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William Shakespeare

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Globe Illustrated Shakespeare
Picard's copy of The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare: The Complete Works

William Shakespeare was a playwright and poet in England, Earth in the late 16th century and early 17th century, and may or may not have been one of the many aliases of the immortal Flint. His works are counted among the best representations of Human literature. They include 154 sonnets and 38 plays, such as Hamlet, Macbeth, The Tempest, Henry V, Julius Caesar, Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Merchant of Venice.

History Edit

William Shakespeare
Painting of William Shakespeare

In 1986, a painting of William Shakespeare was on sale at an antique store in San Francisco. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

Claudius Marcus - coat of arms
Shakespeare coat of arms used as Claudius Marcus' insignia

In 2153, Shakespeare's works were among the examples of Earth literature provided to the Vissians. Vissian Captain Drennik later quoted from Hamlet and expressed admiration for Macbeth. Before departing, Captain Jonathan Archer advised them to take their time in reading the plays. (ENT: "Cogenitor")

In the year 2155 in the mirror universe, Phlox commented to T'Pol that Shakespeare's work was similar in both their universe and the primary universe. (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II")

In 2266, the USS Enterprise hosted the Karidian Company of Players, a traveling Shakespearean acting troupe. While on board they put on a performance of Hamlet. (TOS: "The Conscience of the King")

In 2269, at the Elba II asylum, Marta cites the Sonnet XVIII by Shakespeare, and claims that she wrote it, but Garth corrects her. (TOS: "Whom Gods Destroy")

By 2293, the works of Shakespeare were known to Klingons such as Chancellor Gorkon and General Chang. Gorkon stated that Shakespeare could only truly be experienced in "the original Klingon", and Chang quoted liberally from Shakespeare's plays. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)

Captain Picard displayed a volume of Shakespeare's complete works in his Ready Room aboard the USS Enterprise-D in 2364. (TNG: "Hide and Q")

According to Captain Picard, there is no better way to learn about the Human condition than to embrace Shakespeare. In order to do so, Data studied Henry V on the holodeck. (TNG: "The Defector")

In 2366, in order to rescue Lwaxana Troi from DaiMon Tog, Picard recited a string of quotes from Shakespeare's sonnets and Othello. (TNG: "Ménage à Troi")

When the senior officers of the Enterprise time traveled from 2368 to 19th century San Francisco they obtained a room at a local boarding house. Unable to pay the fees required them, Picard and his crew diverted the attention of the proprietress by convincing her that she should play a part in their touring production of Shakespeare's plays, specifically A Midsummer Night's Dream. (TNG: "Time's Arrow, Part II")

As part of his exploration of Humanity in 2370, Lieutenant Commander Data used holodeck reenactments of the plays of Shakespeare to examine the Human condition, playing the part of Prospero in The Tempest, and Henry V in the eponymous play. (TNG: "Emergence")

Julian Bashir introduced Deep Space 9's Cardassian tailor, Elim Garak to Shakespeare in the 2370s. (DS9: "Improbable Cause") While the Battle of the Omarion Nebula was raging and the Romulan-Cardassian fleet was being destroyed, Garak paraphrased a portion of Julius Caesar to Enabran Tain: "I'm afraid the fault, dear Tain, is not in our stars but in ourselves." (DS9: "The Die is Cast")

In 2376, Janeway described a message that had been composed to communicate with neucleogenic lifeforms as "Not exactly Shakespeare." (VOY: "Equinox, Part II")

List of works Edit

Appendices Edit

Background information Edit

Because of Chancellor Gorkon's remark in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country that "You have never experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon", members of the Klingon Language Institute translated the text of Hamlet into Klingon. It was subsequently published by Pocket Books as The Klingon Hamlet. The KLI has also translated Much Ado About Nothing into Klingon, and selections from both works were performed in Klingon by the Washington Shakespeare Company in a 2010 fundraising benefit which also featured George Takei. [1]

References Edit

William Shakespeare and the Star Trek franchise have always been closely linked. Characters in the series quote the bard, episodes are titled after his works, and stories are adapted to fit the outer space locales. The following is a list of examples taken from the various series.

The Original Series Edit
The Karidian Company of Players perform Hamlet
"Dagger of the Mind"
The title is a reference to Macbeth (II.i.38-39): "Or art thou but / A dagger of the mind, a false creation, / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?"
Witches of Pyris VII
The three witches on Pyris VII
"The Conscience of the King"
The title is a reference to Hamlet, Act II, Scene II: "the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." The entire episode is around Shakespeare's works and themes, including the Karidian company performing both Hamlet and Macbeth on screen.
The crew of the USS Enterprise beams down to the surface of the planet Pyris VII. Once on the ground, they investigate and are confronted by three witches reminiscent of those from Macbeth who chant:
"Winds shall rise
and fog descend
So leave here all
or meet your end.
At this point, the logical Commander Spock replies, "Very bad poetry, Captain."
"By Any Other Name"
The title is from Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II. Kirk makes additional reference while talking with a woman as he holds out a rose-like flower and says, "As the Earth poet Shakespeare wrote, 'That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'."
"Elaan of Troyius"
Here the plot is lifted straight from The Taming of the Shrew with Kirk playing the part of Petruchio. Also, Captain Kirk's difficulty escaping Elaan's charms to fight a threatening Klingon warship echoes Antony and Cleopatra.
"Is There in Truth No Beauty?"
Kollos, in Spock's body, references The Tempest when Kollos sees Miranda Jones for the first time through humanoid eyes: "O brave new world, That has such creatures in't." Miranda replies with the play's next line, " 'Tis new to thee." Additionally, the character Miranda Jones would seem to be named after Prospero's daughter Miranda from the play.
"Plato's Stepchildren"
Kirk recites part of Sonnet 57 while being manipulated by the Platonians.
"Wink of an Eye"
Although the phrase itself has passed into the modern vernacular and may not have been intentionally taken from Shakespeare, it originates in The Winter's Tale (V.ii.112-133): "every wink of an eye some new grace will be born: our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge." A Voyager episode would later be called "Blink of an Eye", a commonly used variant.
"Whom Gods Destroy"
Marta partially quotes Sonnet 18.1-4 to Garth of Izar and claims authorship. Garth is not fooled by Marta's attempt. Marta drops a beat and uses a modern translation of a line, "and summer's lease hath all too soon" instead of the original, "too short a date." Though her interpretation is correct, the missing beat causes the iambic pentameter of the sonnet to break. This disruption may be a reflection on the chaotic situations of the episode.
"Requiem for Methuselah"
The plot of this episode borrows parts of The Tempest.
"All Our Yesterdays"
The title comes from Macbeth, Act V, Scene V. It refers to the inhabitants of Sarpeidon, who intended to escape from the future by living in the past.
Claudius Marcus - coat of arms
Claudius Marcus' coat of arms.
"Bread and Circuses"
The coat of arms of the Roman Proconsul, Claudius Marcus was actually Shakespeare's coat of arms.
The Animated Series Edit
"How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth"
The title is taken from a passage in King Lear, Act I scene IV: "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!"
The Next Generation Edit
"Encounter at Farpoint"
Picard briefly references the line from Henry VI, Part II "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" (IV.ii.74).
"The Naked Now"
Data recreates Shylock's court monologue from The Merchant of Venice, asking, "When you prick me do I not... leak?" The original line, in which a Jewish character tries to convince a group of Christians that Jews too are people, reads, "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?" (III.i.60-63).
"Hide and Q"
Q misquotes As You Like It, saying "All the galaxy is a stage." Picard calls him on it. Later Picard states that he does view mankind as "one day becoming that" which Hamlet asserts of it in irony: "Oh I know Hamlet. And what he might say with irony, I say with conviction: What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!" (II.ii.304-308).

Later in the episode, declining Riker's offer to endow him with humanity, Data again references Hamlet, quoting "This above all: to thine own self be true," from Polonius' speech to Laertes in Act 1, Scene 3.

Annotated Shakespeare
"The Schizoid Man"
When it becomes clear that before Doctor Ira Graves died he must have programmed his own mind into Data's body, Picard, marvelling at the achievement, recites the last two lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
"The Measure Of A Man"
While searching through Data's belongings, Bruce Maddox finds a book of Shakespeare's works, a gift from Captain Picard. Inside is a quote from Sonnet 29: "When in disgrace with fortune in men's eyes, / I all alone beweep my outcast state."
"The Defector"
The episode begins with Data performing Act IV, Scene I of Henry V, unaware that Captain Picard is watching. After the captain applauds his performance, Data says that he is using Shakespeare's works as a way to study Humanity, specifically observing the title-role performances of Olivier, Branagh (whose adaptaion was still in theaters when the episode aired), Shapiro and Kullnark.
The role of Michael Williams was played, under heavy makeup, by Patrick Stewart, who, a noted Shakespearean actor, had asked to appear as one of his characters.
"The Most Toys"
Believing that Data is dead, Picard reads aloud from the android's copy of Shakespeare's works, quoting from Hamlet: "He was a man, take him for all in all, / I shall not look upon his like again" (I ii 187-188).
"Ménage à Troi"
Picard recites a string of quotes from Shakespeare's sonnets and Othello as part of his facade.
  • Sonnet 147.1-2
  • Sonnet 141.1-4
  • Sonnet 18.1-2
  • Othello. V.ii.13–16.
It is interesting to note that Shakespeare's sonnets as a collective represent a ménage à trois that Shakespeare was believed to have been a part of (the young man, the dark lady, and the rival poet). Whether or not this information about the sonnets inspired the title of the episode, "Ménage à Troi," is unknown.
"The Mind's Eye"
This title may have been taken from Hamlet (I.i.112) "A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye." The phrase is also referenced later in Hamlet (I.ii.186). The phrase also appears in Plato's Republic.
"Time's Arrow, Part II"
Trapped in the past (San Francisco in the 1880s), Captain Picard explains their seemingly odd behavior by explaining that they are practicing a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. They later rehearse Act II Scene i with Riker as Oberon, Data as Puck and Crusher as the First Fairy.
When Picard awakens in Q's 'afterlife,' Q quotes briefly from Hamlet's famous 'To Be Or Not To Be,' speech with the words "Now that you've shuffled off the mortal coil," from Act 3 Scene 1.
"Thine Own Self"
The title is taken from Polonius' advice in Hamlet, Scene I, Act III: "This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man."
Data as Prospero
Data as Prospero
Deep Space Nine Edit
"Past Prologue"
The title is taken from The Tempest, Act II, Scene I. It actually goes "What's past is prologue." As prologue is something that comes before the body, the intention is that the past (specifically that of Kira Nerys) is the prologue for the series, as this was only its second episode.
"Blood Oath"
Writer Peter Allan Fields based Kor (as seen in DS9) on Falstaff. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
"Heart of Stone"
The title is taken from Twelfth Night (III.iv.201), in which Olivia pleads with a man who is actually Viola in disguise: "I have said too much unto a heart of stone." In the episode, Odo is similarly trapped with a Founder pretending to be Kira and betrays his love for her only to learn he has been talking to an impostor all along.
"The Die is Cast"
The title is from Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars, the following lines were paraphrased from Julius Caesar I.ii.
  • Tain: "How could this happen?"
"Statistical Probabilities"
While watching Damar's speech, Jack quotes Shakespeare twice: first a line from Henry IV, Part II: "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown." then a line from Macbeth: "Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more! Damar does murder sleep."
"Once More Unto the Breach"
The title is taken from Henry V, Act III, Scene I. "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more." (The title is also spelled "Once More Into the Breach" in re-run listings.)
"Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"
Dr. Bashir uses the phrase "never say die" at one point, which catches Senator Cretak by surprise. When she asks what it means, Luther Sloan, who claims etymology is one of his hobbies, politely interrupts to explain that the line originates from Merchant of Venice and has passed into the vernacular as "an exhortation never to give up".
"Tacking Into the Wind"
Kahless is quoted as saying "Great men do not seek power; they have power thrust upon them." This is a variation on a line from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night :"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." This parallel may explain Chang's claim that the Bard was originally written in Klingon.
"The Dogs of War"
The title is taken from Julius Caesar. The quote is "...and Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge with Ate by his side comes hot from hell, shall in these confines with a monarchs voice Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth, with carrion men moaning for burial."
Voyager Edit
Shylock's speech from The Merchant of Venice is recreated again, by the title character when he claims to Captain Janeway that he's a separate living creature with his own will and rights.
"Mortal Coil"
The title is taken from Hamlet, Act III, Scene I. "To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil..."
Films Edit
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
A copy of King Lear sits upon Khan's bookshelf on the Botany Bay.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Firstly, the title is from Hamlet, Act III, Scene I: "But that the dread of something after death, / The undiscovered country from whose bourn / No traveller returns....".

Apocrypha Edit

Several Star Trek comics have bore titles taken from Shakespeare:

External links Edit

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