Word and Plague in the Second Quarto Hamlet

On the day of James Stuart’s unhurried descent from Scotland to claim his kingship—April 5, 1603—London’s Court of Aldermen was busy. The magistrates ordered poor relief, more watches, and a vagabond round-up for St. George’s Parish, an impoverished, unlucky neighborhood in Southwark.¹ These orders had little to do with James’s imminent arrival. They were instead the first official response to news of the bubonic plague, which was reported in the suburbs on March 3. The ailment triggered the clicks and whirs of civic rule and the intrusive vigilance that signals governmental anxiety. But there was good reason for