Tudor Trivia Tuesday: Shakespeare Edition #3.

1) George Gascoigne’s play Supposes was first acted at Gray’s Inn in 1566. It is the model for the Bianca subplot of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.

 

2) The eight public playhouses, in London, during the reign of Elizabeth I, were in the order of erection: (1) the Theater, (2) the Curtain, (3) the Rose, (4) the Swan, (5) the Globe, (6) the Hope, (7) the Fortune, (8) the Red Bull.[1]

 

3) In the play Measure for Measure, Shakespeare’s character Lucio refers to catching syphilis by drinking out of the same cup after someone who is infected.

Lucio. … I will, out of thine own confession,

learn to begin thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink

after thee. (I.ii.37-8)

At the time, a health was generally drunk by handing  a single cup around the  company.

 

4) The Tudor version of a Band-Aid to close and cover small cuts was the common cobweb. This is referred to in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (III.i.185-7) when he asks the name of one of a troop of fairies.

Bottom. I cry your worships mercy hartily; I beseech your worships name.

Cob. Cobweb.

Bot. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you.

 

5) Rev. Ellacombe[2] informs us that, in Shakespeare’s day, a suitor’s prospects with the girl of his desire were reflected in the freshness of the flower called “Bachelor’s Button” worn in his button-hole. So long as he was succeeding, it would remain fresh. If it began to wilt, he was failing. Thus the following quote from The Merry Wives of Windsor (III, ii.67-70).

Hostess. What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May; he will

carry’t, he will carry’t ; 'tis in his Buttons; he will carry't.

 

 

6) In Two Gentlemen of Verona (II.ii.) the following passage describes the customary act of betrothal or engagement in Shakespeare’s time. Often it would be done in church before a priest or minister but not always.

Julia. Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.

[giving a ring.

Proteus. Why then we'll make exchange; here, take you this.

Jul. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.

The ritual is again described in the play Twelfth Night.

7) In the Ulysses and Agamemnon section of Troilus and Cressida, among the insults Thersites rains upon Ajax is

thy horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without book.

In Shakespeare’s time, “without book” was the phrase used for learning a thing by heart.

 

8) In All’s Well that Ends Well (iii.iv.) Bertram’s fellow lords tell him, concerning his false friend Parolles, who has betrayed him,

if you give him not John Drum's entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed.

“Jack Drum's entertainment” was the equivalent of our modern image to beat someone like a drum.

 

9) In George Peele's Battle of Alcazar, acted on stage well before 1594, there appears the line: "a horse, a horse, villaine, a horse!" Shakespeare’s “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse” would seem to have been suggested by that play.

 

10) George Peele appears in the first extant Matriculation Book of Oxford University in 1564 as a member of Broadgates Hall. The hall would later become known as Pembroke College. A number of Shakespeare’s plays, during the second phase of his development, began all or in part as plays written together with Peele.

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[1] Thorndike, Ashley H. Shakespeare’s Theater, 43.

[2] Ellacombe, Henry N. The Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare, 27.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

Shakespeare’s Crocodile Tears. April 12, 2022. “After the 1589 Hamlet he chose refer to the adage more obliquely.”

The Tempests of Shakespeare and Rabelais. August 15, 2021. “The eccentric critic William Maginn’s exasperation with the public debate over Shakespeare’s languages reveals — among a good many other things — some rather astonishing correspondences between The Tempest and the fourth book of Gargantua and Pantegruel.”

Shakespeare’s Character Names: Shylock, Ophelia, etc. July 13, 2021. “The name Ophelia was, by all indications, quite rare in the 16th century.”

To Where Did Queen Elizabeth I Disappear in August 1564? July 18, 2021. “Leicestershire was in the opposite direction from London. Nichols could discover no more.”

Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating historical period.

Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many articles on Shakespeare and the Authorship Question.