By David Crystal and Ben Crystal (Oxford University Press)
If you don’t know your bodkin from your falchion, this is a book for you!
Shakespeare used a much wider vocabulary than we do today, so it is hardly surprising that many words in his plays are unknown to us, or have changed their meaning over the last 400 years (such as ‘gin’ – not an alcoholic drink, but a snare).
With illustrated sections on clothing, animals, weapons and many more, this is an indispensable book for making the plays more understandable.
You may never view an ousel cock the same again!
