 | William Shakespeare, Pedagogue and Poacher |  |
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Scene III.
—Interior of the Court House, filled by the Public. Sir Thomas Lucy on the bench, Lady Lucy and Ann Shakespeare near him. Shakespeare standing in the dock, handcuffed. The Scholars sitting together outside the dock. The Fathers and Mother opposite. Clerk of the Court, Constable, Attendants, and Ushers. Moles leaving the witness-box.First Father.
[Aside to the Clerk of the Court.
Master, was this well howled?
The Clerk of the Court.
Most wolfishly.
The Mother.
How was the weeping?
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Very laudable.
So Niobe bewept herself to stone,
And Thisbe wailed by Ninny's monument.
Now silent sit and hopefully expect
The glad enlargement of your erring sons.
The Constable.
Hush! hush! Sir Thomas rises.
The Clerk of the Court.
Hush!
The Attendants and Ushers.
Hush!
The Public.
Hush!
Sir Thomas Lucy.
Friends and admirers, burgesses of Stratford!
So crammed the Court is with particulars,
More to adduce were superfluity.
Thou chiefly, Moles, another Androclus,
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And limping Justice bounds and roars again.
The Court knows what it knows, and what it knows not
It knows is immaterial to be known.
Yet of our equity, though but for form's sake,
We'll hear what the defendant has to say,
And if his speech do aggravate his guilt,
Will mark the advantage. Come, thou serpent, if
Thou hast justification, hiss it forth!
Shakespeare.
Sir Thomas, I plead guilty.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
Hast thou aught
Meet to be urged in mitigation?
Shakespeare.
Much, would the magistrate so deem it, but
'Twere faggot to the furnace of his wrath.
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Take heed, then, heat not thou the furnace sevenfold.
Ann Shakespeare.
William, be ruled, petition for a whipping.
Shakespeare.
I thank your Ladyship for your good counsel,
Which Prudence bids me hearken, yet should Truth
Upbraid me, did I miss the rare occasion
To bring her and Sir Thomas face to face
For confirmation of their crescive love.
She bids me say, Sir Thomas, that yourself
Create the fault you would chastise in me,
And keep yourself a poacher's school, your scholars
Men goaded into wrong by righteous anger
At small oppressions, petty grievances,
Affronts, contumelies, scarce perceived by him
Who gives, to him who takes esil and wormwood.
These spring, I know, from no embosomed malice,
But thoughtlessness and heady vanity,
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Perceive not that the peasant is a man,—
Praise him, he beams content; prick him, he bleeds;
Feed him, he guards your substance; starved, he steals it.
Deem you that I had robbed you of your deer
If you had taken nought from me and mine?
Wrongful the deed, I own, worse the example.
'Tis said, the world subsists by thievery.
The sun's an arrant spoiler of the ocean,
The moon conveys her pallid fire from him,
And earth and water plunder one another.
But you, Sir Thomas, rob both earth and water,
And would the sun and moon too, could you grasp them.
How many commons have you not devoured?
What paths not barred? where erst the villager
Was used to trip, but now slinks sullen, conscious
Both of his trespass and your injury,
And all for your game's sake. Far worse I deem it
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Do eat into our honest English nature.
For frankness roguery, for truth evasion,
For pleasure in his lord's prosperity
Envy and grudge, for honourable dealing
A settled purpose by sly practices
The scale unfairly weighted to adjust,
The fiend expelling by another fiend.
These cankers prey upon our England's blood,
Pray Heaven they bring not palsy. Would'st thou hearken
My friendly suasion, some kind passages,
Some acres of filched common given back,
Some paths unstopped, a courteous mien, the pressure
Of hand by toil made honourably rough,
Some gifts dispersed as duty, not as dole,
Some genial largesse from thy parks and warrens,
Some boons to recompense the ravaged crops,
Some mingling with the people's sports and pastimes,
And on the seat of justice, should'st thou strain
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Trust me, Sir Thomas, such slight condescensions
Would make thee, in thy sphere, as England's Queen
Whose throne is builded on her people's hearts.
Now, did I tell this populace I took
Thy deer for public cause, they would acclaim me,
Shakespeare, the Robin Hood of Warwickshire.
I shall not tell them, 'twere but half the truth.
I am the people's poet, not their tribune.
Sport pointed me the way with beechen spear,
And Youth, too young to know what conscience is.
This is the head and front of my offending,
And fault it is that Time is ever mending.
No exculpation plead I for my crime,
Save the most brisk and giddy-paced time
Of this my twentieth year, and overplus
Of spirit frolicsome and venturous,
And sick and sorry heart that bade me roam
To shun the hell of an unquiet home,
And love of the wild creatures in their lairs,
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And if these pleas avail not, here I stand
Ready to take my sentence at thy hand:
But not upon my boys thy vengeance wreak,
Branding them miscreants for a youthful freak.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
A goodly speech, well studied and well spoken;
Be sure it shall avail to shape thy sentence.
Lady Lucy
[aside].
Alas! his bosom swells with pent-up fury.
It tears him as fire tears a thunder-cloud.
Ann Shakespeare
[aside].
If he deliver sentence in this fluster
I'll have to nurse my William for a month:
Which for his blessing overrule, kind Heaven.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
Not much this cause demands of subtlety;
It needeth but discrimination.
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For me, by edict of forecasting Heaven
Ordained to be a county magistrate.
But when the judge accedes to passing sentence
Light doth he need, and to be done to wit
Touching the wretched culprit at the bar,
His dispositions and his antecedents,
And who should know them better than his wife?
Stand forth, Ann Shakespeare.
Ann Shakespeare.
At your honour's bidding.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
Speak to thy husband's character.
Ann Shakespeare.
Great Sir,
A good youth were he, were he not a poet,
And were we not too nearly of an age,
As to the Court is plainly visible.
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[aside].
O brazen hussey!
Ann Shakespeare.
Had I caught him younger,
Much had I made of him, much yet will make,
Will you by my persuasion rule your doom,
And yoke Law's lion with my lamb of love.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
What chastisement deem'st thou most meet for him?
Ann Shakespeare.
The lash, grave Sir, but with such love and wisdom
Attempered, that it smite nor less nor more
Than needful for his subjugation
To his much injured and most loving wife,
But lay him gently on a restful couch
For profitable hours of penitence,
And colloquy with me, continuous tasting
The medicated honey of my speech
Like time, as half renews the dwindled moon,
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But do not, with mistaking kindness, fix
The thirsty leech on his poor family.
I will attend him, for he is my husband;
Diet his sickness, for it is my office;
And will have no attorney but myself.
Lady Lucy.
O good Sir Thomas, send the man a-packing,
And be we rid and quit of him, and bar
The gate of his return with penalty.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
Dames, to your service I am held and bounden,
Not as mere judge, but by devoir of knighthood
Therein most happy, may I stead you both.
[To the Public.
The Court hath listened to these ladies, urging
One exile, one the scourge. Ere they had spoken,
I leaned to neither, but imprisonment.
But rapt audition of their eloquence
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To Dardan Paris when the heavenly three
Sought the Idæan mountain all unrobed,
Contending for the apple. Could the shepherd
Have shared it among all, what ravages
Of devastation he had spared the world!
Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta maneres.
What Paris might not do, Sir Thomas may:
And being, like him, confronted with the charms
Of three most beauteous competitors,
Banishment, flagellation, durance vile,
And not, like him, corrupted with a bribe,
Or violently in my proper person
Enamoured of their most divine embraces,
I do award the apple unto all.
That is to say, Shakespeare shall first be whipped,
Imprisoned then till healed, then for three years
Exiled to distant shires, there to propound,
With carriage apt and speech mellifluous,
Strange doctrines unto country gentlemen.
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Shall I have license to attend my lord,
And piteously beweep his horrid scars,
And soothe with opiates and leniments,
And reprehend him for his sinfulness,
And read him printed piety, and touch
His spirit to fine issues? Intercede,
I supplicate your Ladyship.
Shakespeare.
Alas
For blind Authority beating with his staff
The child that would have led him! Thou, Sir Thomas,
Thinking to shame me in thy lady's sight,
Sham'st but thyself in mine. Thou may'st not touch
My spirit that can suffer and be strong.
Lady Lucy.
I doubt Sir Thomas sleeps not well to-night.
My tongue is shorter than thy Anna's, William,
By a good yard, but yet methinks 'twill serve.
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Relieve our presence of the knave's pollution.
The Constable.
Sir Thomas, I'm afeard to touch the man.
Thou heardest? he hath a familiar spirit,
Perchance an impish sootikin, but haply
Tail-switching Lucifer, Hell's emperor.
Shakespeare.
Aye, man, I hold in fee ten thousand spirits,
And more can summon from the vasty deep,
Who at my word shall seize thy knight and thee,
And set bemocked upon the public stage,
Stuff for the humorous world's derision.
The Constable.
What did I tell your honour?
The Public
[from the lower end of the Court].
Place! give place!
A messenger from her dread Majesty!
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Lady Lucy.
Bespattered is he all from head to foot.
Urgent must be his errand.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
To foul treason,
Belike, it hath respect, or Papistry.
The Constable
[aside].
I'll free me of the Pope and Devil together,
Getting me from the Court.
[Exit hastily.
Sir Thomas Lucy
to Leicester.
Our loves and duties,
Like greyhounds straining in the leashes, fret
To know the cause of thy commanded speed,
That the effect may follow.
Leicester.
I have charge
To claim the body of one William Shakespeare.
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Shakespeare! Hath rumour of the man's malfeasance
Reached then the royal ear? deems our liege Lady
Whipping too good for him? If so, our sentence
Admits recast.
Leicester.
Thou grossly errest, Lucy.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
Lucy! Thou Lucyest me! Knave malapert!
But for her state and grandeur who hath sent thee
(Most unadvisedly, if it be lawful
In aught her Grace's prudence to impeach),
I would commit thee.
Leicester.
Lucy, thou art blind.
Can mere disguisement of a horseman's cloak,
And travel-stains conceal the Lord of Leicester?
[Throws off the cloak and appears dressed in a rich suit.
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Leicester! The Earl!
Sir Thomas Lucy.
O good my lord—
Leicester.
Sir Thomas,
Conceive all said on thy part and on mine.
Time rushes on, upsetting Compliment.
Excuse be hushed, and my commission speeded
By sight of William Shakespeare.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
There he stands
Manacled in the dock.
Leicester.
What his offence?
Sir Thomas Lucy.
Heading a band of youthful desperadoes,
He burst the barrier of my parked domain,
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By vassals' vigilance, had questionless
Broken my lodge and kissed my keeper's daughter.
Leicester.
Thy deer, thou sayest, he slew but in intention,
And thou hast in intention punished him.
I deem you quits. Now hearken my award.
Know all, I, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
Knight of the Garter, Privy Counsellor,
General, Lord Lieutenant of the county,
Having well weighed the case of William Shakespeare,
And of his six alleged accomplices,
The doom of the inferior magistrate
[Aside.
(Not knowing and not caring what it was),
Do quash, annul, and make of none effect,
As also the indictment, and all process
Past, present, or to come. [Applause in Court.]
His manacles
Unrivet, and provide him with a horse,
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To London then, where princely grace awaits him.
[The Public throng around Shakespeare, vieing in taking off his manacles. The Fathers and the Mother caress their sons, who receive them unfilially.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
Are things turned inside out? or upside down?
Or doth the earth, from Atlas' shoulder slipt,
Tumble amain unto destruction?
The beam of royal favour gild his brow
Who would have antlered mine! whose felon hands
Are ruddy with the blood of my fat bucks!
Leicester.
The beam of royal grace, Sir Thomas Lucy,
Alighteth where it will, and willeth oft
Light, where eclipse were fitter. Yet, methinks,
It hath not this time lit upon a dunghill,
But on the goodliest man in thy court, whom
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Do so commend, he greatly overlooks
Thy little brief authority. No wonder
He claimed the freedom of thy park.
[To Shakespeare.
This argues
A generous strain in thee, and lordly instincts.
Deer-killing came in with the Conqueror.
Hast any record of thy lineage?
Shakespeare.
An ancestor of mine, so please your Lordship,
In our third Henry's reign, was high exalted.
[Aside.
Upon the gallows.
Leicester.
Like lot shall be thine.
Shakespeare
[aside].
The Lord forbid!
Leicester.
If thou do justify
Opinion by her Majesty conceived
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A little toy of thine, a comedy
('Tis called, I think, The Taming of a Shrew)
Read by a maid of honour, thereunto
Moved, as I gather, by one Master Field,
Late of this town, who further doth attest
Actor with bard met happily in thee.
Nought now will serve but thou must post to Court.
This charge is mine, which I, the more to blazon
My zeal, and haply countermine the workings
Of burrowing Intrigue, my credit sapping,
Perform in person. Take immediate leave
Of mates and kindred, and away with me.
Shakespeare.
Sir Thomas, I will stand your friend at Court:
On two conditions, one that presently
You do unclose the path you stopped last Christmas:
Next, that although the noble Earl of Leicester
Your sentence doth annul, yet, by his favour,
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And banish me from Stratford for ten years.
Leicester.
What moveth thee to this?
Shakespeare.
My Lady Lucy
Surmiseth shrewdly, so doth Mistress Shakespeare.
And I myself would set division
Between my past and future, signifying
The new life to be led. Too long I've lingered
In my dark morning hours, but, now the sun
Of regal favour rises on my path,
Needs must I follow this to glorious noonday,
And then, unto my native place reverting,
Which ne'er was aught but dear to me, or shall be,
There slowly through the golden hours declining,
Will set in splendour, like the westering sun,
But, unlike him, in the same zone and region
Where origin I had.
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'Tis nobly spoken,
And know the Earl of Leicester for thy friend
Not less than her great Majesty, and able
To ope yet wider worlds to thee. The quarrel
'Twixt Spain and England draweth to a head,
And soon the world shall ring with it, and then
The Hollander and we in union vanquish,
Or separate perish. This we know, and soon
The verdant level and the slow canal
Shall bristle with our pikes, throb with our drums,
Stream with our banners, and reverberate
The thunder of our cannon. I shall fill
The regent's seat, and my imperious truncheon
Shall beck thee to my retinue, to gather
Stuff for thy art by practice of the world.
What various shapes shall crowd the tented field!
Soldier and sutler, merchant, peasant, spy;
Captains courageous, English amazons,
Whom deaths of lovers slain most treacherously
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Dicer and cut-purse, page, groom, beggar, minstrel;
Courtesans, fortune-tellers, desperadoes;
Armourers and devisers of strange engines;
And knights too corpulent to fight or fly.
And other matter shalt thou find, arrays
Of marching hosts, pent cities, trenched leaguers,
Sallies, alarms, encounters, skirmishes,
Duels and deaths, and, chief of all, examples
Most noble, in whose brightness thou may'st sit,
And as an eagle preen thee in the sun,
Purging all soilure haply gathered here;
For know, my nephew Sidney tends my person,
Mirror of courtesy and chivalry.
Shakespeare.
My Lord, the grace and bounty of your Lordship
Leave me so rapt, I scarce find breath and boldness
For one petition, 'tis most necessary.
Leicester.
Say on.
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I humbly crave that, their breadwinner
Absent by Majesty's command, my wife
And tender infants lack not sustenance.
Leicester.
Be this thy care, Sir Thomas, and bestow
Rather excess than insufficiency.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
This vixen quean, this dam of demi-bastards,
Bedrenched like Danae with golden showers
Whose drops distil from mine own treasury!
Leicester.
Tush, Lucy, thou must be conformable,
Or else abide her Grace's high displeasure.
Thy lady, prone to offices of love,
Shall seek the spouse forlorn, and soothe her sadness,
Making a sunshine in the shady place.
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[aside].
How best to bar my doorway?
Lady Lucy
[aside].
I will tell her
Rare passages of gallantry at Court.
The Scholars.
Huzza! our master fares to Court addrest.
Shakespeare.
Bearing his boys for ever in his breast.
First Father.
Good Master Shakespeare, there is no unkindness?
Shakespeare.
No, not a grain. Myself should crave excuse.
But the high ardour of your mettled sons
To race the roads of learning, did demand
Curb, more than spur.
The Mother.
I ever knew my boy
A prodigy.
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And so say all of us.
Shakespeare.
Well, Anna, shall we change a word together?
Ann Shakespeare.
Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee!
Shakespeare.
Deem'st thou I know not this? Wer't otherwise,
Stratford and I had long ago been strangers.
My good thou did'st intend, and had'st effected,
Had'st thou not been,—but better 'twere to spare thee
Thy faults' unlovely catalogue. Now listen.
I am steeled 'gainst wrath and hate, and Heaven forefend
The one offence for ever unforgiven.
If thou envenomest my childrens' bosoms
'Gainst me unseen, with crimes imaginary
Slurring my name, with a depicted devil
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The Father's image in the earthly parent,
Then, and then only, take my malison.
Ann Shakespeare.
Of this nought apprehend.
Shakespeare.
'Tis passing well.
[Kisses her.
Fix thou thy appetence on things supernal;
Guide our fair children in the paths of virtue;
Cherish the harmless necessary cat,
Who will for my departure wring her hands;
Speak of me sometimes, rail at me but seldom;
So for ten years farewell.
[An Attendant enters and whispers Leicester.
Leicester.
To horse! to horse!
[Exit with Shakespeare. The curtain falls.
| William Shakespeare, Pedagogue and Poacher | |