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Shakespeare & Beyond

A world of poison: The Overbury scandal

Tower. Richard III, Act III, scene 5. Thomas Medland. ART File L847t2 no.3 (size XS). Before 1812. Folger Shakespeare Library.
Tower. Richard III, Act III, scene 5. Thomas Medland. ART File L847t2 no.3 (size XS). Before 1812. Folger Shakespeare Library.
Tower. Richard III, Act III, scene 5. Thomas Medland. ART File L847t2 no.3 (size XS). Before 1812. Folger Shakespeare Library.

Tower. Richard III, Act III, scene 5. Thomas Medland. ART File L847t2 no.3 (size XS). Before 1812. Folger Shakespeare Library.

As Shakespeare plotted the deaths of many of his characters, he often turned, logically enough, to highly theatrical causes of death, from sword fights to knife-wielding conspirators. Yet poisons—quiet, powerful, and sometimes secret—sometimes play a key role, too. Romeo dies by drinking poison. Poisons are central to the plot of Hamlet, which begins after Hamlet’s father dies from a substance dripped into his ear (a scene that is recalled in the play within the play) and ends with a deadly scene that includes poisoned wine and a poisoned sword. In King John, which debuts in a Folger Theatre production on October 23, the king meets his end when he is poisoned by a monk.

Frightening, mysterious, and somehow fascinating, real-life poisoning cases (or cases that might include poison) intrigued the public in the early modern age just as much as the murders they saw performed onstage. One infamous example was the death of Sir Thomas Overbury in the Tower of London.

Comments

I believe Hamlet’s dad had mercury (a liquid) poured in his ear. Not sure if that would be immediately poisonous, but if would be bad.

John M Poltrack — October 17, 2018

Well, if we want to take the word of a ghost for it, the poison was like quicksilver (mercury), but it was not mercury itself:
“Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, / With juice of cursèd hebona in a vial / And in the porches of my ears did pour / The leprous distilment, whose effect / Holds such an enmity with blood of man / That swift as quicksilver it courses through / The natural gates and alleys of the body…”

Shakespeare & Beyond — October 25, 2018

“He advised Carr against putting his lot in with Frances and, when that didn’t work, he did what any concerned friend would do—he wrote a poem.” Brilliant!!!

Regina — October 18, 2018