Table 1.

 Plays in which a character dies from strong emotion*

Play and reference†	Character dying	Emotion and its cause
Love's Labour's Lost 5.2.14	Catherine's sister	Grief at unrequited love
Romeo and Juliet 5.3.209	Montague's wife	Grief at her son Romeo's banishment
Othello 5.2.212	Brabantio	Grief at his daughter marrying Othello the Moor
King Lear 5.3.195	Gloucester	Mixed grief at his blindness and joy at being reunited with his son Edgar
King Lear 5.3.309	Lear‡	Mixed grief at Cordelia's murder and hope that she might still be alive
Antony and Cleopatra 4.10.22	Enobarbus‡	Grief and shame at his desertion of Antony
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.283	Iras‡	Grief at Cleopatra's imminent suicide
The Winter's Tale 3.2.142	Mamillius (child)	Grief at his mother Hermione's unjust imprisonment
Cymbeline 1.1.37	Posthumus' father	Grief at death of two sons in battle
Cymbeline 5.6.26,57	Queen	Grief at her son's mysterious disappearance and despair at her own homicidal wickedness

*Lady Macbeth is omitted as she seems to commit suicide (Macbeth 5.11.36); so, probably, does the frenzied Lady Constance (King John 4.2.122; 3.4.105). The case of Cardinal Wolsey is debatable; he was “broken with the storms of state” when he fell sick and died within a few days (All is True aka Henry VIII 4.2.15-30).

†Plays are listed in order of composition. References (act, scene, line) are to the Norton Shakespeare.⁶

‡Dies on stage.