Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. From the introduction, you've no doubt gathered that the "it" in the title refers to the character's mind rather than their, shall we say, innocence (which could easily be the subject of another quiz). However, this tragic young lady seems to have lost both by the middle of the play she's in. Driven over the brink by the murder of her father by the man she loves (as well as by the latter's seemingly inexplicable behavior towards her), she goes spectacularly mad in Act IV and begins singing an extremely bawdy song (in front of the king and queen, no less!) with lines like "By Gis and by Saint Charity/ Alack and fie for shame!/ Young men will do't if they come to't,/ By Cock!, they are to blame."
2. The title character of this most famous of Shakespeare's tragedies spends most of the play feigning madness. However, near the end of Act IV, one wonders if he's gone mad for real. Bidding farewell to his stepfather before being sent away to England, he addresses the latter as "dear mother". When corrected, he insists "My mother! Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother."
3. The title character in this early tragedy is a Roman general engaged in a blood feud with the queen of the Goths. After her sons rape and mutilate his daughter, he entraps them and cuts their throats. Ordering his daughter to collect their blood in a basin, he says "Receive the blood; and when that they are dead, let me go grind their bones to powder small and with this hateful liquor temper it; And in that paste let their vile heads be bak'd." He then proceeds to actually do this!
4. This Shakespearean father seems a rather easy going fellow at first; he is disinclined to make a fuss early in the play when his enemy's son crashes his daughter's party, and he puts his hotheaded nephew in his place when he begins to create a scene. When, however, his daughter flatly refuses to marry the man he and his wife have chosen for her, he goes inexplicably berserk, exclaiming "Hang thee, young baggage! Disobedient wretch! I tell thee what- get thee to church a Thursday, or never after look me in the face."
5. No Shakespearean father has as much woe from his offspring as this one, who has three daughters and finds himself, at one point or another, bitterly disappointed with each of them in turn. When his youngest (and favorite) daughter refuses to provide him with the flattery he considers his due, he angrily disowns her, exclaiming "The barbarous Scythian, or he that makes of his generation messes to gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom be as well neighbor'd, pitied, and relieved, as thou, my sometime daughter." He is in for much worse grief, however, from his oldest daughter, who demands that he dismiss half of his retinue or leave her castle. Furious, he at first calls on Nature to curse her with sterility; on second thought, he decides "Create her child of spleen, that it may live and be a thwart disnatured torment to her...Turn all her mother's pains and benefits to laughter and contempt, that she may feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." When he discovers that both elder daughters are in league against him, he raves incoherently "No, you unnatural hags! I will have such revenges on you both that all the world shall- I will do such things- what they are yet, I know not; but they shall be the terrors of the earth!"
6. The title character of this rarely performed (and quite bitter) tragedy, set in ancient Greece, is driven over the edge by the hypocrisy and ingratitude of his friends. Generous to a fault, he lavishes gifts and entertainment on his friends and believes himself greatly loved by them. When, however, his funds dry up (in large part due to his excessive largess), he is bitterly disillusioned when these same friends prove unwilling to repay the generosity he had so often shown them. When he invites them to aother of his legendary banquets, they eagerly accept, only to find their uncovered dishes filled with lukewarm water. Their embittered host exclaims "May you a better feast never behold, you knot of mouth-friends! Smoke and lukewarm water is your perfection. This is _____'s last! Who, stuck and spangled with your flatteries, washes it off and sprinkles it in your face." Upon which he fits deed to word and throws the water in their faces.
7. Proving the adage that "Hell hath no fury", this Shakespearean queen's rage knows no bounds when she is informed that her lover has (for political reasons) married another. Killing the messenger is not sufficient, she vows "I'll unhair thy head! Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire and stew'd in brine, smarting in ling'ring pickle!"
8. This loving, newlywed husband becomes, in his own words "perplex'd in the extreme" when his (seemingly) closest friend leads him to believe that his new bride has been false to him. Presented with what seems to be hard evidence of her guilt, he rants incoherently "Lie with her? Lie on her? We say lie on her when they belie her- Lie with her! Zounds, that's fulsome- Handkerchief- confessions- handkerchief! To confess and be hang'd for his labour- first to be hang'd, then to confess! I tremble at it. Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without some instruction. It is not words that shakes me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips? Is't possible? Confess?- handkerchief?- O devil!"
9. Possibly the most pathologically jealous husband in Shakespeare is the leading male character of this "romance" play, which narrowly avoids becoming a complete tragedy. Convinced of his wife's infidelity without a shred of evidence (not even a handkerchief), he plots the death of her supposed lover (his best friend) and puts her on trial for her life. He presents the case against her in this singularly unconvincing (and, frankly, ludicrous) speech- "Look on her, mark her well. Be but about to say "She is a goodly lady" and the justice of your hearts will thereto add "'Tis pity she's not honest- honourable!" Praise her but for this her without-door form (Which on my faith deserves high speech) and straight the shrug, the "hum!" or "ha!" these petty brands that calumny doth use- O I am out! That mercy does; for calumny will sear virtue itself! These shrugs, these hum's and ha's, when you have said she's goodly come between, e're you can say she's honest. But be't known (From him that has most cause to grieve it should be) She's an adultress."
10. Seemingly made of steel, this Shakespearean queen ruthlessly urges on her ambitious husband's murderous intentions; however, a glimpse of their chief victim awakens a guilt which, ruthlessly suppressed in public, gives her no rest even in slumber. She is seen by her maid and a physician wandering the halls in her sleep, babbling "One, two. Why, then tis' time to do't. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our pow'r to accomp't? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?"
Source: Author
jouen58
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor
MotherGoose before going online.
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