Pam Webb

Bard Bits: Out of Date or is that a clock ticking?

Shakespeare didn’t make the IMDb “goofs” in his day, since IMDb wasn’t up and running during the Elizabethan era, but he certainly has his share of them scattered throughout his plays. Norrie Epstein routs out some of his gaff’s in her book The Friendly Shakespeare as does Mental Floss in one of their posts.

Julius Caesar
Set in 45 BC, Act 2, Scene 1 states:

Brutus
Peace! Count the clock.

Cassius
The clock hath stricken three.

According to Mental Floss the first mechanical clock was was found in England in 1283, more than 1300 years after Caesar’s death.

Titus Andronicus
The Roman conqueror Titus Andronicus offers up the greeting of “bonjour”–or maybe Titus was multi-lingual.

King Lear
Although the play supposedly takes place during the eighth century, Shakespeare adds in more modern bits by having Lear call for his tailor and Gloucester requesting his spectacles in order to read Edmund’s letter.

Antony and Cleopatra
In Act 2, Scene 5, Charmain is invited by Cleopatra to play billiards. Yes, billiards. The earliest recording of the game is around 15th century Europe. The game is postponed due to lack of interest and a sore arm, when in likelihood neither knew how to play the game since it hadn’t been invented yet. Their solution is go fishing, a pastime that goes way back into the past.

Henry VI
Henry VI was King of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, so when Shakespeare mentions Niccolo Machiavelli who wrote The Prince in the 16th century, the obvious mention is showcasing Machiavelli’s influence or it could have been Shakespeare liked to drop the name of a popular author of the time.

Troilus and Cressida
Shakespeare’s love story during the Trojan War is at odds with the mention of Aristotle, born in 384 BC. In Act 2, Scene 2, Hector compares Paris and Troilus to the young men “whom Aristotle thought unfit to hear moral philosophy.” Unless there was an Aristotle available during Hector’s time, he had decent handle on wisdom from another time.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Chinese are accredited with inventing gunpowder around 850 AD, which is ancient. However, Shakespeare set A Midsummer Night’s Dream in ancient Greece. In Act 3, Scene 2, Puck states how Bottom’s friends will run and flee, much like wild geese hearing “the gun’s report.”  In other words, Bottom’s crew will vacate the area as if a gun had been fired. The Greeks were certainly talented, but no guns were about at that time.

Shakespeare’s “goofs” may or may not have been intentional. For all we know he decided to have a bit of fun and drop in contemporary aspects to spice up the play. In any case these anachronisms provide a “spot the oops” moment in the play.

Have you spotted any other “goofs” in his plays?