At the End of the Play Quiz | Name the Play

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. This classic image (rendered in a Eugene Delacroix painting here) comes to us from Act Five, Scene One of a great tragedy, and the skull is being handed from a gravedigger to a prince. Which play has this iconic moment?

Answer: Hamlet

The Gravedigger hands Hamlet a skull that he dug out of the ground, and reveals that it is Yorick's skull. As it turns out, Hamlet remembers Yorick from his childhood and seeing his old jester as merely a skull forces him into a meditation on death. "Alas poor Yorick" indeed.

2. This Act Five image (a J. Northcode painting) shows a Friar looking on a young woman in a crypt, surrounded by three dead young men, two recently deceased. Which play gives us this scenario?

Answer: Romeo and Juliet

"Romeo and Juliet" indeed ends on this note. Above Juliet, the armored corpse of Tybalt has been there since Act Three, but Paris and Romeo are dead from the tragic events of this night. Friar Laurence intended to help Juliet and Romeo escape together, but Juliet tells him to leave without her so she can commit suicide and join Romeo in death.

3. Here, in a Gaspare Landi painting, we see a mother, a wife, and a son to a great Roman general begging him to spare his home city rather than take vengeance on it in Act Five of their play. Which tragedy is this?

Answer: Coriolanus

"Coriolanus" is the story of a great Roman general who proves that military skill won't always translate off the battlefield. His anti-populist rhetoric proves fatal to his political career, and he ends up banished and in league with Rome's enemies. This causes his family to beg him to pardon his ungrateful city.

4. This Christian K�hler painting depicts an intimate scene between a husband and wife, from Act Five of a great tragedy. Which one?

Answer: Othello

This depicts the moments leading up to the murder of Desdemona in Act Five, Scene Two of "Othello". Othello, driven to mad jealousy by his corrupt lieutenant Iago, has finally decided to kill his reportedly unfaithful wife.

5. This James Barry painting shows a father mourning and raging over the body of his daughter, recently killed after a battle with her sisters. Which tragedy contains this heartbreaking Act Five moment?

Answer: King Lear

"King Lear" is a long, painful sequence of familial trauma. It culminates in Lear losing all of his daughters, last and most importantly Cordelia, the one daughter who was true to him throughout his ordeal.

6. This Richard Westall painting of an Act Five mental health crisis shows a woman who appears to be awake, but really isn't. Which play features this moment, where a woman is watched by a doctor and gentlewoman during a sleepwalking episode?

Answer: Macbeth

"Macbeth" famously culminates not only in the war against Macbeth, but the decline of his wife's mental health. She ends up sleepwalking and half-revealing their secrets as she raves about blood on her hands and the deaths she and her husband are responsible for.

7. This history play image from 1841 shows a king being introduced to his future wife, a princess, by the queen. Which play contains this moment in Act Five?

Answer: Henry V

"Henry V" ends after Henry V enjoys a solid victory over the French and then goes to the French court to negotiate the peace. Part of this peace is that he will marry the French princess Catherine, and the scene after their introduction plays out as he tries to woo her with his soldiering prowess.

8. This history play Act Five moment, immortalized in an 1865 painting by an unknown painter, shows the death of a king at a cathedral while his son prepares to take over. This king's death may have been the result of poisoning, according to the play. Which play is it?

Answer: King John

"King John" chronicles the succession-based drama after the death of Richard I. John is the oldest surviving son of Richard's father Henry II, but the second son had a son, Arthur, who may have the stronger claim. After much pan-European intrigue which involves the Church as a great enemy to John, the clergy appears to be guilty of finally killing King John, who passes off the crown to his son (Henry III).

9. This William Hogarth painting shows a titular king in Act V of his own play, tortured by ghosts as he tries to sleep. Which king?

Answer: Richard III

"Richard III" ends with the Battle of Bosworth Field between King Richard III and the Earl of Richmond (who will become Henry VII). The night before the battle, the ghosts of Richard's victims visit both Richard and his foe, blessing Richmond and cursing their murderer. Richard wakes, terrified of his guilt.

10. This George Cruikshank painting of "Herne's Oak" concerns the end of a comedy, where a large group of townspeople gather to play a joke on the town's most notoriously lecherous citizen, a character who featured in two history plays as well. Which comedy is this?

Answer: Merry Wives of Windsor

"Merry Wives of Windsor" is a play centered around the misadventures of Jack Falstaff as he pursues two married women without any success. Eventually their pranks on him culminate with a forest-set joke where the town pretends to be fairies bent on punishing Jack for his sins.

Source: Author merylfederman

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor looney_tunes before going online.
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At the End of the Play Trivia Quiz

These images portray moments from Act Five of Shakespeare plays - tell me which one!

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