Here are passages from seven of Shakespeare’s darkest plays that derive from North’s earlier writings.
Coriolanus’s Belly-Fable Conflates 3 Fables, All Written by North
In an earlier example, we noted that the playwright of Julius Caesar was able to recall passages from North’s Dial while copying passages from North’s Plutarch. In this example, he intertwines stories from three of North’s translations. As is well known, in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Menenius’s fable, in which “all the body’s members / Rebelled against…
Arden’s Speech on the Fear of God and Speech of Men
In North’s Dial of Princes, Marcus Aurelius complains that in most instances, religious teachings and concern for reputation are often enough to keep women virtuous. But, he says, “if the fear of the Gods, the infamy of the person, and the speech of men do not restrain the woman, all the chastisements of the world…
North’s “Dial” and Caesar’s Speech on Death and Cowards
As is well known, Caesar’s speech that “Cowards die many times before their deaths” was hinted at in North’s Plutarch’s Lives. But previously, it was believed that Shakespeare took that hint and then refashioned it himself with many new details. Yet, as we see both above and below, the specific words and notions of the…
Romeo’s Sorrow
In North’s own copy of his translation of the 1582 edition of The Dial of Princes, the translator adds a marginal note highlighting the “description of sorrow (Fol. 296 in 1582 edition; 475 in 1619 ed.) The passage describes how people act when they are depressed: they crave solitude, hate the day, love the night,…
The Miseries of Hecuba and Hamlet’s Play to Catch The Conscience of a King
After Hamlet watches an actor perform a tragic description of Hecuba’s agonies caused by the “tyrant Pyrrhus,” he expresses astonishment at the actor’s abilities to fake such deep sorrow: “For Hecuba! / What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, / That he should weep for her?” (2.2.558-60). In this same speech, the Prince then…
Lear’s Poor Naked Wretches Who Must Borrow Clothing From Beasts
In The Dial of Princes, North contrasts the poor state of human beings, who are born naked and defenseless, with that of beasts, who possess a number of natural gifts that help them survive: “to birds she [Nature] hath given wings … to the lions teeth … to the foxes subtilty” (471). The chapter especially stresses…
Iago’s Speech on He Who Robs Me of My Good Name
Thomas North would publish his first translation, The Dial of Princes, in 1557, seven years before Shakespeare was born. And we do not even complete its first page before we come across something that sounds suspiciously Shakespearean — specifically, a passage that reads much like Iago’s speech on the thief of reputation in Othello. North’s…