Shakespeare, the Plague and Lockdown. In these times when 2 to 5% of those who contract Coronavirus will die, it might be timely to think of Shakespeare's time when the Plague killed 50% of those who contracted it.
As a young boy, William Shakespeare probably avoided the smaller plagues that hit Stratford upon Avon by spending time by the fire. The fleas from rats would avoid the heat and smoke of the fire. During Shakespeare's time he experienced four great periods of lockdown from the Plague. One in 1582 when he was 18 years old and had just married Ann Hathaway and she was three months pregnant. It is likely that Shakespeare had no work at this time and they lived as a young couple with his parents so he probably spent most of his time indoors.
The second was in 1592-1593. Shakespeare was in London at time and he used his time to make the transition from actor to playwright writing 2 to 3 plays during the lockdown. he was probably locked down for 30 days at a time and every time there was a new set of outbreaks, the 30 days would start again.
Late in July 1596, a small bout of the plague hit Stratford upon Avon. In early August 1596, Shakespeare's son Hamnet died at the age of eleven. Shakespeare probably could not get back into Stratford upon Avon for the funeral.
The 1603 lockdown and closures of theatres was different since early in 1603, Queen Elizabeth I had died. 33,347 died in England in 1603 due to The Plague according to the Bills of Mortality. When the lockdowns started late in 1603, they were long. Shakespeare probably did a set of three or four 30 day lockdowns. Food and beer would have been delivered to his room in London. He spent the time collecting together his sonnets and writing more and getting them ready for publication. In 1603, the Elizabethan pamphleteer Thomas Dekker wrote a chilling account of the chaos and despair brought by the plague:
"Imagine then that all this while, Death (like a Spanish Leagar, or rather like stalking Tamberlaine) hath pitched his tents, (being nothing but a heape of winding sheets tacked together) in the sinfully-polluted Suburbes: the Plague is Muster-maister and Marshall of the field: Burning Feauers, Boyles, Blaines, and Carbuncles, the Leaders, Lieutenants, Serieants, and Corporalls: the maine Army consisting (like Dunkirke) of a mingle-mangle, viz. dumpish Mourners, merry Sextons, hungry Coffin-sellers, scrubbing Bearers, and nastie Graue-makers: but indeed they are the Pioners of the Campe, that are imployed onely (like Moles) in casting up of earth and digging of trenches; Feare and Trembling (the two catch-polles of Death) arrest every one: No parley will be graunted, no composition stood vpon, But the Allarum is strucke up, the Toxin ringes out for life, and no voice heard but Tue, Tue, Kill, Kill." (The Wonderful Yeare, 1603)
There are a few references to plague in Shakespeare's plays. The most notable is when Shakespeare has Romeo and Juliet die because a message is delayed due to a town's closure due to the Plague. He also refers to the plague in many other plays including The Tempest (I, ii, 426), Timon of Athens (IV, iii, 120) and finally in 'King Lear' (II, iv, 242) when King Lear describes his daughter Goneril:
"But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;
Or rather a disease that's in my flesh,
Which I must needs call mine: thou art a boil,
A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle,
In my corrupted blood."
