Shakespeare

See also: Shakespeare First Lines, Shakespeare Titles.

Name shared by characters in The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing and The Two Gentlemen of Verona		Antonio
Name shared by characters in The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing and The Comedy of Errors		Balthasar
Character who appears in three plays (Henry IV Parts I and II and The Merry Wives of Windsor)		Sir John Falstaff

Antony and Cleopatra

Mark Antony and Brutus died by		Falling on their swords
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety		Cleopatra
Cleopatra's basket contained (as well as the asp)		Figs
Antony marries, to Cleopatra's fury		Octavia

As You Like It

Male lead: youngest son of the deceased Sir Rowland de Boys		Orlando
The heroine: daughter of Duke Senior; flees from persecution in the court of her uncle (Duke Frederick), accompanied by her cousin Celia, to find safety – and eventually love – in the Forest of Arden		Rosalind
Disguises herself as Ganymede ("Jove's own page")
Has more lines than any other female character in Shakespeare
Melancholy traveller – one of the exiled Duke Senior's noblemen, who live with him in the Forest of Arden – who makes the famous "All the world's a stage" speech		Jaques
Jester to Duke Frederick		Touchstone

Cymbeline

Cymbeline's daughter

Imogen

Hamlet

Hamlet is set in		Denmark
Hamlet's father		Hamlet
Hamlet's mother		Gertrude
Hamlet's Royal castle		Elsinore
Hamlet's father's brother, who marries Gertrude after Hamlet senior's death		Claudius
Lord Chamberlain and chief counsellor to Claudius (Hamlet's stepfather), by whom he is employed to spy on Hamlet; unwittingly, and fatally, stabbed through an arras (tapestry) by Hamlet		Polonius
"Since brevity is the soul of wit ... "
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be ... This above all: to thine own self be true" (to his son Laërtes)
Daughter of the above, whom Hamlet is expected to marry – goes mad, falls into a river and drowns, after Hamlet unknowingly kills her father		Ophelia
Distributes a bouquet of symbolic flowers among Claudius, Gertrude (the King and Queen) and her brother Laertes: rosemary for remembrance and pansies for thoughts (to Laërtes), fennel for flattery and columbines for infidelity (to Claudius), rue for bitterness and/or adultery to Gertrude (keeping some for herself); says all the violets withered when her father died
Grave being dug when Yorick's skull is found
Son of Polonius, and brother of the above: mortally wounds Hamlet with a poisoned sword to avenge the deaths of his father and sister, for which he blamed Hamlet; while dying of the same poison, he implicates King Claudius		Laërtes laertes
"Alas, poor Yorick – I knew him ..." (Hamlet to ... his friend)		Horatio
Prince of Norway		Fortinbras
Hamlet's university		Wittenburg
"Sweets to the sweet, farewell" (scattering flowers on Ophelia's grave)		Gertrude
"a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times": Hamlet speaking of (his father's late jester)		Yorick

Henry IV

Tavern in Eastcheap, frequented by Prince Hal and Sir John Falstaff, run by Mistress Quickly		Boar's Head Tavern
Old name for a Spanish wine, Falstaff's favourite drink		Sack
"Tell the truth and shame the devil" (in Part I)		Hotspur
"The better part of valour is discretion" (also in Part I)		Falstaff
"I know thee not, old man": Henry IV to (in Part II)		Falstaff

Henry V

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers": Henry V before		Agincourt
In a famous speech, Henry reminds his troops that the battle is fought on the feast day of		St. Crispi(a)n
Captain McMorris is unique in Shakespeare, being the only		Irishman
Act 2, Scene 3 is largely about the death of		Sir John Falstaff

Henry VI

Henry VI opens with the entry of the funeral procession of

Henry V

Henry VIII

Henry VIII deals mainly with the divorce from

Catherine of Aragon

Julius Caesar

Caesar's wife		Calpurnia
Said by Caesar to have "a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much, such men are dangerous"		Cassius
Struck the first blow		Casca
"Friends, Romans, countrymen …"		Mark Antony
"If you have tears, prepare to shed them now"		Mark Anthony (of J.C.)
Caesar's last words		Et tu, Brute
"This is the most noble Roman of them all": said by Mark Antony of		Brutus

King Lear

Lear's daughters:

Cordelia

Regan

Goneril

Love's Labour's Lost

Name of the stupid constable

Anthony Dull

Macbeth

Hill on which Macbeth's castle is situated		Dunsinane
Wood that must "come to high Dunsinane Hill" (according to an apparition summoned by the three witches) before Macbeth "shall ... vanquish'd be"		(Great) Birnam Wood
Macbeth's companion when he meets the witches (on return from a successful battle); Macbeth has him murdered because the witches told him he would "[be]get kings"; returns as a ghost to haunt Macbeth. James I of England, in whose time Shakespeare was writing, believed himself to be his descendant		Banquo
Thane of Fife – the witches told Macbeth to beware him, so Macbeth has his wife and children killed ("What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?"). Fulfils the witches' prophesy by killing Macbeth – born by caesarean section ("from my mother's womb untimely ripp'd") he was not "of woman born"		Macduff
King killed by Macbeth (in Inverness Castle)		Duncan
Duncan's sons		Malcolm
		Donalbain
The ancient Greek goddess of witchcraft, who appears before the three witches to scold them for excluding her from their meetings with Macbeth		Hecate

The Witches' Brew

It's not unheard of to be asked (for example) whose recipe includes fillet of a fenny snake.

For more information – including the complete recipe, and explanations of some of the terms – please click here.

First ingredient ("that under cold stone / Days and nights has thirty–one / Swelter'd venom sleeping got")		Toad
Used to cool the brew		Baboon's blood

Other ingredients:

Fillet of a fenny snake	Eye of newt	Toe of frog	Wool of bat
Tongue of dog	Adder's fork	Blind–worm's sting	Lizard's leg
Owlet's wing	Scale of dragon	Tooth of wolf	Witch's mummy

Maw and gulf of the ravin'd salt–sea shark

Root of hemlock (digg'd i' the dark)

Liver of blaspheming Jew	Gall of goat
Slips of yew (sliver'd in the moon's eclipse)
Nose of turk	Tartar's lips
Finger of birth–strangled babe (ditch–delivered by a drab)	Tiger's chaudron

The Merchant of Venice

Name of the title character		Antonio
The "rich heiress", who disguises herself as a man called Balthasar; shares her name with Brutus's wife in Julius Caesar		Portia
The choice of three caskets was given to suitors of
"The quality of mercy is not strained ... "
Antonio's friend, and the ultimately successful suitor of the above, who Antonio borrows money from Shylock to fund		Bassanio
Jewish moneylender: loans 3,000 ducats to Antonio, and demands a pound of flesh if the loan is not repaid on the agreed date		Shylock
"If you prick us, do we not bleed?"
Daughter of the above		Jessica

A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream is set in		Athens
King of the fairies		Oberon
Queen of the fairies		Titania
Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustardseed are		Fairies
Character also known as Robin Goodfellow ...		Puck
... as whom he says he'll "put a girdle round about the Earth in forty minutes"

The 'Rude Mechanicals'

... are a group of six (mostly incompetent) amateur actors, looking to make names for themselves by having their production chosen as the courtly entertainment for the royal wedding party of Theseus and Hippolyta. They are identified in the Dramatis Personae by their occupations.

The play that they perform (known as the 'play within the play')		Pyramus and Thisbe
The carpenter: speaks the Prologue		Peter Quince
The biggest ham of them all: a weaver; given an ass's head by Puck		Nick Bottom
The bellows–mender, who plays Thisbe; his name also means a musical instrument or a type of glass		Francis Flute
The joiner, who plays the Lion (doesn't seem to have a first name)		Snug
The tinker, who plays Wall		Tom Snout
The tailor, who plays Moonshine		Robin Starveling

Much Ado About Nothing

Chief of Messina's citizen–police, with an inflated view of his own importance, and notable for his malapropisms; his name has become a byword for a foolish, meddling (and usually old) official

Dogberry

Othello

Act I is set in Venice; the rest of the play is set on (Mediterranean island)		Cyprus
Othello's wife – daughter of Brabantio, a Venetian senator		Desdemona
Othello's trusted, but jealous and ultimately treacherous ensign (sometimes described as the antagonist)		Iago
Has more lines than any other non–title character in Shakespeare
Wife of the above		Emelia
The two aforementioned wives are both murdered, in the same scene, by		Their husbands
How does Othello die?		Stabs himself with a dagger
"He hath a daily beauty in his life which makes me ugly"		Iago (of Othello?)

Richard II

Richard's uncle, who (on his deathbed, speaking to his brother the Duke of York) makes a famous speech lamenting the way England ("this scepter'd isle ... this precious stone set in the silver sea") has been "rented out" – referring to Richard's policy of leasing land to wealthy noblemen, to fund his wars in Ireland)

John of Gaunt (Duke of Lancaster)

Richard III

Son of York who turned winter of discontent into glorious summer		Edward IV
Stepfather of Henry Tudor – finds Richard's crown under a thorn bush and offers it to Henry		Thomas Stanley, later 1st Earl of Derby

Romeo & Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is set in		Verona
Romeo's surname		Montague
Juliet's surname		Capulet
Month in which Romeo & Juliet takes place		July
Juliet's age		13
Juliet's cousin, forsaken by Romeo for Juliet (doesn't appear in the play)		Rosaline
Goes to a feast in disguise and marries the host's daughter		Romeo
Romeo & Juliet: married by		Friar Lawrence
"Thus with a kiss I die" – last words of		Romeo
Dying words: "A plague o' both your houses" – a close friend of Romeo		Mercutio
Juliet's cousin: threatens to kill Romeo, for which Mercutio challenges him to a duel and is killed; Romeo kills (Tybalt) in return, for which he is banished from Verona		Tybalt

The Taming of the Shrew

Setting (an Italian city – actually in Veneto, and not – as Shakespeare seems to think – in Lombardy)		Padua
Name of the Shrew		Katharina
Suitor who succeeds in taming the Shrew – "a gentleman of Verona"		Petruchio
Katharina's father – "a rich gentleman of Padua"		Baptista
Katharina's sister		Bianca

The Tempest

Duke of Milan, sorcerer, and the play's protagonist		Prospero
"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep"
Daughter of the above		Miranda
Half–human inhabitant of the island on which Prospero is stranded: a savage and deformed slave		Caliban
Makes the speech beginning "Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises" – said to have partly inspired Danny Boyle's opening ceremony to the 2012 Olympics (entitled Isles of Wonder)
Caliban's mother: a vicious and powerful witch (who doesn't appear in the play, having died long before Prospero and Miranda arrive on the island)		Sycorax
Sylph, sprite or spirit (often played by women), rescued by Prospero from imprisonment by the above; has given his name to (a) the BBC in–house magazine (via a sculpture that stands over the entrance to Broadcasting House), (b) a British motorcycle manufacturer that was bought by BSA in 1951 and last used in 1967, (c) the main character in Disney's The Little Mermaid, and (d) a washing powder (among many other things!)		Ariel
Sings the song that begins "Where the bee sucks, there suck I" and the one that begins "Full fathom five thy father lies"
1932 novel, title from a line spoken by Miranda in The Tempest		Brave New World

Troilus and Cressida

Background to Troilus and Cressida

Trojan War

Twelfth Night

Alternative title		What You Will
Told in a letter, "some are born great" etc.; tricked into wearing yellow cross–gartered stockings		Malvolio
Countess to whom the above is a steward; she falls in love with Cesario (see below)		Olivia
Duke of Illyria, who's in love with the above; speaks the famous opening line: "If music be the food of love ... "		Orsino
Young woman, who's been shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria; completes the triangle by falling in love with the above (but only after disguising herself as a pageboy called Cesario)		Viola
Twin brother of the above, who was shipwrecked along with her		Sebastian
" ... but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit"		Sir Andrew Aguecheek

Two Gentlemen of Verona

Launce's dog (the only dog named in Shakespeare) – Launce is the servant of Valentine, one of the title characters

Crab

The Winter's Tale

King of Sicilia		Leontes
Queen of Sicilia		Hermione
Son of Polixenes, the King of Bohemia		Florizel
Lord of Sicilia, who is pursued offstage by a bear		Antigonus

© Haydn Thompson 2017–22