Will a curse help carry out body disposition desires? Shakespeare thought so.

William Shakespeare is buried in the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon.  Some scholars believe that he was very concerned about the disposition of his body upon death and thus wrote on a stone marker which is now above his grave, "Blest be the man that spares these stones and curst be he that moves my bones."

His gravesite, a heavily visited tourist destination, is deteriorating.  According to AP, Workers Brave Shakespeare's Curse in Restoring the Bard's Grave, FoxNews.com, May 28, 2008:

People who love the church and its place in British literary history want to fix it — provided they can do so without digging up Shakespeare's remains and facing the mysterious threat.

"We're avoiding the curse," said Josephine Walker, a spokeswoman for the Friends of Shakespeare's Church group. "We are not lifting the stones, we are not looking underneath, and the curse is for the bones underneath, so the curse is irrelevant for this work."