University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

—Sir Thomas Lucy's private room in the Court House.
Sir Thomas Lucy
[laying down a paper].
Now am I perfect, now can so direct
The steps, bewildered else, of sightless Justice.
No stay, or slip, or stumble need she fear.
How well it doth become the magistrate
To bench him squarely with a mind made up
Ere he hath heard a word about the case
In public session, nailed to his opinion,
Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved!
Sic volo, sic jubeo, stat pro ratione voluntas.
Majestic proclamation! Held this not,
The pillared firmament were rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble. But it holdeth.
My foe is at my feet, there shall he lie,
Though all the angels swore his alibi.
[A knocking at the door.
Tap! tap! tap! tap! What! summoned forth already
To the judicial seat! In! menial!

Enter Lady Lucy.
Lady Lucy.
Sir Thomas, have you thought about the sentence?
I know you wont to carry your awards
To Court all cut and dried, like wholesome blisters,
Ready for instant application.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
My mind is labouring towards this very point,
And 'twixt the blandishments of heavy whipping
And long imprisonment hangs balancing:
Whiche'er it be, he takes a turn at the pillory,
In lieu of fine our clemency remits,
Knowing that nullos habet reditus.

Lady Lucy.
Whip not, Sir Thomas, nor imprison him,
But send to other counties fugitive.
There let him to the greenwood go alone
A banished man.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Would'st thou be nut-brown maid?
You greatly wrong your reputation
Suing for one against whom, were you honest,
It rather should become you to inflame me.
'Tis not so much resentment at his trespass
Who leapt the pale that held my lovely deer,
But dispeace of mine own I am expelling,
And slur on you that I am wiping off,
That load my sentence with severity.
Or you, or I, should be inexorable.
If you are slandered, I avenge your honour;
But, are you spotted, vindicate my own.

Lady Lucy.
Slandered I am, Sir Thomas, this believe,
But dread lest slander truth become, unless
My suasion moves. Would'st make me pity Shakespeare?
Thou ne'er had'st deemed him poacher, but for me.
Shall I not hate myself if savage stripes
Deface a youth so gentle? must I not
Make show of my compassion and remorse?
And will these press no further? Tempt not thou.
If long he linger pent in noisome gaol,
Sure penitential thought shall lodge with him,
And to his plaints my fancies shall be ears;
Comforts shall I procure, and anodynes,
Which tokens shall become, and haply hence
May grow to embassies and stratagems.
O put not wantonly my faith in peril!
Banish the man upon condition
Of sharpest penalty be he again
In Warwickshire beheld, and with one stroke
Of policy disarm all jeopardies.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Lady, I see thou lovest him, and fearest;
This angers me and moves me to deny thee
What thing soever thou solicitest.
But, on the other hand, thou reasonest well.
My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred,
And I myself see not the bottom of it.

Enter an Attendant.
Attendant.
Sir Thomas, Mistress Shakespeare craves admittance.

Lady Lucy.
Deny her, good Sir Thomas.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
May she not
Bring light to our perplexities?
[To Attendant.
Admit her.

Enter Ann Shakespeare.
Ann Shakespeare.
My reverence to your honour and my Lady!

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Mistress, if pardon for thy spouse entreating,
Thine errand know for vain, and spare to vex
Our ears with idle importunity.

Ann Shakespeare.
Not such is my petition, noble Sir.
Long have I groaned o'er William's evil courses,
And mourned to know my household fed by rapine,
And mine own stomach's pure integrity
Polluted by his depredations.
How oft when spit hath turned, or caldron bubbled,
Mid savoury smells and steams have I with voice
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman,
Demanded, William, whence this venison?
And he would laugh, and cite some silly tale
Of Theseus or the ghost of Herne the Hunter.
Pardon I pray not then, but penalty
Conducive to his reformation;
Like lightning, sanctifying where it strikes.
And in my poor conceit, the lash, applied
By loving spirits wielding arms of flesh,
Best scared this poaching devil out of him.

Lady Lucy.
Sure in thy cradle thou did'st sup the milk
That Romulus and Remus throve upon.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Or else wert nurtured in Hyrcania.

Ann Shakespeare.
Under your graces' favour, I am neither
My seeming or your deeming. Wis ye not
Sharp stripes, his portion, but a mockery
To my invisible hurts and viewless wounds?
Which well I now may bear, since at my side
Sudden occasion shines a radiant angel,
Armed with the lictor's rod that shall redeem him,
Raised with the lark to sing at heaven's gate.
O base to set his flesh above his spirit!
But 'tis time's veriest nick. A prosperous star
Surmounts my zenith now, whose influence, if
I court not but omit, eftsoons my William
Droops in a noose; and other fates and fortunes,
With his unseverably braced and morticed,
Turn round with it as spokes turn with the wheel.
Am I to take no thought for our poor children?
What shall these eat if father goes to gaol?

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Thou hast a tribe of brethren.

Ann Shakespeare.
Who flung
My innocence

Lady Lucy
[aside].
O most mendacious minx!

Ann Shakespeare.
With willing sport to the wild ocean
Of stormful wedlock, in their sister's person
Themselves relieving of unwelcome load,
And tying her to Shakespeare, sink or swim.
O scorpion progeny! of whom no more,
Lest I betray me to mine own reproof.
Beseech you then of your great charity
Suffer the sinner's weal to overpoise
The burdened scale of his transgressions,
Using such nice adjustment of the lash
As but a week may bind him to his bed,
Where he may call Repentance to efface
The long score he hath run up with the Fiend,
And be his own inquisitor, things past
Summoning to sessions of sweet silent thought,
Save when I moralise the spectacle.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Wilt thou procure a surgeon at thy charge
To salve his wounds?

Ann Shakespeare.
These peril not his days,
Being hurts of hide of cow, not horn of hart;
Yea rather windows in his corporal ark
For banished raven and returning dove.
For I will be his ministering angel,
To every groan responsive with a tear.
Salad and leek and cress I'll bring; nor gruel
Nor broth nor porridge scant; nor, be they needful,
Strange panaceas in a crystal bowl;
Mummy, and mandrake, Venice's famed treacle
(Whereof the asp is chief ingredient)
And choicest wormwood by myself distilled;
And cease not to upbraid him for his sins,
Save when I read him from some godly tome
The homilies of painful ministers:
Or, stilling objurgation, usher in
Reason with glass of Truth equipped to show him
The ass he hath enacted; or enlarge
On that great plucking forth of burning brands,
The wide dispersion of his hopeful scholars,
Who now shall 'scape the gallows, we may trust:
And how he needs must come to beggary,
Unless your honour, of your condescension,
Do give him some small place. Such discipline,
Chasing afar vain love and poetry,
Shall tame his spirit, and by slow degrees
Subdue him to the useful and the good.
O Lady Lucy, be my orator.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Mistress, Egeria revives in thee.
But know, our Lady hath already opened
Her mind to us, alleging weighty cause
Why thy unhappy husband, being so spotted,
Should not be striped to boot, but eat the bread
Of exile, far from pleasant Warwickshire.

Ann Shakespeare.
The Lady Lucy speaks not from her faith,
But from her need.

Lady Lucy.
I took thought for thy husband,
Of thy most base desertion prescient.
Thou rotten rib! most perfect fruit of Sodom,
If only thy exterior enticed!

Ann Shakespeare.
'Tis thou would'st lure him on the road to Sodom,
And I who Zionward would set his face.
And am I nothing? and the helpless children?

Lady Lucy.
See thou to that. I not abase my thought
To thee and to thy brats.

Ann Shakespeare.
If brats of Shakespeare's,
'Tis marvel, lady, that they are not yours.

Lady Lucy.
Sir Thomas, will you hear me thus insulted?

Ann Shakespeare.
Sir Thomas, weigh the provocation. Brats!!
The blessed babes!

Lady Lucy.
The ugly little monsters!

Ann Shakespeare.
Lady, say that again, and I will claw you.

Lady Lucy.
Sir Thomas, will you shield me from this fury?

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Peace, peace, I pray you peace.

Enter an Attendant.
Attendant.
The Court, Sir Thomas,
Expects its magistrate.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
There shines a rainbow!
Come, follow soberly, the pair of you.
[Aside.
Rough is the day, but we will rough it through.

[Exeunt.