Why deaths in Shakespeare plays are a comedy of errors

SHAKESPEARE killed more than 70 of his characters on stage, with stabbings, snakebites, beheadings and poisoning.

And, since he was a playwright and not a scientist or historian, some of his death scenes demonstrate, to put it mildly, a little artistic licence.

Scientific analysis of the Complete Works of Shakespeare has revealed that Cleopatra died unrealistically quickly from a snakebite.

And Juliet could not have taken anything which would make her appear dead for a full 42 hours.

Dr Kathryn Harkup, the scientist who closely examined the deaths of Shakespeare, told Cheltenham Science Festival: ‘He’s good at observation, but without necessarily understanding the science of what’s going on.’

During Shakespeare’s time – when the average life expectancy in England was 35, hangings were held in public for most crimes and traitors’ heads were displayed on spikes – his audiences were very interested in death, according to Dr Harkup. It meant his plays had to be gory to grip audiences, 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 Antigonus killed offstage by a bear in The Winter’s Tale.

However, Dr Harkup described scientific problems with a number of deaths in the plays, based on her book Death By Shakespeare.

These include the murder of Hamlet’s father, killed by his brother Claudius, who poured poison into his ear. This would not work well, according to Dr Harkup, because ear wax and cartilage would block the substance from getting into the body.

In Antony and Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt has lost the love of her life and is about to lose her empire so she arranges to have a poisonous snake, or ‘asp’ delivered to her in a basket of figs.

However, lethally venomous snakes in Egypt are big, making

‘It will hurt like hell en route’

them very hard to smuggle in a basket of figs. Cleopatra speaks only a few lines after she’s bitten and then dies relatively peacefully. But Dr Harkup said: ‘It will hurt like hell en route. She’s got a bit of writhing around on her imperial bed to get through.’

In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet fakes her own death, with a potion which leaves her apparently dead for ‘two and 40 hours’.

A chemical called tetrodoxin, found in pufferfish, could make someone appear as if they have stopped breathing and dramatically slow their pulse. Shakespeare might just have heard of it from traders from Japan. But, Dr Harkup said, the play suggests there would be no medical issues from not breathing for 42 hours.

Where the playwright was more accurate was with his stage direction ‘exit, pursued by a bear’, in The Winter’s Tale. Bears were kept chained up and baited. They would have ‘a few scores to settle’, said Dr Harkup, and the idea of one getting loose was ‘realistic’.

Finally, deaths from a broken heart are also plausible, although Dr Harkup says this is Shakespeare ‘stretching things a bit’.

Lady Montague, who dies after hearing of son Romeo’s banishment, may have suffered ‘broken heart syndrome’ which is caused by extreme stressful events which can weaken the heart muscle.