He is believed to have died after a night of binge drinking with his theater friends, but whether or not this is due to alcohol poisoning is not certain. It might even be true that alcohol proved to be the death of Shakespeare. Among these are Prince Hal’s drinking companions in Henry IV, as well as John Falstaff. Several of Shakespeare’s characters do display signs of alcoholism though, although Shakespeare never actually uses the word in his works. There are those who contend that Shakespeare himself was an alcoholic, but this is not certain. “O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!” ~William Shakespeare, Othello Shakespeare also seemed to understand the perils of alcohol and alcoholism. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him and it mars him it sets him on and it takes him off.”” (Act 2 scene 3) Lechery, sir it provokes, and unprovokes it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance. Shakespeare also remarks on the way alcohol stokes libido but hampers the ability to deliver, seen here in an exchange in Macbeth. Macduff asks the Porter, “What three things does drink especially promote?” The Porter replies, “Marry sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. He answers her, saying “Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool, the second mads him, and a third drowns him.” Twelfth Night (1.5.127-30) In Twelfth Night, Olivia asks the Clown what a drunken man is like. It would appear that Shakespeare knew the workings of alcohol quite intimately, perhaps through firsthand experience. What is interesting to note though is that each of Shakespeare’s plays has at least one allusion to alcohol, and that all in all there are 360 references to alcohol in general, including drinks, drunkards, or drunkenness, as well as 196 alcohol-related figures of speech throughout his body of work. ![]() ![]() ![]() For example, a bevy of wine variants are mentioned in his plays, among these Sack, Malmsey, Metheglin or Mead, and Canary, in such plays as Henry IV, Love’s Labour Lost, Richard III, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Twelfth Night. ![]() Shakespeare makes a good number of references throughout his works to that most wonderful elixir. Rumor even has it that the elder Shakespeare was an alcoholic. Shakespeare’s dear old dad was an official ale taster back home in Stratford, and was tasked with ensuring that the ingredients used by breweries were up to snuff and that the drink was sold at Crown specified prices. In fact, you might even say alcohol was in his blood. Shakespeare wrote about alcohol, Shakespeare in all likelihood consumed alcohol, perhaps even copiously, and his audience most certainly drank heartily when watching his plays, the likely culprits being those unrefined groundlings who watched from the pit. The consumption of alcohol has been one of man’s primary pastimes and endeavors since time immemorial, and in light of its hallowed place in human history, is it any wonder that it found its way into the works of one William Shakespeare? What do alcohol and Shakespeare have in common? They can both be found literally everywhere in various forms and incarnations, and they’re both pretty darn good.
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