He was the part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, who later became known as the King's Men. He married Anne Hathaway at the age of 18 and had three children with her: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith.Īt some point between 15, Shakespeare began a career in London as an actor and writer. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. William Shakespeare (baptised Ap– died April 23, 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor who is widely believed to have been the greatest dramatist of all time
Lady Capulet, who died of a broken heart after hearing of her son Romeo's banishment, may have suffered 'broken heart syndrome' which is caused by extreme stressful events and can rapidly weaken the heart muscle. Mamillius, the child in The Winter's Tale who apparently dies of a broken heart after learning his father has cruelly jailed his mother, may have had a genetic disorder affecting his heart, which a sudden shock made fatal. 'So what seems very odd today was probably the least odd bit about that play.'įinally, deaths from a broken heart are also plausible, although Dr Harkup says this is Shakespeare 'stretching things a bit'. 'It certainly would have got talked about in Shakespeare's day. These bears would have 'a few scores to settle', according to Dr Harkup, who said: 'The idea of a bear getting loose and attacking someone and eating them was probably a very realistic and well-known event. 'She's got more than a few lines, in reality.'Ĭleopatra's choice of where the first snake would bite her, on the breast, is one of the most painful parts of the body, according to a study on bee stings.Ī bear killing someone, as in The Winter's Tale, would be pretty unlikely in the general way of things, according to the scientist.īut this is something Shakespeare likely got right, as bears brought to London for entertainment were chained up, made to dance, or involved in bear-baiting, where dogs attacked a captive bear. Snake venom will indeed cause death by respiratory collapse, but Dr Harkup said: 'It takes time to suffocate - she's got a bit of writhing around on her imperial bed to get through. This is not a gentle death - this is painful.' That is unrealistic, according to Dr Harkup, who said of the snake venom: 'It will hurt like hell en route. In the tragedy Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, has lost the love of her life and is about to lose her empire so arranges to have a poisonous snake, or 'asp' delivered to her in a basket of figs.ĭr Harkup points out that a lethal Egyptian cobra would need to be up to 1.5 metres, or almost five feet, in length, making it very hard to smuggle in a basket of figs.Ĭleopatra speaks only a few lines after clasping a snake to her breast, to bite her, and then another to her arm, and then apparently dies relatively peacefully. The name of the poison, 'hebenon' or 'hebona', is not real, and it would not work well, according to Dr Harkup, because ear wax and cartilage would block the substance from getting into the body. These include the death of Hamlet's father, killed by his brother Claudius, who poured poison into his ear.
It meant Shakespeare's plays had to be gory and grisly to keep audiences entertained, with two men killed, baked in a pie and fed to their mother in Titus Andronicus, the poet Cinna in Julius Caesar murdered by a baying mob, and the character Antigonus killed offstage by a bear in The Winter's Tale.ĭr Harkup described scientific issues with a number of deaths in the plays however, based on her book Death By Shakespeare. During Shakespeare's time, when the average life expectancy in England was the age of 35, hangings were held in public for most crimes, and traitors' decapitated heads were displayed on spikes south of the River Thames, people were very interested in death, according to Dr Harkup.
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