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William Shakespeare Biography for Kids - To be or not to be - MrNussbaum.com

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An introduction to Shakespearean tragedy | The British Library

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By using this site, you agree we can set and use cookies. For more details of these cookies and how to disable them, see our cookie policy. An introduction to Shakespearean tragedy Despite their dazzling diversity, the tragedies of Shakespeare gain their enduring power from a shared dramatic vision, argues Kiernan Ryan.

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John Mullan considers the key characteristics of Shakespeare's varied comedies, but he also considers the ways the playwright mixes genres by bringing comedy into his tragedies and tragedy into his comedies.

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English Vocabulary: 10 adjectives invented by Shakespeare

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Overview

Key Staff

A regular classroom teacher can easily teach this lesson without any additional help.

Optional: A drama teacher, drama specialist, or a professional or amateur actor from the local community could provide some tips to the students on how to do pantomime.

Key Skills

Global Connections: Connecting to History and Culture
Creative Thinking: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

Summary

Many words and phrases that we use every day were coined by Shakespeare. He is credited with inventing over 2,000 words and expressive phrases. In this exciting etymology lesson, student teams compete through drawing and pantomime to identify and analyze some of Shakespeare's words and phrases. Individual students then write a story using the Bard's words, lines, and phrases. Truly creative classes can take the challenge to add a new word to our language. A handful of dictionaries, some paper and pencils and a sense of humor will get you going on this fun lesson on the power of words.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

Identify words invented by William Shakespeare

Interpret the meaning of words through drawing

Identify words by interpreting drawings

Analyze the meaning of a line or phrase

Pantomime to communicate the meaning of a line or phrase

Interpret pantomime to identify a line or phrase

Write a short story using Shakespeare invented words, lines, and phrases

Teaching Approach

Arts Integration

Teaching Methods

Cooperative Learning

Demonstration

Discussion

Experiential Learning

Simulations and Games

Assessment Type

Determined by Teacher

Preparation

What You'll Need

Materials

Resources

Required Technology

Lesson Setup

Teacher Background

Teacher should have read the book Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood

Prior Student Knowledge

Students should have read a copy of Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood

Students should have some knowledge of pantomime.

Some knowledge of Shakespearean England (see notes in Geo-reference section)

Physical Space

Classroom

Staging

Teachers may want to push desks aside for these lessons to make room for team games.

Prior to class, prepare individual index cards of approximately 60 words invented by Shakespeare.For reference see the 'A Word from the Bard' handout located within the Resource Carousel included in this lesson and the book William Shakespeare and the Globe by Aliki. Or consider the following list:

For the drawing game, the student who is drawing will need wall space or an easel at which to draw.Team members will need to gather around the drawing student to watch the drawing as it progresses.

For the pantomime game, each student team will need an area to huddle to plan and perform their pantomime.

Take a copy of the Shakespearean Lineshandout and cut the handout into strips or write individual lines on index cards for each group.

Accessibility Notes

Students with physical disabilities may need modified movements.

Instruction

Resources in Reach

Here are the resources you'll need for each activity, in order of instruction.

Build Knowledge

Apply

Reflect

1. Talk with the students about why words are important. We call the study of words, etymology. Words have power. Chosen carefully they not only communicate concepts, facts and beliefs, but can affect behavior and relations between people and nations. They can move us to tears, or to laugh out loud. Consider the phrase; "them's fightin' words," from Gullible's Travels. Point out that fighting words are excluded from the protection of freedom of speech in the First Amendment. Solicit ideas from students about how powerful words can be. Other examples of powerful words to consider:

Sample student responses might be:

I thought freedom of speech meant I can say whatever I want

Students might suggest popular slang words or phrases from songs or TV commercials

Its hard/easy to say I love you

2. Put some new words from Merriam-Webster's new word list on the board and ask if anyone can define that word and use it in a sentence.You can use any of the words suggested below or choose from the list on their web site listed in the resource section below.

Screenager (a teenager who is knows a lot about the internet)

Meatspace (a physical reality as opposed to a virtual reality)

Mondegreen (a mishearing or a misinterpretation of a phrase in a song or poem that gives it a new meaning) for ex: "Scuse me while I kiss this guy" instead of "Scuse me while I kiss the sky."

Cardioprotective (serving to protect the heart) Physiatry (physical medicine and rehabilitation)

3. Teach the students that new words are created all of the time. Language is a living thing, words come into being and go out of fashion all of the time. Some ways in which new words come into the language are:

New technology and industry

Popular culture

New cultural experiences

Foreign languages

Slang

Attaching new meanings to old words

Borrowed or adapted

Optional: You may want to provide dictionaries from different decades, if available, for students to search for words whose meanings have changed, were born, or went out of use.

4. Explain to students that many of the ordinary words and phrases we use today were invented by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is credited with introducing some 2000 words to the English language through his poetry and plays, more than any other person in its history. Words like:

5. Briefly review concepts covered so far, checking for student understanding.

Words are created and go out of use continually

Meanings of words can change over time

Words are used to communicate with others

New words can come from a variety of sources such as industry, culture, other languages and creative thinkers

William Shakespeare has contributed some 2000 words to the English language

6. Recite the following words and ask the class if they can finish the sentence:

"To Be or_________

" O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore__________

"Friends, Romans, countrymen,_______

Now ask the class how many of them have actually seen or read Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, or Julius Caesar. These quotes, arguably some of the most famous quotes in the English language, are so embedded in our language and culture that many people who have never even seen or read Shakespeare's plays know them. For fun, suggest that students try this exercise with their friends and family.

Build Knowledge

1. Teach the students that Shakespeare not only invented many words but also put phrases into our language that we still use today. Examples of word combinations made famous by him are:

"Too much of a good thing" (Rosalind - As You Like It)

"Good riddance" (Patroclus - Trolius and Cressida)

"In my mind's eye" (Hamlet - Hamlet)

2. Write several Shakespeare phrases on the board and enlist a student volunteer to pantomime one of them for the class. Have the class guess the phrase that is being depicted. They may include:

"Every inch a king," (King Lear - King Lear)

"Not budge an inch," (Christopher Sly -Taming of the Shrew)

"Wild-goose chase," (Mercutio - Romeo and Juliet)

"Sweets to the sweet." (Queen - Hamlet)

1. Tell students that they will now play some games in which they must "draw" or "act out" Shakespeare's invented words and phrases. The instructions are as follows:

A. Game number one: Quick draw Shakespeare. You will use the previously prepared index cards with Shakespeare's words for this game.

1. Select a time-keeper from the class. He/she will keep time and record the team points on the board.

2. Divide the class into two to four groups. (For tips on dividing into groups see resource section below if needed)

3. Select a person from each group who will be responsible for putting a hand up when the team has figured out a word. This person will be able to look at the word being drawn in advance, but he/she MAY NOT give hints about the word to others on the team, nor tell the player who is drawing how to draw the picture.

4. Have teams count off to see who will go first, second, third, etc.

5. Post large sheets of newsprint paper and markers in each team's area. Or use an easel or whiteboard if available.

6. Give one member from each team a word to draw from your stack of index cards with Shakespeare's words. Show the word on the card or quietly say the word in the player's ear. All teams get their word at the same time. They will have 45 seconds in which to draw and guess their word.

7. The first team to guess correctly gets a point for the word.

8. Give the next player from each team the next word. Repeat until each person has had one or two turns.

NOTE: If you wish to simplify the game for younger students or to save time, record the full list of words to be drawn on the board or distribute a list to each team. Students will search for, rather than guess, the word that is being drawn.
B. Game number two: Play it don't Say It. Distribute the Shakespearean Lines handout located within the Resource Carousel to the class or write the dialogue lines on the board. Assign each group a line from the 'Shakespearean Lines' handout. If you prefer, you can use the Shakespearean Lines with Characters and Plays handout also located within the Resource Carousel which cites the play from which the line comes and who spoke it. You may:

Cut the handout into strips and assign one line per group

Write individual lines on index cards for each group

Distribute the handout and assign a line to each group by number

Direct the students to interpret their lines and create a pantomime to present it to the class. Give the students a few minutes to brainstorm their pantomime concept. The objective is to make the meaning of the Shakespeare line obvious to others.

Teach the students that in pantomime, normal actions are exaggerated to make the meaning clear. As in the game of charades, students can act out each word one at a time, or create a mini drama that tells the story of the quote. Allow each group to pantomime the line, and have the class guess which line is being performed.

1. Direct students to record some words from the game and identify their meanings. Make sure there is a selection of Dictionaries and Thesaurus' available for the student's use in this segment of the lesson

2. Ask students to imagine our language without some of these words. We use many of these words every day without much thought, as if they have always been in existence. What if we didn't have the word "lonely?" How would we describe that condition?

3. Distribute the Shakespear Sentence Exercises to the students. Explain to the students that the italicized word in each sentence is attributed to Shakespeare.

4. Have the students rewrite the sentences without Shakespeare's invented word, while keeping the meaning of the sentence the same. If possible, students should do this without adding more words to the sentence. Encourage the students to consider how Shakespeare must have felt. Did he invent so many words because he was longing for precision in expression?

5. Discuss with the students what they learned about Shakespeare and his linguistic inventions. Consider the following questions or make up your own discussion starters:

How did drawing the words and pantomiming the lines force the students to search for meaning?

Are they inspired to create words of their own in their language and writing?

In what ways did this exercise make words seem ordinary or extraordinary.

Ask students do they look at words differently now, and if so how?

Sample student responses might be:

It was fun/frustrating to not be able to talk

I had to think more about how others understand what I mean

I didn't know Shakespeare made so many words

I wonder where other words have come from

6. For homework, assign each student to write a short story using a sampling of Shakespeare's words, phrases, and lines meaningfully. Have the student underline the Shakespearean words, phrases, or lines used within the story. Consider the following writer's guidelines for the student writing, or use guidelines of your own:

Stories should be between 500 and 800 words

There should be at least one Shakespearean word, phrase or line in each paragraph

Specific details and descriptions make for interesting settings and believable characters

Quality stories include the following characteristics:

An opening with an engaging "hook"

A body that twists and turns in surprising ways.

Main plot and sub plot lines are drawn to a conclusion at the end.

The reader is left wanting a little more.

7. Distribute the Shakespeare Phrase Match Up handout located within the Resource Carousel. Students can work on this handout as a time filler, for fun or as a quiz.

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Overview Key Staff A regular classroom teacher can easily teach this lesson without any additional help. Optional: A drama teacher, drama specialist, or a professional or amateur actor from the local community could provide some tips to the students on how to do pantomime.

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What We Know About William Shakespeare

Considering how famous and well-regarded William Shakespeare's work is today, it's kind of surprising that we really don't know a whole lot about his life. Some people even challenge the fact that Shakespeare actually wrote the plays he was credited with - that's how mysterious he is. Some people don't even believe he wrote his plays!

It's ironic that he is such an incredibly influential figure and, with regard to his personal life, a blank slate. We just don't know much about him, but that doesn't mean that this will be a short lesson. Sorry!

Let's go over the biographical details that we do have. We'll also talk about his most famous plays and poems, as well as their lasting influence. So, when I say we don't know that much about William Shakespeare, we really don't. We don't even know his birthday because birth certificates - short or long-form - didn't exist back then. People born into noble families might have had their birthday recorded for posterity, similar to how these days you can find Brad Pitt's birthday by Googling it, but you probably can't find your next-door neighbor's birth date.

Shakespeare, though, was born into a family of commoners. We do know that he was baptized. There are some public records of that. So, he must have been born somewhere near his baptism date of April 26, 1564. His father was a glover from Snitterfield, which sounds like a Harry Potter name, but apparently was a real place. The Shakespeare family wasn't badly off, but they were still commoners. We don't really know where Shakespeare went to school, but he probably did go because he ended up literate.

The next solid record we have of the life of William Shakespeare is his marriage, which took place in 1582. Shakespeare married at the age of 18, while his wife, Anne Hathaway (no, not that Anne Hathaway, though seriously, what were that Anne Hathaway's parents thinking, naming her that) was actually of the ripe old age of 26. Six months after their wedding, their first daughter, Susanna, was born... so I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. They then had twins in 1585, named Judith and Hamnet (Hamnet, you say? That sounds familiar! - We'll talk about that later). Hamnet sadly died at the age of 11, and there's been a lot of speculation that his death may have influenced Shakespeare's playwriting, including the famous (and similar-sounding) Hamlet. While the name Hamlet technically comes from a different Scandinavian name, scholars still search for a connection.

At some point, while still married to Anne, Shakespeare scooted off to London and got involved in the theatre scene - rather like the Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore of today, William and Anne's marriage was a May-December romance that was destined for failure. From various records, we do know that he worked as an actor as well as a playwright. He wrote plays for a company called Lord Chamberlain's Men. Starting in 1599, the company performed at the Globe Theatre, which is south of the Thames in London. If you go to London now, you can watch Shakespeare performances in a rebuilt Globe roughly in the same spot. Why was it rebuilt? Well, it was made entirely of wood, and it burned down in 1613, but the recreation is pretty good. Well, I mean, it looks good to me. I didn't see the original, but it looks great now, and if you go to London, you really should see a Shakespeare play at the Globe. It's pretty incredible.

So, the Globe burned down from a fire started by a special effects cannon fired during a performance. So even back then, there was always a desire for snappy special effects, and this one had a pretty serious consequence. Personally, I'd rather see a real, live cannon go off than some lame video projection. That would have been awesome.

Shakespeare had a lot of success from his playwriting and grew reasonably wealthy from it, which was a rare feat at the time... or now, really, I don't know how many wealthy playwrights you can name. He competed for audiences with the likes of Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson and other famous playwrights of the time. Christopher Marlowe might sound familiar if you've seen the movie Shakespeare in Love. Shakespeare's work has enjoyed a far wider audience in modern times than it did in his time, though.

Plays

What was it that he wrote that was so awesome and influential and long lasting? Well, let's talk about it. Shakespeare is really pretty unavoidable for most people. You've probably had contact with some of his plays; almost no one escapes high school without having to read Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's famous tragedy of star-crossed lovers in Verona. If you haven't read it, you've probably seen one of the numerous movie adaptations, or maybe even West Side Story, which is based on the plot of Romeo and Juliet.

I'm not going to list off all of his plays. If you really want to know the names of all of them, you can go to Wikipedia. But I want to give you a timeline of some of his most significant works. I'll talk a little bit about each one, but keep in mind that we've got separate videos devoted to each the really big plays, so you should check those out. Also, you should bear in mind that scholars are divided on the dating of many of these. They're working off of multiple versions and incomplete records. Shakespeare's plays didn't have copyright dates like books do now, so not all of these dates are 100% accurate; they're really a best estimate based on the evidence available. So, take this chronology as a suggestion, and use it for slotting the plays in relation to each other, but don't hold on to the dates as gospel.

Before we start - what did Shakespeare's plays look like when he wrote them? They tended to be written in something called blank verse. This is made up of lines of iambic pentameter that don't rhyme. What's iambic pentameter? Well, it's a 10-syllable line divided into five units, or feet, called iambs. An iamb is just two syllables that go light-STRONG in stress. For example, one of the more famous lines of iambic pentameter comes from Romeo and Juliet. This is when Romeo sees Juliet on the balcony at the start of that famous balcony scene:

'But SOFT! what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS.' Obviously, the actors don't read it that way, but that's a line of iambic pentameter, and that's how the syllables are supposed to work together.

Earliest Plays

So, Shakespeare went to London in the early 1590s, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Scholars fight about which play was the first he wrote, but many agree that it was probably The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which was written sometime between 1589-1591. Though it is significant for being (maybe) his first play and definitely the first instance of cross-dressing, which Shakespeare LOVED, it's generally not considered to be his best work.

Next, possibly, came The Taming of the Shrew, around the same time period (1590-1591). It's another comedy and one of my personal favorites. If you want to know the plot of this play, you should watch the movie 10 Things I Hate About You - it's very similar, it's really based on the play - but then go and read or watch The Taming of the Shrew as well, since that's where it came from.

Remember how, in the movie, Julia Stiles is this cranky, mean girl, and she doesn't want a boyfriend, but her younger sister really wants a boyfriend, and so Heath Ledger (RIP) has to wear her down and make her fall in love with him? Julia Stiles plays 'the shrew' in The Taming of the Shrew, or the Catherine character, and Health Ledger is the Petruchio character - his name is Patrick Verona in the film.

Rolling right along, we hit Richard III sometime around 1592-1593. This is a play about a villain, Richard III, scheming to get the crown and - SPOILER - he gets it, hence the kingly name. He kills a ton of people, including smothering a few children. This is an example of one of Shakespeare's history plays because it has a basis in history.

Next up comes Romeo and Juliet, in 1595. You probably know the drill: Romeo falls in love with Juliet, but he's a Montague, and she's a Capulet, and their families hate each other. Their plan to be together goes awry, and they both end up killing themselves.

Late '90s Plays and Events

1596 brings The Merchant of Venice. It's the first entry in 'Cultural Studies with William Shakespeare.' This play is famous for the character Shylock, who's portrayed as a miserly Jew who demands a 'pound of flesh' as payment for a debt. That's problematic; anti-Semitism is not cool. It's an interesting play, but you've got to take it with a grain of salt and keep in mind when it was written.

Now we're coming up to the big daddy, the grand poobah, the big cheese: , written around 1599-1601. It's probably the most famous and frequently discussed play he ever wrote. It's referenced in everything and performed a ton; it's even the basis for The Lion King. The play is about poor Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, who just can't seem to make up his mind about whether he should kill his uncle Claudius to avenge his father's death. It features his mother, Gertrude; his poor love interest, Ophelia; hilarious old fool, Polonius; and probably the most famous skull in theatre history - the 'Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well...' scene. Hamlet is really the first of Shakespeare's great tragedies and, arguably, the most well known.

Later Plays

Moving right along, we've got , features an old man (King Lear) who wants to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. He ends up banishing one daughter, Cordelia, because she doesn't kiss up enough. The other two, Regan and Goneril turn out to be really nasty and, again, pretty much everyone dies. That's the third of the great tragedies. If you're familiar with the book or the movie called A Thousand Acres, that's based on the story of King Lear.

Next up we've got 'the Scottish play', aka Macbeth, written around 1606. People refer to it as 'the Scottish play' because it's considered bad luck to say 'Macbeth' in the theatre - not really sure why. It features Macbeth, a Scottish lord, who tries to become king through murder and avarice at the encouragement of his nutty wife, Lady Macbeth. It features a lot of witches, ghosts, kilts and some great monologues. It's a lot of fun, but it's also a bummer because it's a tragedy.

The Tempest is probably the last play that Shakespeare wrote on his own. and The Two Noble Kinsmen were most likely co-written, both in 1613.

OK, I need to take a breath. That was a lot of plays, and I didn't even tell you about all of them. Again, if you want to find out the names of all of Shakespeare's plays, go look on Wikipedia. So, that's a lot to remember, and I don't expect you to recite that all back to me.

So, what should you keep in mind after hearing this massive list of plays? I would say, first, that Shakespeare's plays can generally be divided into three categories: comedies, tragedies and histories. At this point, the timeline we've been building could become color-coded for each type of play. The lines can get fuzzy, especially in the tragedy/history areas, because some of the tragedies have a historical basis - also, what kind of history isn't tragic in some way?

The comedies are things like The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night. They have fun hijinks like cross-dressing or mistaken identity. They tend to end with a wedding - sometimes more than one wedding. Tragedies are plays like Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, and they tend to end with pretty much everyone dying, or at least a significant number of people dying. The histories are the ones like Henry IV Parts I and II and Richard III - really, if it's got a strong basis in British or Scottish or whatever history, it's a history play.

Other Works

So, in addition to all of those plays (and, like I said, I didn't even hit on all of them), Shakespeare actually wrote even more. He wrote poems, sonnets in particular, which are 14-line poems with a very specific rhyme structure. You can learn more about them in our lesson on Shakespeare's sonnets. But if you see a 14-line iambic pentameter poem in Shakespearean-type language, odds are you're looking at one of his 154 sonnets. This guy was busy. He wrote a ton!

You've probably heard the oft-parodied 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' poem. Depending on your point of view, you may find it gloriously romantic or seriously cheesy, but that's a Shakespearean sonnet, and really, the remaining ones are just as good. They're beautiful; they're really worth checking out.

In addition to the sonnets, he also wrote some longer poems - Venus and Adonis, written in the 1592-1593 range, and also The Rape of Lucrece in 1594. In Venus and Adonis, the Greek goddess Venus tries to get the mortal Adonis (who is really, really hot and buff - that's where the term 'Adonis' comes from) to sleep with her, but he refuses and then is killed while on a hunt. Bummer. It's written in 6-line stanzas that go a/b/a/b/c/c. The Rape of Lucrece is pretty self-explanatory, unfortunately. Lucretia is raped by the son of the King of Rome and commits suicide, which incites a revolt against the king. That poem is written in 7-line stanzas that go a/b/a/b/b/c/c, also known as 'rhyme royale.'

Lesson Summary

So, those are Shakespeare's works in the tiniest of nutshells. Unfortunately, William Shakespeare died in 1616 - that's another date that we have associated with his life. In true Shakespeare fashion, he wrote the following epitaph for his own tombstone:

'Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,

To dig the dust enclosed here.

Blessed be the man that spares these stones,

And cursed be he that moves my bones.'

It rhymes, and it's funny, and it's self-referential - it's everything you'd come to expect from Shakespeare. Some scientists actually have wanted to exhume Shakespeare, to dig up his bones, but this seems like a terrible idea because, clearly, Shakespeare will curse them. So no one else has moved those stones, and you can still see his grave and the epitaph today in Stratford-Upon-Avon, so if you're ever in England, go do that.

Whew! We have talked about a lot. We've gone over Shakespeare's life. He was born in in Stratford; he was married to Anne Hathaway (but not the one who's still alive, obviously); he had three kids, including a son named Hamnet, who died young; he moved to London and became an actor and playwright, and his marriage kind of went south then. We've covered a bunch of his plays and laid down a timeline for when they were written and how they relate to each other; we've briefly touched on his poems, both his sonnets and his longer poems.

It's true that Shakespeare's life may be a mystery to us, but we're really lucky that the words that he wrote, the works that he created, are still available to us now, centuries later. So, go and check out our other videos on his notable plays and get to reading or seeing them for yourself!

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Introduction to Shakespeare: Life and Works

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Considering how famous and well-regarded William Shakespeare's work is today, it's kind of surprising that we really don't know a whole lot about his life. Some people even challenge the fact that Shakespeare actually wrote the plays he was credited with - that's how mysterious he is.

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But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,
A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
Adonis' trampling courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud;
     The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,
     Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.

Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;
The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,
Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder;
     The iron bit he crushes 'tween his teeth
     Controlling what he was controlled with.

His ears up-prick'd; his braided hanging mane
Upon his compass'd crest now stand on end;
His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:
     His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,
     Shows his hot courage and his high desire.

Sometime her trots, as if he told the steps,
With gentle majesty and modest pride;
Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,
As who should say, 'Lo! thus my strength is tried;
     And this I do to captivate the eye
     Of the fair breeder that is standing by.'

What recketh he his rider's angry stir,
His flattering 'Holla,' or his 'Stand, I say?'
What cares he now for curb of pricking spur?
For rich caparisons or trapping gay?
     He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,
     Nor nothing else with his proud sight agrees.

Look, when a painter would surpass the life,
In limning out a well-proportion'd steed,
His art with nature's workmanship at strife,
As if the dead the living should exceed;
     So did this horse excel a common one,
     In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone

Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:
     Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,
     Save a proud rider on so proud a back.

Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;
Anon he starts at stirring of a feather;
To bid the wind a race he now prepares,
And whe'r he run or fly they know not whether;
     For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,
     Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings.

He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;
She answers him as if she knew his mind;
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,
     Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,
     Beating his kind embracements with her heels.

Then, like a melancholy malcontent,
He vails his tail that, like a falling plume
Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:
He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.
     His love, perceiving how he is enrag'd,
     Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag'd.

His testy master goeth about to take him;
When lo! the unback'd breeder, full of fear,
Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,
With her the horse, and left Adonis there.
     As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,
     Out-stripping crows that strive to over-fly them.

     I prophesy they death, my living sorrow,
     If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.

"But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me;
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox which lives by subtlety,
Or at the roe which no encounter dare:
     Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs,
     And on they well-breath'd horse keep with they hounds.

"And when thou hast on food the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles
How he outruns with winds, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
     The many musits through the which he goes
     Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.

"Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,
     And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;
     Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:

"For there his smell with other being mingled,
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;
     Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,
     As if another chase were in the skies.

"By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still:
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;
     And now his grief may be compared well
     To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

"Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way;
Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
     For misery is trodden on by many,
     And being low never reliev'd by any.

"Lie quietly, and hear a little more;
Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise:
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,
Unlike myself thou hear'st me moralize,
     Applying this to that, and so to so;
     For love can comment upon every woe."

Come unto these yellow sands,
   And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,--
   The wild waves whist--
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
   Hark, hark!
      Bow, wow,
   The watch-dogs bark:
      Bow, wow.
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!

                         --fromThe Tempest

Tell me where is Fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head? How begot, how nourishèd? Reply, reply. It is engender'd in the eyes; With gazing fed; and Fancy dies In the cradle where it lies. Let us all ring Fancy's knell: I'll begin it,--Ding, dong, bell! All. Ding, dong, bell! --from The Merchant of Venice Where the bee sucks, there suck I: In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily: Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. -from The Tempest

Lord Amiens, a musician, sings before Duke Senior's company
  Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
  Thou art not so unkind
      As man's ingratitude;
  Thy tooth is not so keen,
  Because thou art not seen,
      Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
  Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
      This life is most jolly.

  Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
  That does not bite so nigh
      As benefits forgot:
  Though thou the waters warp,
  Thy sting is not so sharp
      As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing . . .

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But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by, A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud, Adonis' trampling courser doth espy, And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud; The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree, Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.

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This article was first published in the April 2014 issue of BBC History Magazine

It seems that England's greatest poet first appeared on the world's stage on the feast day of England's patron saint: St George's Day, Sunday 23 April 1564.

The parish register of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon records Shakespeare's baptism on 26 April. According to the Book of Common Prayer, babies had to be baptised either on the next saint's day after their birth or on the following Sunday. In baby Shakespeare's case, the next saint's day was St Mark's Day, the stolen patron saint of Venice, just two days after his birth. However, Elizabethan folk superstition considered this day to be unlucky, so Shakespeare was baptised after morning or evening prayer on the following day.

For corroborative evidence that Shakespeare was born on 23 April we can look to his monument on the north chancel wall of Holy Trinity Church. This tells us that he died on 23 April 1616, aged 53 - that is at the beginning of his 53rd year. Hence the assumption that he was born and died on the same date.

Shakespeare's baptismal entry tells us that he is "Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakespeare": William, the son of John Shakespeare. Only one person of that name lived in the town.

The master bedroom of the house now presented as Shakespeare's Birthplace was upstairs, overlooking the street - the same room that people have been visiting in homage to Shakespeare since the 18th century.

On John's death in 1601, William inherited the whole of his estate (John had left no will). William allowed his sister, Joan Hart, and her family to live in part of the building (as her descendants did until 1806) and leased another part to become a pub, the Swan and Maidenhead.

The house today is a Victorian renovation of the site and buildings purchased by public subscription in 1847. The Birthplace and four other houses associated with Shakespeare's life are cared for and conserved by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

From the ages of 8 to 15, William Shakespeare would have found himself at Stratford-upon-Avon's grammar school, which had been established under Edward VI to offer a free education to all of the town's boys.

Founded in 1553 and based on Humanist ideals, Tudor grammar schools were a key element of the government's stated aim of ensuring that "good literature and discipline might be diffused and propagated throughout all parts of our kingdom, as wherein the best government and administration of affairs consists".

These were establishments that took education very seriously indeed. Shakespeare would have gone to school six days a week throughout the year, starting at 6am in the summer and 7am in winter, and staying until dusk (though there were half days on Thursdays and Saturdays). The major Christian festivals provided the few annual holidays.

There was little respite, even in the playground, where the boys were expected to talk to each other in Latin. The emphasis of the whole educational enterprise, in light of the teachings of the 16th-century Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1469-1536), was on the development of eloquence in speech and writing. A key textbook was William Lily's Short Introduction of Grammar (1540), through which Shakespeare became familiar with a vast range of rhetorical devices.

The curriculum was highly demanding. The pupils studied Terence, Virgil, Tully, Sallust, Palingenius, Mantuanus, Cicero, Susenbrotus, Erasmus, Quintilian, Horace, Juvenal and Ovid in their original Latin. The latter's Metamorphoses seems to have been Shakespeare's favourite book from his school days, and he alluded to it many times in his work. The only writing in Greek to feature on the syllabus was the New Testament. Shakespeare's grammar-school education is writ large across the whole body of his work. Above all, it taught him eloquence. As an education it was rigorous but limited and did not, for example, include numeracy.

Questions about Shakespeare's marriage and sexuality have divided generations of scholars and critics, and continue to do so.

When he was just 18, William married Anne or Agnes Hathaway (those first names were interchangeable). She was 26 and already pregnant. It has been estimated that around a quarter of late 16th-century women were pregnant before marriage.

Another illuminating statistic has been deduced by local historian Jeanne Jones from records curated by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Between 1570 and 1630 the average age for men to marry in Stratford-upon-Avon was 24. In that 60-year period, and out of 106 cases, there were only three men who married under the age of 20. Of those three, Shakespeare was the youngest and the only one whose wife was already pregnant. They had three children: Susanna (born 1582) and then boy-and-girl twins Hamnet and Judith (born 1585; Hamnet died in 1596).

But were William and Anne happily married? Katherine Duncan-Jones thinks not. In her Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes from His Life (2001), she presents a Shakespeare who is trapped in his marriage. In Shakespeare's Wife (2007), Germaine Greer describes the Shakespeares' relationship as "a demanding and difficult way of life". Certainly Shakespeare spent long periods of time in London, but that does not mean that he never saw his wife and children. Townsmen frequently travelled between Stratford-upon-Avon and London. The commute took three days by horseback.

Some commentators have pounced upon Shakespeare's decision to leave Anne his "second best bed with the furniture" to question the state of his marriage. True, this bequest could have been a put-down. But it could also have been a romantic souvenir, or even, perhaps, a codified permit for Anne to remain resident in the family home, New Place.

Most of the speculation on Shakespeare's sexuality has been based on his works - for example, the same-sex relationships in his plays. Evidence from his life reveals little. In fact, the only surviving contemporary anecdote of Shakespeare's personal life is to be found in the diary of John Manningham, a trainee lawyer at Middle Temple. The diary relates how Shakespeare arranged to meet a woman with his fellow actor Richard Burbage, yet got there early to have sex with her before Burbage arrived: "Shakespeare caused return to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third."

Two images are widely accepted as being accurate depictions of Shakespeare, both of them posthumous: the engraving by the artist Martin Droeshout on the title-page of Master William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies of 1623, and the memorial bust in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. This was installed some time between 1616, when Shakespeare died, and 1623, when it is first mentioned in Leonard Digges's commendatory verse in a collected edition of Shakespeare's work.

It is possible that both the engraving and the bust were approved by Shakespeare's widow, family and friends. The playwright Ben Jonson, in his verse printed opposite the engraving, describes it as a good likeness. The bust was made by Gerard Janssen who, in 1614, had also carved the Stratford-upon-Avon tomb effigy for Shakespeare's friend John Coombe. Janssen's workshop was in Southwark, near the Globe, so he too probably knew what Shakespeare looked like.

Two portraits of Shakespeare have good provenance and may have been painted from life. One is the Chandos portrait; the other is the Cobbe portrait, which won the support of the world's leading Shakespeare scholar, Stanley Wells, in 2009.

It has been suggested that the Chandos portrait was painted by John Taylor (an actor from Shakespeare's period), and was bequeathed to William Davenant, who liked to say he was Shakespeare's illegitimate son. From here it eventually came into the possession of the Duke of Chandos.

The Cobbe portrait passed through the descendants of Shakespeare's only known literary patron, Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton. It spawned a succession of near-contemporary copies, the majority of which independently identify the sitter as Shakespeare.

The Cobbe portrait has compositional similarities to the Droeshout engraving and may have been its source, possibly through one of the early copies. X-ray analysis has shown that the earliest of these copies is the one now in the possession of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC has another early copy but does not accept that the sitter is Shakespeare. Shakespeare scholar Katherine Duncan-Jones is among those who have suggested that the portrait represents Sir Thomas Overbury, based on a perceived visual resemblance. Yet none of the many versions and copies of the Cobbe portrait has ever carried an Overbury identification.

What's more, research at Cambridge University has established that the Cobbe portrait and the undoubted Overbury portrait are unrelated and unlikely to depict the same sitter.

Of all the portraits that might represent Shakespeare, the Cobbe portrait is the most intimate and its provenance and claim to be painted from life make a compelling case.

Shakespeare's will includes numerous bequests that show that he died a wealthy man. But he cannot have owed his riches simply to his plays. A theatre company would pay a freelance writer a few pounds for a new play, but that wasn't enough to support and sustain a wife and family.

A writer could boost his income by acting as well - and Shakespeare, Ben Jonson (early in his career) and a handful of others appear to have done just that. Yet, all the same, none of the other playwrights of the period were able to invest in the way Shakespeare did.

Shakespeare was wealthy because he was, from 1594, a shareholder in the theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, in which he was also the leading dramatist. Their patron was the lord chamberlain and they performed at court as well as at the Inns of Court, for which they were paid handsomely.

Shakespeare was rich enough to buy a house in 1597, which it has been estimated probably cost him around £120. In 1599, he invested in a tripartite lease on the new Globe Theatre. This meant he would receive a share of the box-office takings which, partly because of the popularity of his plays, were high.

He carried on investing heavily in Stratford-upon-Avon. He bought a massive 107 acres of land for £320 in 1602. Only three years later, he spent £440 on a 50 per cent share in the annual tithes payable to the church. This brought him back around £60 a year. In 1613 he bought a gatehouse at Blackfriars for £140.

A story from William Davenant first published in Nicholas Rowe's biographical account of 1709 suggests that Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, gave Shakespeare £1,000 "to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to". We'll probably never know whether he did or not, but it would explain how Shakespeare could afford the shares in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and how he was able to buy his grand residence, New Place. And all this at a time when a local schoolmaster's salary was £20 a year.

When he was first married, Shakespeare would have had little choice but to live in the family home on Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon. He saved money by lodging in London at various places including (in order of residence): the parishes of St Giles Cripplegate; St Helen's Bishopgate (where he was fined for defaulting on his taxes in 1597 and 1598); St Saviour's near the Clink, Southwark; and with the Mountjoy family on the corner of Monkswell and Silver Streets, again in the Cripplegate ward.

Shakespeare's family home from 1597 was New Place, the largest house in the centre of Stratford-upon-Avon. The theatres were closed during Lent and Advent, which would have given him plenty of time to spend at home with his family and to get some writing done in relative peace and quiet.

Between 2010 and 2013, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust commissioned an archaeological dig of the site (New Place was demolished in 1759), which confirmed it to be a grand manor house, designed for someone of considerable means and social status.

Shakespeare was a commuter who lodged in London and whose grandest living space was in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Defining the way in which Shakespeare went about his work is no easy task because canons of literary work develop over time, as do an author's mode of writing. What complicates matters is the fact that much of Shakespeare's writings were published after his death. The Sonnets, a few occasional poems and about half of his plays first appeared during his lifetime. The rest (with the exception of Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen) appeared for the first time in a collected edition of his work in 1623.

In 1986, The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works attempted to cast some light on the issue by putting forward two of the most radical theories to emerge in the past 30 years. The first was that Shakespeare regularly revised what he wrote because of practical theatrical considerations. The second suggested that he collaborated on several plays, most significantly at the beginning and end of his career.

Collaboration was absolutely a standard practice among playwrights of Shakespeare's time. In 2013 Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen published William Shakespeare and Others: Collaborative Plays, a collection of little-known works in which Shakespeare may or may not have had a hand. There are also some apparently lost plays including Love's Labour's Won and Cardenio.

Collaboration alone should be enough to put paid to any theory that suggests the plays were the handiwork of a lone aristocrat or an alternative single author operating undercover. The way in which the plays are written shows that Shakespeare had a profound knowledge of theatrical practice and knew the actors for whom he was writing.
Dr Paul Edmondson is head of research and knowledge, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Visit shakespeare.org.uk
He didn't dash off his plays, as the film Shakespeare in Love might like us to believe. Instead, he adapted the sources and stories on which he based his work, reading extensively before putting quill to paper.

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Shakespeare: 7 burning questions about his life

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This article was first published in the April 2014 issue of BBC History Magazine It seems that England's greatest poet first appeared on the world's stage on the feast day of England's patron saint: St George's Day, Sunday 23 April 1564. The parish register of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon records Shakespeare's baptism on 26 April.

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Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Born in September 1533, she did not have a happy or stable childhood. Her mother was beheaded when she was two and a half years old and she was declared illegitimate. Jane Seymour, Henry's third wife was kind to her but she died when Elizabeth was six years old. After her father's death in 1547, Elizabeth had been taken in by Henry's sixth wife, Katherine Parr and her new husband Thomas Seymour. However, she had to leave their house when Katherine got jealous because Thomas was paying Elizabeth too much attention.

Elizabeth's half-brother Edward VI had become king when Henry VIII died and had changed the religion of England to Protestantism but when he died the throne went to her half-sister, Mary, who was a Catholic. Mary saw Elizabeth, a Protestant, as a threat to her position and had her imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 after her sister, Mary I, died.

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Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Born in September 1533, she did not have a happy or stable childhood. Her mother was beheaded when she was two and a half years old and she was declared illegitimate.

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Life in Elizabethan England 22: Precendence, Perferment, and Attainder

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Everyday life in Tudor England - Precendence and rank among the nobles and courtiers in the time of Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare.

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Clothing in Elizabethan England

Liza Picard describes the laws, trends and standards of hygiene that determined who wore what in Elizabethan England.

Status symbols

Cloth of gold and silver, tinselled satin, woollen cloth embroidered with gold and silver, sables and other furs... the clothes worn by the rich make any fashionista's mouth water. But that list was taken from one of a series of Proclamations against 'excess of apparel'. Who was allowed to wear what was supposed to be strictly controlled. It was essential that the Queen's subjects should know their place, and dress accordingly, so that no one could be misled.

The 1597 Proclamation went into minute detail. Only earls could wear cloth of gold, or purple silk. No one under the degree of knight was allowed silk 'netherstocks' (long stockings) or velvet outer garments. A knight's eldest son could wear velvet doublets and hose, but his younger brothers couldn't. A baron's eldest son's wife could wear gold or silver lace, forbidden to women below her in the pecking order.

Proclamation against Excess of Apparel by Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I issued numerous proclamations about clothing. This edict, from 1574, details the colours and fabrics people could wear according to their social rank. Only barons and others of high degree could wear 'golde' or 'tinseld sattern'.

Furs in bewildering variety were similarly controlled. Elizabeth and her favourite the Earl of Leicester enjoyed the softness of sables. She had hers from an unexpected source - Ivan the Terrible, Tsar of Russia, who sent them, as well as two ermine gowns, with a proposal of marriage. She kept the furs but refused the proposal.

Proclamations do not always change human behaviour. Great offence was caused by prostitutes who dared to flaunt themselves in rich garments. Young apprentices who were supposed to dress in modest blue were apt to burst out in colours, such as popinjay blue or lusty-gallant red. 'Great ruffs' and over-long swords were regularly forbidden, too, and as regularly worn.

Rapier, c. 1600

Swords, such as this ornate rapier, were an important part of male dress.

Usage terms © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Held by© Victoria and Albert Museum

Ruffs

Ruffs were worn by both sexes, by old and young, courtiers and working people. They began as a simple frill at the neck of a full-cut shirt, where it was gathered into a neck band. They culminated in the astonishing structures worn by Elizabeth in her state portraits. At first they sagged limply round the neck, until someone hit on the idea of starching them - an art in which the Dutch excelled. Successive restorers of portraits have made all the ruffs in ancestral portraits a uniform white, but in fact they were tinted pink or yellow, much more becoming. Blue seems to have been reserved for prostitutes.

Doctor Lopez is accused of poisoning Elizabeth I

This illustration, from a 1627 book recounting an Elizabethan scandal, shows two men wearing large ruffs.

Portrait of William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, 1617

Pembroke, a favourite at King James's court, wears a handsome white ruff.

Usage terms Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2016 / Bridgeman Images

Women's dress

Working women wore fitted bodices and long full skirts. For the more fashionable, the bodice was stiffened to lie flat across the bosom, and skirts were often divided in front to show an underskirt. The edges of the skirt could be adorned with jewelled borders. A fashionable Elizabethan woman's wardrobe was complex. Sleeves, bodice, ruff, skirt, underskirt - all came as separate pieces which were held in place by pins, and could be reassembled with other elements to look quite different. The Queen was always pleased to accept presents of valuable garments, such as a pair of sleeves embroidered with pearls, or a ruff with matching cuffs.

Photograph of Mark Rylance in Olivia costume in Shakespeare's Globe's production of Twelfth Night, 2002

Mark Rylance dresses for the role of Olivia, showing the many parts of an Elizabethan woman's outfit.

Usage terms © Photo of John Tramper, courtesy of Shakespeare's Globe

Portrait of Mary Fitton, c. 1595

This fashionable lady was soon to become a maid of honour at Elizabeth I's court. Each piece of her complex outfit - the sleeves, bodice, ruff and skirt - was a separate bit of clothing.

Skirts were held out on a frame or 'farthingale'. If you couldn't afford a farthingale, a 'bum roll' tied round your waist under the skirt would do almost as well.

Elizabeth's portraits show her wearing a staggering amount of jewellery, especially pearls. She bought the six ropes of pearls that had belonged to Mary Queen of Scots. New ones were coming in by the chestful from the New World, and needed only boring and polishing to be ready to wear. Diamonds needed careful cutting, and were never so prized. Other stones might be worn as charms. Sapphires and unicorn's horn averted the plague, coral was useful against witchcraft. A bezoar protected against poison, but was hardly attractive; the best came from the intestines of Persian goats.

Sieve Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, c. 1583

Queen Elizabeth in a lavish gown with ruff and jewellery.

Usage terms © Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) in Ceremonial Costume (oil on canvas), Zuccari, or Zuccaro, Federico (1540-1609) / Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, Italy / Bridgeman Images

One essential garment for the English climate had not yet been invented: the raincoat. A starched ruff would collapse if it got wet. If you were going to a party you would carry your ruff - also known as a 'band' - in a bandbox, and get your maid to pin it on when you got there. A hooded cloak would keep off the worst, but unless it had been made colour-fast by that elusive alum, you risked arriving in a puddle of leaking dye.

Men's dress

'Except it were a dog in a doublet you shall not see any so disguised as are my countrymen of England', wrote a contemporary historian, and indeed the Elizabethan era saw men's clothes depart more widely from their physique than in any other time. At least if you had good legs - and they were important - you could show them off up to crotch level. Next to your skin, a white linen shirt, which might support your ruff unless it had become a separate item by then.

Photograph of Michael Brown as Viola/Cesario and Rhys Meredith as Sebastian in Shakespeare's Globe production of Twelfth Night, 2002

Designer Jenny Tiramani took inspiration from contemporary portraits to create costumes that resembled fashions for young men in c. 1600.

Usage terms © Colin Willoughby / ArenaPal

Portrait of a young man among roses by Nicholas Hilliard, c. 1587

If you had good legs, you could show them off up to crotch level.

Usage terms © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Held by© Victoria and Albert Museum

There were extreme fashions which surely were not always followed by every man, and did not always last long. Sleeves were swollen far beyond the shoulder line, kept that shape by mountains of stiffening and padding ('bombast'). The doublet was cut tight across the chest, swelling out at diaphragm level and back again, making an ugly - to our eyes - 'peasecod' shape, unrelated to the natural body.

The doublet had a skirt, of varying length, under which were ties ('points'), or hooks, onto which the breeches were tied or hooked. The breeches of a working man were baggy and knee-length, like old-fashioned plus fours. The fashionable Elizabethan could opt for short 'hose' (breeches), at groin level: or longer ones covering his thighs, or even down to knee level. But they were all padded, so that they looked like melons or marrows, and made it difficult to walk gracefully, let alone dance. That was not all; they were 'paned' - cut into narrow panels, joined at the waist and hem, with a coloured lining showing in the spaces between the panes. The great days of the codpiece were declining, giving way to a modest buttoned or lace-up opening; but they were still useful as somewhere to keep pins - they were heavily padded - or your purse, and maybe a refreshing orange or two. Both doublet and hose were decorated by 'pinking': slits cut in the fabric, in a pattern, with a differently coloured lining pulled through the slits in little puffs.

The Life of a Satirical Puppy Called Nim

17th-century male fashion: in this satire, a young dandy called Nim shows off his new suit of clothes.

Portrait of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, c. 1600

The Earl of Southampton (1573-1624) was well-known for his showy, expensive clothes. In this painting, he wears a silk doublet, hose, coloured garters and embroidered gloves.

Usage terms NPG L114
Private collection; on loan to the National Portrait Gallery, London

The ensemble was completed by a hat or cap with a feather or a jewel, and a cloak, varying from a useless waist level to a practical full length.

Personal hygiene

For a modern lavatory, read 'close stool': a padded box with a hole in it, the lid making a comfortable back. For lavatory paper, read 'old linen rags'.

Former ages were rarely keen on washing. A deodorant could be made from camomile, wormwood and alum, which may have worked. (Alum is an ingredient in most modern deodorants.) But how often was it used? An advice book of 1547 suggests that after you've got out of bed and stretched, and coughed, and spat, and defecated, and put your breeches on, 'comb your head... and wash your hands and wrists, your face and eyes and your teeth with cold water' - and that was that. A really fastidious person might clean her teeth with burned rosemary wood, to 'make the teeth white and flee (drive out) the worms in them', which as everyone knew caused holes and toothache.

Cosmetics

Ceruse, a thick white toxic paste containing mercury, gave a smooth complexion until it melted and turned grey, shiny and smelly. Its pallor could be corrected by a round dab of vermilion on the cheeks. The Queen relied increasingly on ceruse.

Liza Picard researches and writes about the history of London. She spent many years working in the office of the Solicitor of the Inland Revenue and lived in Gray's Inn and Hackney, before retiring to live in Oxford.

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Clothing in Elizabethan England | The British Library

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By using this site, you agree we can set and use cookies. For more details of these cookies and how to disable them, see our cookie policy. Clothing in Elizabethan England Liza Picard describes the laws, trends and standards of hygiene that determined who wore what in Elizabethan England.