespeare's history play?

Hotspur meets the prince on stage as a rival of the same age. The real Henry Percy was 22 years older than Hal, who was a youth of 16 when the battle was fought.

Which emotion does the villain of Shakespeare's Moor of Venice tragedy call 'the green-eyed monster'?

Jealousy 'doth mock the meat it feeds on', he warns his general. The speaker is the very man stoking that suspicion with lies about the general's wife.

In Shakespeare's Moor of Venice tragedy, which lieutenant is falsely painted as the lover of the general's wife?

Cassio won the promotion the villain wanted, which helps explain why he is chosen as the fall guy. He is a well-mannered Florentine with no practical knowledge of battle.

Which constable in Shakespeare's Messina comedy is famous for mangling long words he does not understand?

Dogberry slips so often that malapropisms are sometimes called 'dogberryisms'. He is the self-satisfied chief of a comically bumbling night watch.

In Shakespeare's Illyria comedy, shipwrecked Viola serves the duke disguised as a page with which name?

Cesario is the name Viola takes after the wreck. The disguise backfires when Countess Olivia falls in love with the page, while Viola herself has fallen for the duke.

Which French heroine, 'La Pucelle' in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 1, do the English characters call a witch?

Joan of Arc is no saint in this English telling: her visions desert her after a battle, and she is captured and burned at the stake.

Which brother of Shakespeare's hunchbacked king is stabbed, then drowned in a butt of malmsey wine?

Clarence is jailed over a prophecy that 'G' will murder the king's heirs, because his first name is George. The brother who has him killed is Duke of Gloucester.

Henry V's cry 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends' urges his troops into which besieged French port?

Harfleur had beaten the English back at first, so the king is sending his men again into a gap already broken in its walls. The town falls after a hard-won fight.

Which dying nobleman praises England as 'this sceptred isle' in Shakespeare's history play Richard II?

John of Gaunt is not celebrating. His speech ends in anger that the 'other Eden' he describes is 'now leased out' by its spendthrift king 'like to a tenement'.

Which 1956 sci-fi film featuring Robby the Robot is often called a loose retelling of The Tempest?

Forbidden Planet strands a scientist and his daughter on a remote world, as the play strands a magician and his daughter on an island. Visiting spacemen take the place of the shipwrecked court.

Asked what the court play is called, Shakespeare's Prince of Denmark renames The Murder of Gonzago as what?

The Mousetrap is his private joke: the play re-enacts a poisoning, and he is watching to see whether his uncle's guilt is caught by it.

Which lost play, credited to Shakespeare and a younger collaborator, did the King's Men perform in 1613?

Cardenio survives only as a title. No script is known, and the earliest record naming Shakespeare as co-author is a publisher's register entry made in 1653.

Three pages thought to be in Shakespeare's handwriting survive in a play about which Tudor statesman?

Thomas More is the hero of a play revised by several writers, whose handwriting scholars label by letter. The three pages of 'Hand D' are widely attributed to Shakespeare.

Which star actor ran the rain-soaked 1769 Jubilee in Shakespeare's home town, at which no play was performed?

David Garrick saw his festival grounds flooded when the river broke its banks, and heavy rain cancelled the grand pageant. It still helped to establish Shakespeare as the national poet.

To which young earl did Shakespeare dedicate both Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece?

Southampton received a restrained dedication with the first poem and an extravagant one with the second: 'The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end.'

Shakespeare's late play The Two Noble Kinsmen retells 'The Knight's Tale' by which medieval English poet?

Geoffrey Chaucer had himself shortened the story from an Italian epic by Boccaccio. It had already been put on the stage at least twice before Shakespeare's version.

Which Roman poet's Metamorphoses gave Shakespeare the myth behind his narrative poem Venus and Adonis?

Ovid tells the myth in Book X of his poem, and Shakespeare expanded it into an early erotic poem of his own. Dante and Boccaccio had drawn on the same Roman work before him.

Which clown, formerly of Shakespeare's company, morris-danced the 110 miles from London to Norwich in 1600?

Will Kemp spread the nine days of dancing over several weeks, often amid cheering crowds. He then published 'Kemps Nine Daies Wonder' to prove to doubters that he had done it.

Which Roman playwright's Menaechmi gave Shakespeare the plot of his shortest play, a farce of twins?

Plautus supplied the main source for the play, which Shakespeare set in the Greek city of Ephesus. Rodgers and Hart later turned it into the musical The Boys from Syracuse.

Which monarch became patron of Shakespeare's acting company in 1603, making its players royal servants?

James I issued the royal patent in May 1603. Each of the nine players it named, Shakespeare among them, was later given four and a half yards of red cloth for the coronation procession.

What name was given to the playgoers who paid a penny to stand in the yard at Shakespeare's playhouse?

Groundlings stood packed in tightly just below the stage, in the cheapest spot in the house. They were also known as 'stinkards' or 'penny-stinkers'.