Plague, Pox, & Disease in Shakespeare

Words like “Plague,” “Contagion” and “Pestilence” occur in Shakespeare’s works a surprising number of times, and that includes Hamlet. Because of the Covid-19 crisis, my readers may already have noticed that media outlets and Shakespeare organizations are sharing and re-publishing articles about black plague and smallpox in Shakespeare’s lifetime.


[Copper engraving of Doctor Schnabel (i.e., Dr. Beak), a plague doctor in seventeenth-century Rome, circa 1656, public domain, Wikipedia]

With all of the changes in the world and in my state of Minnesota, with school closings, and conferences and sporting events canceled, I decided it was time to do a little research about Shakespeare and the plague and the pox, as well as some research about occurrences of these words often associated with them.

Web Resources
Among the many good web resources on plague, smallpox, and diseases mentioned in Shakespeare, here are a few of my favorites:

James Shapiro: “How Shakespeare’s great escape from the plague changed theatre”
In 2015, The Guardian published an excerpt from James Shapiro’s book, 1606 (about an important year in the life of Shakespeare). It’s an excellent read.

Ben Cohen: “The Infectious Pestilence Did Reign”
On March 10 of this year, Slate.com published “an adapted excerpt” from Cohen’s book, The Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks, which examines some points about Shakespeare and the plague.

From The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, an excellent blog post by Holly Kelsey called "Pestilence and playwright" from September of 2016.

From the BBC and Shakespeare’s Restless World podcast, episode 17 of 20, “Plague and the Playhouse.”

From Shakespeare-Online, a web page called “Worst Diseases in Shakespeare’s London.”

From LiteraryGenius.info, a helpful web page called “Bubonic Plague and Shakespeare.”

A very short web page from InternetShakespeare at the University of Victoria in Canada, “The Plague.”

Occurrences of Keywords:
Here are some of the words, which I searched on OpenShakespeare.org.
For each word, I have two numbers: first how many times the database at OpenShakespeare finds occurrences of that word in all of their Shakespeare texts, and second, the number of times it occurs in Hamlet:

Plague: 105 (overall) / 2 (Hamlet: once by Hamlet, once by Claudius)

Contagion/Contatious: 7 (overall) / 3 (Hamlet: 1 by Hamlet, 2 by Laertes)

Pestilence/Pestilent: 21 (overall) / 3 (Hamlet: 2 by Hamlet, 1 by Claudius)

Infection: 23 (overall) / 0 (Hamlet)

Infectious: 7 (overall) / 0 (Hamlet)

Fever: 29 (overall) / 0 (Hamlet)

Sick*: 264 (overall) / 10 (Hamlet: 4x by Hamlet, 1x each by Francisco, Voltemond, Player Queen, Horatio, Gertrude, & Laertes)
*(incl. Sickly, sicklied, sickness, thought-sick)

Ill*: (overall: too many*) / 4 (Hamlet: 1 Horatio; 2 First Clown; 1 Hamlet)
(*The search engine was overwhelmed because of all the words that include “ill”: Still, fill, kill, will, etc. so it only showed results through King Lear, omitting any plays starting with later letters of the alphabet.)

Pox: 23 (overall) / 1 (Hamlet)

Blister: 10 (overall) / 1 (Hamlet)

Forehead: 25 (overall) / 2 (Hamlet: once by Claudius, once by Hamlet)

For these last three, historians and literary critics have long noted that Elizabeth I suffered from smallpox late in 1562, and that for this reason, she wore thick white makeup to cover the scars on her face; this makeup contained lead and may have given her lead poisoning, perhaps one of many factors leading to her death. There are a few moments in Hamlet involving the prince and the queen, and also Hamlet and the skull of Yorick, that seem to have this in mind.

This is not an exhaustive list: one might use a slightly different list of terms, and search Shakespeare texts edited by others, and come up with different results. But this is an interesting start, and it gets even more interesting when one looks at specific instances of the words in a particular play.

The Ten Plagues of Egypt, Job, & the End Times
Because the culture of Shakespeare's England was so influenced by mandatory church attendance and Bible reading, it's likely that many in his audiences may have viewed diseases and natural catastrophes as punishments or tests from a God who works in mysterious ways. The ten plagues of Egypt included pestilence, boils, and the death of firstborn, things easy to associate with Black Plague, smallpox, and other diseases. Especially as England approached the end of the 16th century, with The Dover Straits Earthquake of 1580 and frequent crop failures, as well as war with Spain and tensions with Rome, people wondered if the prophesied end of the world was upon them. Various passages in the bible (including Psalms, Proverbs, and the book of Job) reference how God tests his people and "refines" them like gold in a furnace of hardships, and the seven plagues of the end times are discussed in Revelations 15-16. (I do not read the bible this way or interpret contemporary events as fulfilling biblical prophesies.)


In upcoming weeks, I’ll take a closer look at instances of these words in Hamlet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: By noting bible passages in this blog, I am not intending to promote any religion over any other, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general. Only to point out how the Bible may have influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for reading!
My current project is a book tentatively titled “Hamlet’s Bible,” about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.

Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list):

https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html

I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider subscribing.