R - Rated Moments in Shakespeare Quiz

Answer: Measure for Measure

"Measure for Measure" is rife with corruption, sex, and vice. R-rated - absolutely! Interesting - definitely! It's one of the few plays where a sex act is critical to the plot, but don't worry, there will be more as the quiz continues...

Answer: Portia

Portia is Brutus' wife, and when she hears news that Octavius and Antony are strengthening their armies against the Brutus/Cassius forces, she dismissed her servants and swallowed fire. What's even cooler is that this scene *may* be historically based.

Answer: Claudius, of "Hamlet"

Macbeth is beheaded in the rousing "kill the usurper" finale of his play. Hastings is a victim of Richard III's rise to power and finds his head on the block on a trumped-up charge. Quintus and his brother Martius are executed for a crime they did not commit, but are pretty viciously framed for. Claudius, while he is poisoned and stabbed, is not beheaded according to the text.

Answer: Earl of Gloucester

In "King Lear," a strict rule against helping the old king Lear is instituted. When it is discovered that the Earl of Gloucester had in fact helped the king to shelter during a storm, he is captured by the Duke of Cornwall and subjected to having his eyes ripped out one by one in an incredibly dark scene. Cornwall's servant steps in after the first eye is taken, saying that he cannot simply watch this torture, and wounds the Duke, which eventually causes his death.

Answer: His hand, to be chopped off

Titus is asked to give his hand to the Emperor to pay for the price of his sons' lives. He readily agrees, being a noble man and willing to do anything to protect them, but as it turns out Aaron was only messing with him, and the loss of his hand does not in fact save his doomed children. The hand-chopping occurs in the action of the scene.

Answer: Queen Margaret

Queen Margaret, warrior wife to the timid Henry VI. In "Henry VI Part III," the Duke of York demands that Henry VI disinherit the Prince of Wales, Edward, in favor of the Duke's own claim to the throne. Margaret refuses to see her son disowned, so she leads the fight that results in the Duke's death.

However, the fighting is far from over, and Henry VI and the Prince of Wales are both fated to die before the music stops. Queen Elizabeth is wife to Edward IV, the son of the Duke of York so brutally killed here. Queen Anne is wife to Richard III, Edward IV's brother and usurper in the sequel. Queen Isabel is wife to Richard II, who was king long before any of this.

Answer: All's Well That Ends Well

"All's Well That Ends Well" is certainly well-named, as the plot is rough, morally ambiguous, and often unpleasant - the entire conceit is that a woman forces a man to marry her, and when he rejects her (because he never loved her), she rises to his ridiculous challenge, after which he realizes how intelligent she is. Well, All's Well That Ends Well!

Answer: Poisoning

About the only thing that goes *right* about the banquet scene is that the food is not poisoned. It is made of the bodies of the two rapists, Chiron and Demetrius (cannibalism), and after that is revealed, there is much swordplay and death (multiple stabbings), but not before Titus mercy-kills the mutilated, raped, and mute Lavinia, his own daughter (a father killing his child). What an R-rated feast.

Answer: "Villain, I've done thy mother"

"Country matters" is from a famously raunchy back and forth between Hamlet and Ophelia at the play within the play. "As your daughter may conceive" is spoken to Polonius in a scene where Hamlet is trying to appear mad, and "The secret parts of fortune" is spoken in a lighthearted exchange with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. "Villain" is spoken by Aaron in "Titus Andronicus" to Chiron and Demetrius after it is revealed that Aaron fathered Chiron and Demetrius' mother Tamora's child.

Answer: Iago

In "Othello," the incredibly backwards and emotionally stunted Iago, who is as racist and misogynist as you can get in Shakespeare, warns Desdemona's father Brabantio that - oh goodness! - his daughter just married a black man. Unfortunately, the shocking race-baiting works, and Brabantio goes to follow his daughter with hopes to annul the marriage.