[ via cracked.com ]

Shakespeare. The Bard. His name evokes poetry, love and the terror of memorizing 10 whole lines of “To be, or not to be” for your high school English class. Sure, his plays have some action, but it’s mostly tragic romance like Romeo and Juliet, or boring history like Henry VI, right?

Wrong. In addition to being the “greatest English writer in history,” Billy Shakes was also one of the most insane, violent, out of left-field wackos who ever picked up a pen. For example …