Why Did Shakespeare Say That? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Nice meant something different to Shakespeare than it does now

The word "nice" didn't mean the same thing to Shakespeare that it means to us. In Shakespeare's day, nice meant something along the lines of nit-picking, or trivial. In other words, Romeo was trying to convince Tybalt that their quarrel was a trifling thing of no importance. If Shakespeare had called you "a nice person," it would not have been a compliment! Nice is only one of many words that Shakespeare used that have changed in meaning over the centuries.

It is often helpful to read a text that has annotations that explain these differences in meaning.

Answer: Angels were English gold coins

The angel was a large English gold coin, minted from 1465 until 1642. It got its name from the fact that on one side there was an image of the Archangel Michael. Dromio believes that his master is in danger of being imprisoned, and the coins are for his bail. Of course, it was Antipholus of Ephesus that had sent Dromio to fetch the gold, so both master and servant are very confused.

It may be of helpful for you to study the currency of the time in order to understand the plays better; some of the coins mentioned are still familiar, but others, like the groat (fourpence) and the testoon (a forerunner of the shilling), and the mark (13 shillings and fourpence) are not.

Answer: Henry V was born in Wales

Henry V was born at Monmouth Castle in Wales. He was, therefore, a Welshman by birth, if not by ancestry. He actually did have a slight Welsh connection through his great-great grandmother, Maud Chatworth. There are many favorable references to the Welsh in this play; it may be that Shakespeare meant to flatter Queen Elizabeth, whose family, the Tudors, actually were Welsh.

Reading the history plays and understanding them can sometimes be difficult if one does not know the history of the period. Shakespeare assumed that his audience would know certain things, and did not elaborate on the relationships between some of the characters. It is like a modern writer setting a play during the American Civil War; he or she might not bother explaining that Jefferson Davis was the President of the Confederacy, or that Gettysburg was a defeat for the South, because he would expect his audience to already know these things. For the modern reader, however, a lot of the things that Shakespeare assumes are common knowledge no longer are.

Answer: Roman clocks did not strike the hour

In Shakespeare's time, most large cities had town clocks that not only told the time, but had bells that tolled, or struck, the hour. These did not exist in ancient Rome. Shakespeare slipped up here; his plays contain a few other such anachronisms, but not as many one might think considering the volume of his works. And many of things that are commonly considered mistakes on Shakespeare's part are really not.

For example, in "The Winter's Tale," he writes of a shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia, and critics have been quick to point out that Bohemia (the modern Czech Republic) does not have a seacoast.

Some have come to Shakespeare's defense by pointing out that Bohemia did briefly have a seacoast in the 13th century. But a much more reasonable explanation is that the area of Italy now called Apulia was once known as Bohemia; its rugged landscape perfectly suits the description in the play.

A very good book published in 2011 called "The Shakespeare Guide to Italy," also proves that many alleged "errors" in geography, such as Milan being a seaport, were actually true in the 16th century. By and large, Shakespeare got most things right.

Answer: Doomed by their horoscopes

To us, astrology may seem a mere superstition, but in Shakespeare's time it was regarded as a real science and taken seriously. In fact, the words astrology and astronomy were used interchangeably. The implication is that Romeo and Juliet were fated to die tragically because their stars predicted it, and there was nothing they could do to avoid their unhappy end.

Shakespeare's works are filled with astrological references, although in many of them he expresses skepticism. For example, here is a speech from "The Winter's Tale" by Hermione: "There's some ill planet reigns; / I must be patient till the heavens look / With an aspect more favourable." Or Sonnet 14: "Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck; / And yet methinks I have astronomy, / But not to tell of good or evil luck." And Shakespeare is not alone in treating astrology seriously; Marlowe's works are filled with just as many references.

If you need further proof that astrology was not treated as a joke, there are records of people being executed for casting the monarch's horoscope during the reigns of both Henry VIII and Edward VI. I can't find any records of anyone put to death while Elizabeth was on the throne, but several people were imprisoned and examined by the Star Chamber; casting the Queen's horoscope was regarded as a form of treason. Elizabeth also had her own astrologer, a man named John Dee, whom she consulted on numerous occasions.

Answer: MacBeth already knows the thane of Cawdor to be a traitor

In the previous scene, we are told that MacBeth has been involved in fighting both the Scottish rebels and the Norwegian invaders, so it is hardly possible that he does not know that Cawdor was a traitor; it makes no sense for MacBeth to call him a "prosperous gentleman," nor should he be surprised that the thane of Cawdor has had his lands and titles attainted. Also puzzling is the speech of Angus later in this scene where he states that he does not know what part the thane of Cawdor played in the rebellion.

There is a great deal of evidence that "MacBeth" has survived in a form very different from the play that Shakespeare wrote. First of all, it is a very short play, only about half as long as most of Shakespeare's tragedies. This suggests that a great deal of dialogue, and probably whole scenes, are missing. We know for certain that Thomas Middleton, a contemporary of Shakespeare's, was paid to make alterations to the play. There is a spirited debate about how much Middleton added to the play, but the character of Hecate and the songs, or interludes, are lifted directly from his own play, "The Witch." It's possible that Middleton cut out more than he put in.

Speaking of witches, the Weird Sisters, who appear in the opening scene of MacBeth, are probably additions of Middleton as well. We have a description of MacBeth as it was performed at the Globe Theatre on April 20, 1611 (before Middleton made his changes). In his diary, Simon Forman wrote: "There was to be observed, first, how Macbeth and Banquo, two noble men of Scotland, riding through a wood, there stood before them three women fairies or nymphs." No mention of witches. It's possible that in the original version the "nymphs" were supposed the represent the three Fates.

It is not unusual to find bad texts of plays; "MacBeth" did not appear in print until its publication in the First Folio in 1623, so there is nothing to which our existing version of the play may be compared. It is likely that what we have is a "prompt copy" used in the theatre production, perhaps fleshed out a bit by actors' recollections of the parts they played. It is certainly not the play that Shakespeare wrote.

Answer: There had been no Jews in England for over 300 years

During the early medieval period there had been a thriving Jewish community in England. In 1290, however, King Edward I issued the Edict of Expulsion, forcing all Jews to leave England, and English held territories in France as well. They were not allowed to return until 1655. But as "The Merchant of Venice," and Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta," show, there was still strong anti-Semitic sentiment in England.

It is interesting to note that there was little racial prejudice; having Desdemona married to a Moor in "Othello" raised no eyebrows, nor did having the Prince of Morocco show up as one of Portia's suitors. The prejudice against the Jews was primarily a religious one, exacerbated by the fact that Christians were long forbidden to loan money at interest, so most banking matters fell into the hands of the Jews (this restriction on lending money by Christians had been lifted by Shakespeare's day). Further proof that the prejudice was a religious, rather than an ethnic one, is that Jews who converted to Christianity do not seem to have been have suffered any stigma. In "The Merchant of Venice," for example, Shylock's daughter, Jessica, says, "I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a Christian." Many professors of Hebrew at Oxford and Cambridge were Jews had who converted to Christianity.

Answer: Shakespeare calls the poem "the first heir of my invention"

The dedication is written in plain English, and is rather short. It was a common practice for writers to dedicate their works (usually in extremely fawning language) to noblemen or other prominent persons, usually in hope of some kind of reward. No, the mystery is that Shakespeare calls the poem "the first heir of my invention." If we are correct in our chronology, by this time he had already written over a dozen plays; furthermore, it is thought that the first seventeen sonnets, those dedicated to the "Fair Youth," had been written by Shakespeare upon the occasion of Southampton's 17th birthday, a few years earlier.

By the way, there is absolutely no evidence that Southampton and Shakespeare knew each other, or ever met. He was certainly not Shakespeare's "patron." Moreover, Southampton was a poor choice if Shakespeare was looking for a reward; he was still a minor and under the wardship of Lord Burghley, and had virtually no money at his disposal.

So why would Shakespeare dedicate his poem to Southampton? One explanation is that William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who was Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State and head of the Privy Council, had commissioned the poem, and directed Shakespeare to do so. Southampton's father had died when he was very young, and the lad had become a ward of the Crown; as Master of the Wards, Lord Burghley had absolute control over him until he reached the age of 21. Burghley was anxious to have Southampton marry his granddaughter, Lady Elizabeth de Vere, but Southampton showed no interest in her. It is thought by many that the "Fair Youth" sonnets had been commissioned by Burghley in an attempt to convince Southampton to marry, since they all follow this theme. "Venus and Adonis" has a similar message; it is about a young man who refuses the advances of Venus, Goddess of Love, and is killed by a boar.

If this was Burghley's strategy, it failed. Southampton refused to marry Elizabeth de Vere, and was fined the enormous sum of 5000 pounds as a result. He had to borrow the money to pay the fine, and was in financial difficulty for many years as a result.

Answer: It is not written in iambic pentameter

If you read these lines aloud, you will see they are written in iambic tetrameter, i.e., four stressed syllables per line. All of the other sonnets are written in iambic pentameter - five stressed syllables per line. There are many sonnet forms, but the Shakespearean sonnet is a poem of 14 lines, written in iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Why he deviated from this pattern in this particular poem is anybody's guess. It doesn't seem up to the quality of the other sonnets, which leads many to believe he wrote it when he was very young. But no one really knows.

Two other sonnets are also peculiar, in that they are not true Shakespearean sonnets. Sonnet 99 has 15 lines, and Sonnet 126 is written in couplets, has 12 lines, and isn't really a sonnet at all. Both of these, however, are written in iambic pentameter.

As for "come" and "doom," they don't rhyme now, but they did when Shakespeare wrote his poem. Few people realize how much English pronunciation has changed in the past 400 years. If you hear Shakespeare performed in Elizabethan English (as best as linguists can reconstruct the sound of it), you may be shocked. To my untrained ear, it sounds like a mix of Lowland Scots, Irish, and the Ozark dialect that I spoke when I grew up. The English that Shakespeare spoke sounded more like Larry the Cable Guy's than Laurence Olivier's.

Answer: It was the epitaph for his tomb

These lines are the epitaph on Shakespeare's tomb; tradition holds that they were written by Shakespeare himself. If this is true, it was a pretty sorry curtain call for one of the greatest poets the English language has so far produced.

Shakespeare was buried on April 25, 1616 in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-Upon-Avon; it is thought he died two days earlier, on April 23. No one knows what killed Shakespeare. There was an epidemic of typhus in Stratford in 1616, so he may have been one of its victims. There is nothing that would lead us to believe that Shakespeare was ill for a long period prior to his death; his will, drawn up on March 25, 1616 says that he was "in perfect health and memorie." The changes to his will were almost certainly made due the marriage of his daughter, Judith, on February 10, 1616, rather than ill-health on Shakespeare's part.

Shakespeare's fears about his remains being disturbed were not without foundation. The English have historically shown little respect towards the dead. Many, if not most, of the large churches in England have had their crypts "cleared," i.e., the coffins and bodies removed and either burned or dumped in a hole somewhere - despite the fact that the deceased paid a large fee to be buried in holy ground. As far as is known, however, Shakespeare is still lying where he was originally buried.