Introducing Shakespeare: A Graphic Guide - Nick Groom, Piero 2013

Death

Less than a month after probating this document, Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, aged 52. Evidently he had a fever, possibly typhoid. According to a Stratford doctor, this had been contracted when …

… SHAKESPEARE DRAYTON, AND BEN JONSON, HAD A MERIE MEETING, AND ITT SEEMS DRANK TOO HARD. WHAT IS ODD IS THAT EVEN IF SHAKESPEARE WASN’T BORN ON ST GEORGE’S DAY, IT WAS THE DAY ON WHICH HE DIED.

Shakespeare is buried “full seventeen foot deep, deep enough to secure him” (according to a visitor 78 years later) in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. It is claimed, of course, that he wrote his epitaph himself …

GOOD FREND FOR

IESVS SAKE FORBEARE,

TO DIGG THE DVST

ENCLOASED HEARE!

BLESSED BE YE MAN YT

SPARES THES STONES,

AND CVRST BE HE YT

MOVES MY BONES.

The current stone is in fact a copy of the original which was replaced in the middle of the 18th century.

PROBABLY ONLY A SIXTH OF ALL THE PLAYS WRITTEN BY ENGLISH PLAYWRIGHTS BETWEEN 1560 AND 1642 SURVIVE. IT IS THAT LUCK THAT HAS EXERCISED CERTAIN CULTURAL COMMENTATORS EVER SINCE. SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS SURVIVED BECAUSE HE WAS ENORMOUSLY POPULAR, BUT ALSO BECAUSE HE WAS LUCKY.