University of Virginia Library

ACT I

Scene I.

—Sir Thomas Lucy's parlour at Charlcote. Sir Thomas seated in an elbow chair, turned somewhat aside from the head of the table. Lady Lucy seated near him. Moles standing near the door.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
The bended back beseems the baser birth
In presence of the great ones of the earth.
Incurve thy chine with meet humility,
Then in a standing posture list to me.

Moles
[bowing awkwardly].
Aye, aye, Sir Thomas.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Know, rude forester,
There's something rotten in the state of Charlcote.
Sound stands the mansion still, 'tis true, with roof
Impervious to the beams and rains of heaven,
Nor yet bereft of soaring pinnacle,
Or portalled lodge, or zone of stately trees;
The thicket blooms and fruits; nor hath the plough
Profaned or daisied mead or lawny dell.
But where the sylvan people? Where the troops
Of stag and doe and delicate fawn that erst
Did gambol in these groves? And, consequently,
Where be the haunch and pasty? Smoked these still
Upon the board 'twere somewhat, but the board
Is emptier than the forest avenue,
Where still a remnant lingers, which dislodged,
All should be dire depopulation.
Whence, in the name of Zernebock, this nuisance!
[Rises and approaches Moles.
Storms the Wild Huntsman with his swarthy pack
Along my woodland alleys? Do the hounds
That erst with horrid fangs Actæon tore
Seek in these shades a quadrupedal prey?
Say, doth the broom-bestriding sorceress,
Companioned with foul incubi, entwine
Her skinny arms round the reluctant deer,
And drag it to her Sabbath and her Satan?
Or twangs the bow and speeds the silver shaft
Of the Queen-Huntress? Hast thou e'er beheld
A covert-breaking stag impetuous
Burst from the brake and scour adown the glade,
Followed by a giant's shadow with a spear?

[Moles scratches his head.
Lady Lucy.
Truly, Sir Thomas, you have dazed the man,
Crushing with flowery opulence of phrase
His weak intelligence, as she of Naxos
Perished 'neath garlands heaped to honour her.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Have I then, aiming at a lowly mark,
Despatched my arrow toward the skies? Yet, rustic,
Haply thou deem'st the gold of my discourse
By thee with diamond should be repaid:
O no! the pebble shall serve well enough.
As well array thy cap with plumes, and change
Jerkin for doublet in thy master's presence.
Rack not thy brain for tropes rhetorical,
Such do but misbecome the borrel man
Who ne'er hath learned moral philosophy,
Or the division of a battle known
More than a spinster. Yet, who wotteth not
Of some forgotten nook, some cornered cranny,
Some entrance to huge learning's labyrinth,
Where even I, our Stratford's Pittacus,
Must grope without his eyes? Thy special sphere
Is vermin, as avoucheth my barn-door,
With hawk and stoat thick tapestried by thee.
I hold thee then well seen in venery,
And in the lore of woodcraft perfected,
And now, my keeper mad, our constable
By many much suspected for a Papist,
Do seek thy oracle, as erst was sought
Dodona's oak, or Libyan Ammon's shrine.
If aught of spark celestial glow in thee,
Puff it to flame, be by contráry office
This trouble's candle and extinguisher.
What bane our board of venison bereaves?

Moles.
Sir Thomas, I be thinking it be thieves.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Rehearse the villains' appellations.

Moles.
There is but one, his name is Everybody.
Each pounces on whatever he can find,
Wood, wheat, wool, poultry, hare and hart and hind.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Yet must thou their iniquity bewray,
And shine the Phosphor of their reckoning day:
If frank, thy tongue my treasury unlocks:
If stockish, steel thy legs against the stocks.

Moles.
In sooth they are a goodly company!
There's Hugh the broken soldier; fiddling Jerry;
Jim the attorney's clerk, and Tim the parson's;
Lawrence who stole my sweetheart; Bill the crier;
John Combe, these ten years earmarked by the devil;
Old Grey the horses' leech; Sorrel the huntsman;
Ben Brock, the county's champion badger-skinner;
That madcap tinker, sly Christophero
(Bearwarden was his post till self-adjudged
Unmeet to carry entrails to a bear,
Uncertain if through pride or modesty);
Black Will and Shakebag; Much the miller's son;
Madge, the hoar witch who fosters ten tom-cats;
All ratcatchers save me, your loyal slave;
The charcoal-burners all, and all the beggars.

Lady Lucy.
Consider, Moles, consider, sums this all
The spotted snakes thou did'st divulge to me?

Moles.
No, murkiest ink in all the register
Writes the black name of Shakespeare, schoolmaster.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Iniquity! hast thou more mysteries?
Shakespeare! the man aye wears a smiling face.

Lady Lucy.
A man may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Aye, but I deemed his evil genius
Spirit of other sort, and him the man
To caper idly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
Clear is his brow, open his countenance,
Lively the sparkle of his hazel eye,
Liquid his speech, nor doth the woodland bird
Prolong a sweeter melody than he
When virginal or lute enraptures him.

Moles.
I know the lad, he always be sweethearting,
Yet follows he on foot the chasing pack
To the death, no match at coursing willingly
Misses, or tussle of the hawk and hern.
And though he be a main soft-hearted fellow,
You shall not stay him from a bear-baiting.

Lady Lucy.
Yet have I seen him stride with hasty steps,
Stopped on the sudden; heard him mouth anon
Sonorous resonance of syllables,
With arms flung widely forth; then roaring mirth
At some unspoken jest's hilarity;
Then drooping sad eyes toward the sod, as though
Summing its blades: or, stretched 'neath some great tree,
Poring upon the brook that babbled by.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
You paint one lunatic for love, or else
An actor, the sick kingdom's boil and blain.
We want none such; wherefore departs he not
To seek a madhouse or a theatre?

Lady Lucy.
He hath for theatre his own abode,
Where daily he enacteth tragedy.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
I partly do conceive thee, for I know him
A fellow almost damned in a fair wife.

Lady Lucy.
Fair! I have known the day thy taste was better;
A faded creature infelicitous!
Nimble and strenuous of tongue, I grant;
Rueing her lot and cursed in her conditions;
Moth, acid, rust to all that others joy in;
A withered apple, only good to pelt with.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella.
Lady, this blast that storms against the wife
Argues the husband high in your esteem.

Lady Lucy.
Even as a ruby bartered for a bead
Rateth its idiot lord, rate I Will Shakespeare.
But soft, what am I saying?

Sir Thomas Lucy.
What, alack!
Well, well, I will not doubt all's honesty.
Yet somewhat doth it stir my noble stomach
To mark you thus concerned about a vassal.

Lady Lucy.
Merely as one may watch a struggling fly
Drowning in clammy milk, or muddy beer,
Scarce caring if he scapes or perishes,
Yet indolently sorry for his plight,
And, haply, scornful of aerial wings
Soused in a stuff so gross.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
If this be all,
Wherefore so fiery-hot against the woman?

Lady Lucy.
The virtuous lady much abhorreth vice,
Abhors the vicious more, and most detests
The leman crept into the matron's place.
What! would she eat her cake and have it too?
Infringe the rules, and yet be free of the guild?
Cannot she be one thing or else the other?
If Anna were no worse than a light woman,
Despised she were, but not abominated;
But being what she is, is child of wrath.
I see thou know'st not her enormities.
This mirror of the maidenhood of Stratford,
This wan ungathered rose, this vestal ogress,
Sets cap and trap for Shakespeare, he is caught,
And frequent seeks her cot past toll of curfew.
There rapture reigns, till, one autumnal even,
Sudden the chamber swarms with angry brothers,
And cousins in a most excited state.
Poor Shakespeare hangs his head, a manifest villain,
And creeps like snail unwillingly to church,
Wishing his godsire in his infancy
Had brought him to the gallows, not the font.
And ill continues what was ill begun.
The crab upon the peach so crossly grafted
Grows none the sweeter, and the course of wedlock
Runneth no smoother than the course of love.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
No wonder, then, he hunts in others' houses
For kinder and more charitable spouses.
I do remember once to have forbid
The knave this mansion, nor was my decree
Devoid of reference to your ladyship,
Whom truly I esteemed the more in fault.

Lady Lucy.
O good Sir Thomas, haughty is your carriage,
But condescending is your jealousy,
Which stoops to pry and spy and peer, and sniffs
Scent of a wooing temerarious
If one but speaks to an inferior:
Nor, by reverse of error, takes account
Of that amazing altitude whereto
Your greatness beckoned my humility.
Love squanders not his arrows in star-shooting.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
But certain stars shoot madly from their spheres,
And, fallen to earth, each fair and radiant flame
Is turned to jellied slime. Mark, in this matter
Sir Thomas Lucy thinks with Julius Cæsar.

Lady Lucy.
Sir Thomas, striving to dispel the fume,
Misgives me I shall but incense the fire,
Yet hear me say, could I be moved for Shakespeare,
Cause had I ample both for tears and laughter,
Seeing a man (thou knowest him not as I do)
Whose future to his present lot might be
As all the woods of Arden to an acorn;
Whose growing soul outstrips to-day's condition
And leaves each yesterday a league behind it;
Who with a wand of might can summon up
Dead majesties and miracles of women,
Who, but for him, mortality should not
Imagine to itself, much less behold;—
To see this eagle, winged with might to make him
Lord of the air and neighbour of the Sun,
Penned among geese, and plucked by Anna Shakespeare,
Should not cats laugh and angels weep, and I,
Supposing me, as thy mistrust would paint me,
His scorned deserted love, should I not shout,
And sob with very ecstasy of vengeance?

[Sobs and rushes from the room.
Sir Thomas Lucy
[shouting after her].
Thou dost! Enough, and far too much, my lady!

Moles.
O honoured master, why this passion?
Be certain of thy lady's innocence.
'Twas at her bidding I denounced Will Shakespeare.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
A fine proof this! O desperate revenge!
The man is slandered, then, and thou suborned?
O poison thrice distilled!

Moles.
Not so, Sir Thomas.
I do most Christianly believe he poaches,
But would not take my Bible oath upon it.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
This must and shall be sifted. What of the night?

Moles.
What would your honour? it is broad noon-day.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
What of the night? I say.

Moles.
Your honour's meaning?

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Last night the tallest trees were swathed in mist
Even to their naked tops, and chilly dews
Soddened the last year's tattered foliage
That long ago has rustled to the earth.
But overhead the moon, though dim and wearing
Kirtle of green, and traversed oft by clouds,
Yet gave a light malign, for him most apt
Who fain would see, yet fain would not be seen.
A poacher's night.

Moles.
Ah, now I take your honour.
To-night will be the image of the last.
If Shakespeare must be poaching, now's his time.

Sir Thomas Lucy.
Go seek the cot where this boy-pedagogue
Perverts, I gravely fear, the youthful mind,
And, passing, chance to look in casually,
And fall by accident into discourse,
And hint how Hercules on such a night
Surprised the flying stag Arcadian;
Then with a band of faithful foresters
Patrol the woodland glades.

Moles.
Aye, aye, Sir Thomas.

[Exit.
Sir Thomas Lucy.
This cannot fail, for if he scape espial
'Twill evidence his most malicious craft
To satisfaction both of judge and jury,
Namely myself, who in my proper person
Combine those venerable characters,
Adding thereto the plaintiff's. Equally
I'll to the grindstone bring the villain's nose,
If he of horns bereaves, or horns bestows.

[Exit.
Re-enter Lady Lucy.
I've heard, 'tis well, 'tis best, my plot hath prospered.
Repent I now? or not? O mind of woman!
I knew the youth a prodigy, whose fame
Might fill the world, could he but have release
From sordid straits, and fields to show his mettle.
And yet I played with him, and kept him here
Adscriptus glebae, as Sir Thomas saith,
And warped and marred his destiny, till Pride,
Piercing the heart Love found impregnable,
Did unintended passage make for Love.
'Twas Ann, not William, first did move my passion.
O stinging shame! O scoff insufferable!
O Lady Lucy, thou dost jeopardise
Thy eminence and station matronly.
Thy husband (such as Heaven was pleased to make him
In wit and parts, but meaning well by thee)
To slur, and blight the fortune of thy children,
Not at thy lover's bidding, but thy foe's!
Speed, ministering Moles, thou man of rats,
And pluck thy mistress from the pit of peril;
Then Master Shakespeare shall avoid the shire,
And Mistress Shakespeare come upon the parish.

[Exit.

Scene II.

—Interior of Shakespeare's School. Shakespeare and Six Scholars.
First Scholar.
O master, lay we now these books aside,
And listen cheerly to a tale of hunting.

Shakespeare.
'Twas not for this your parents sent you here.

First Scholar
Beshrew our parents, speak to us of foxes.

Second Scholar.
Or hares.

Third Scholar.
Or harts.

Fourth Scholar.
Or hawks.

Fifth Scholar.
Or hounds.

Sixth Scholar.
Or horses.

Shakespeare.
Scholars, I doubt not you will bear me witness
I have not plagued you overmuch with study,
Addled your hatching brains in any fashion,
Disfigured your young flesh with rod and ferule,
Drilled you to grave and reverent deportment,
Or done, as most would deem, my duty by you.

First Scholar.
The gods forbid! You evermore have been
Our very noble and approved good master,
For whom the eloquent divinity
Untwines the serpents from his golden rod,
And Pallas stills the hooting of her owl.
Unsanguined hangs the birch where first I saw it,
Nor have I known it taken down, unless
To whip a stray dog forth. What is a ferule?

Second Scholar.
Rather your gentleness by genial lures
Did woo our wayward wills, according us
Practise of liberal arts. Myself have learned
To make gunpowder.

Third Scholar.
I have skill in fencing.

Fourth Scholar.
I know a score of tricks upon the cards.

Fifth Scholar.
I can a kettle mend.

Sixth Scholar.
I cook a hedgehog.

First Scholar.
But most do we applaud the vast reform
Made in our classical curriculum.
Your worship liketh Master Ovid well,
Yet have not thrust his Latin down our throats,
But given us the pith of him in English.

Second Scholar.
And how the hours have flown in listening tales
Of dwarfs and giants, magic swords and rings,
Paladins, princely captives, mermaids, ghosts
Freighted with airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Saracens, dragons, necromancers, fairies
That on the beached margent of the sea
Do dance their ringlets to the whistling wind!

Third Scholar.
Aye, and that huge old volume in the window,
What tales thou drewest from its tattered page!
Reading to our rapt silence histories
Of steeled and steeded war, of ruth and ruin,
Grief of high dames, and dooms of kings and princes,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,
Or massacred in rage of mutiny.

Fourth Scholar.
You eke have mightily endeared yourself
By wondrous feats at leapfrog.

Fifth Scholar.
Blindman's buff.

Sixth Scholar.
By raisins, almonds, ginger, sugarplums.

Shakespeare.
With you, dear boys, I've lived my boyhood over,
And frisked with you like a twinnéd lamb,
Or if an elder brother, not a better.
But Time speeds on, and in his train Occasion
Dishevels to the wind her golden tress,
Now to be grasped, or forfeit evermore.
The hour sounds for our parting.

The Scholars.
Parting, Master?

Shakespeare.
Yes, boys, I must to London: part by choice,
Compulsion part: yet be my Ann unchided,
Perchance but instrument of Heaven to urge
My unwilling foot, and spur me on to greatness.
Can keep a secret, boys?

The Scholars.
Most sacredly.

Shakespeare.
Know then that I have ta'en my fireside fiend,
And decked him out in motley, making him
An antic spirit, and a merry goblin,
And errand have assigned him at stage doors
To knock in likeness of a comedy,
And, winning entrance there, for me he'll win it.
But if he miss, I none the less will follow,
And stand at doors of theatres, and hold horses,
Till one acceding saith, Friend, come up higher.
Yet more, I feel that what my brain affords,
That can my tongue deliver from the boards.

First Scholar.
O master, never a play-actor!

Second Scholar.
Sooner
May I learn Latin!

Third Scholar.
Ignomy and thou
Be ne'er acquainted!

Fourth Scholar.
Birch us all round rather!

Shakespeare.
'Tis true, the actor's name is a derision,
His calling smirched and smutted; and how else
While Tragedy is rant, and Comedy
Through a horse collar grins? But come the Poet
And occupy the stage with men and women
Real as they who come to look upon them;
Or bidden from the realms of phantasy,
Yet true unto the law of their own being;
Or raised from ancient tombs, yet warm with life:
And let each in his various degree
Use an apt parlance that becomes the part:
If prose, the phrase that should have fallen from him,
Being the man he doth but represent:
If metrical his speech, his metre music.
Then, as the bark by mounting tides is lifted,
Needs must the actor rise, sundering the cordage
Which now unto the muddy shore confines him.
And urging blasts of emulation
With his own fellows and his play's creator,
To whom he can disclose things unsurmised
Even by themselves, for art is infinite,
Shall swell his sails and give him to the ocean—
Forgive me, boys, if I do weary you.
From hoarded fuel flashes the young fire;
And, like a wind-stirred tree, my mind casts down
The ripened fruit of meditation.

First Scholar.
I partly apprehend thee, yet would fain
Be told in what recess the Poet lurks
Without whom players must continue clowns.

Shakespeare.
He stands among you.

The Scholars.
Thou?

Shakespeare.
You disbelieve?

First Scholar.
'Tis but amazement, master. Had'st thou told us
Thou could'st hold water in a witch's sieve,
We had not blinked, but this is somewhat sudden.
And yet in taking back my memory,
All things that thou hast spoken of the Poet
I do perceive said aptly of thyself.

Shakespeare.
Thy honest witness cheers, for few will credit
That ever Muse came down from Castaly
To rock the cradle of a butcher's son.

Sixth Scholar.
Dear master, did you ever kill a pig?

Shakespeare.
Aye, boy, and thou dost mind me that, when once
A daughter of swart Egypt scanned my palm,
This was the sibyl's rede. Beware of bacon.
Dark speech! which the far future shall unriddle.
Yet trust me, blood hath gushed from nobler veins
To smoke upon my steel. The calf hath found
In me its slayer and its orator
In phrase attuned, for natural to my tongue
Came verse, from sighing wind or rustling leaf
Or murmuring lapse of gentle streams imbibed.
Et quod tentabam dicere, versus erat.
So is it yet. I oft must bite my tongue,
Lest she move laughter, clothing daily chares
In language of immortal poetry.
But see what gift is mine. I do but take
The speech familiar of uncivil men,
And that which had offended in their mouth
In mine is music, losing not at all
The grace of truthful semblance, even as silver
Purged of its dross, is silver all the more.
And though my pen not yet hath laboured much,
No thing it could not render to the life
This narrow spot hath yielded it. My cage,
I've made a quire, as doth the imprisoned bird,
And sung my bondage freely. But mere music
Discourses, not depicts. I'd see, not hearken,
And school Imagination's ignorance.
The palace I must view to limn the monarch;
The court, the camp, for courtier and for soldier;
Cities for concourse; marts for merchandise;
The sea for navies, argosies, and tempests;
The bower for ladies' eyes; the hermitage
For old Religion's cord and rosary.
Masques I must know, jousts, triumphs, prisons, scaffolds,
And him who fattens by usurious ducats,
And him who gathers samphire, dreadful trade!
And whatso else is lacking to my Stratford.
Stratford! I praise thee for thy constables,
For sexton, pedlar, hostler, clown and squire.
But now my soul, no more content with such,
Must seek out spirits liker to itself,
And travel make me happy in the tongues,
Without which I were often miserable.
Wherefore, as oft a dwarf precedes a champion,
A quaint capricious farce, not gross but homely,
Such as may well win laughter from the crowd,
And toleration from the better sort,
I penned, and did despatch to Master Field,
Vendor of books and intimate with players,
My old companion and my now ally.
And it and I and he shall win me London,
And winning London I have won the world.

The Scholars.
O master, canst thou quit us?

Shakespeare.
Yea, my boys.
'Tis better for us all. Our lives have been
In outward things astir, within a slumber.
But now must we arise and get us wisdom,
You studying your book and I the world.
Such the condition Destiny lays on us.
We part, but ever in my breast I bear you,
And, some time in the days to come, my pen
Shall furnish forth the story of our lives
In figure of a martial veteran
Schooling a monarch's valiant progeny
To practise of the chase. This very night,
By heaven! the play shall be rehearsed. Come strike
The deer with me!

First Scholar.
We strike a deer!

Second Scholar.
A deer!

Third Scholar.
O what is rabbiting to this?

Fourth Scholar.
'Tis heaven
Come down to earth.

Shakespeare.
In sooth 'tis pious deed.
“For their great numbers are deemed prejudicial,
And therefore highly disapproved of many.”
(So testifies good Master Turbervile.)
To see them at this very season trooping
From wood to field, and stand serenely munching
Young coleworts and green corn, the food of the peasant,
Who fends his crop with clamour, at the most
Daring no missile deadlier than a stone!
Deer! locusts rather! cankers! palmer-worms!
These in their wilderness disquieting,
We but requite their trespass, and do carry
War into Africa. I see you fire
For the adventure, but be wise and wary.
Bright things come quickly to confusion.
Sly Moles, ratcatcher to the house of Lucy,
Came here to egg me on. I much mistrust him.
But now or never 'tis. O pitcher, faring
Once more unto the spring, if thou unbroken,
Do yet this time return, farewell deer-stealing!
Now to your homes, where wait the moon's uprise,
And half an hour past curfew steal away.
If any meet you, say you're rabbiting,
And carry an authenticating ferret.
There, where the slow stream issues from the wood,
Will I encounter you, and, knowing well
Where the stags couch, will lead you to their lairs.
Crossbows and shafts I'll bring, and he who strikes
The venison first shall be the lord of the feast.

Scene III.

—The garden of Shakespeare's cottage. Night, the moon behind clouds.
Enter Ann Shakespeare.
No, Anna, wert thou eyéd as the lynx,
It skilled not to hold vigil in this gloom.
Yet will I bar the exit with my body,
Till Dian aid me, maid celestial—
Hark, there be footsteps, and they draw anigh.
'Tis as I deemed, William is stealing forth,
Undoubtedly on some ill errand bound.

Shakespeare
[comes down the path, singing softly].
A fox went out on a shiny night,
And he asked the moon to lend him light.

Ann Shakespeare.
The fox I know, but fain would see the chicken.
Young, tender, toothsome she, I'll warrant her.

Shakespeare.
Now should I fetch what I have stored away,
But light is none, and none I dare to kindle,
Lest she be on the prowl.

Ann Shakespeare.
O holy Dian!
Revealing ray accord, O goddess chaste,
Ere yet his arms another have embraced.

Shakespeare.
O huntress-queen, grant guiding light to see
The treasure I have hid in hollow tree.

Diana
[invisible].
The prayers of both are heard.

[The moon breaks forth.
Ann Shakespeare.
What! William Shakespeare!
Come to the house this minute, sir; no, stay.
Where is the partner of thy sin?

Shakespeare.
In heaven,
Where my soul flits and hovers in her lustre;
Thither erect thy gaze, and there behold her.

Ann Shakespeare.
First, when thou stolest forth she was not shining;
Second, thou might'st have viewed her from the window;
Thirdly, thou art a most perfidious wretch.

Shakespeare.
Who would instruct thee, Anna, why the poet
Solely in free wide air, and face to face,
Worships the chaste and venerable Moon,
Were frustrate of his labour and his time.
But take it for a truth, and know no scene
In spacious Nature's various theatre
Hath like enchantment; whether silver crescent,
Or sphere of glory, or a waning sadness,
She is the bard's adored divinity.

Ann Shakespeare.
Let her be what she liketh, be she only
Lantern to lead me where thy leman lurks.

Shakespeare.
Search, nought thou'lt find, came comets down to light thee!
[While Ann Shakespeare searches the garden Shakespeare sings.

Ann Shakespeare
[returning].
I could not miss her in this moonshine, were she
Not spirited away by sorcery.

Shakespeare.
Taxest thou me with dealings with the devil?

Ann Shakespeare.
Aye, with Sir Belial, he's lascivious.

Shakespeare.
The venom clamours of a jealous woman
Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
I should abhor thee, Anna, knew I not
Thy mood the black reflection of thy conscience.
Thou knowest thou hast wronged me, and dost deem
That I am like to pay thee back again.
Thou sawest thyself a sallow rose, with petals
So faded, it were better they were fallen:
Nor refuge could'st thou find in any bosom
Save one, where dwelt what I am bold to call
A gentle spirit, who did bend to soothe
The anguished soul with breathings of soft pity;
Which thou wert ready to mistake for love,
Imagination's fool. I fain would hope so.
For sure it were the office of a fiend
To rob me of my boyish innocence,
Marring the fair intent of kindly Nature,
Blighting the young unbudded rose of love,
And binding on my ignorance a burden
Then illy borne, now insupportable.
Nor way but one see I to loosen it.

Ann Shakespeare.
Innocent babe! and what of her who rules
The roost at Charlcote?

Shakespeare.
Ye both played for me,
Thou in dire earnest, she as for a counter:
And thou had'st wit to triumph in the game,
But not the wisdom well to ward thy winnings.
Much water since hath flowed 'neath Stratford bridge,
And now the counter shines a gem, more rich
Than coffered hoards of royal treasuries,
Poor to one love throb of a trusting heart.
Anna! if women knew a bosom's wealth!
But fools are they, whose trivial shallow spirits,
Nought giving, nought receive. Weak wanton Cupid
Shall quench his torch for me, and fall to slumber
By a cold valley fountain of the ground,
And I will seek a manly soul, and wear him
In my heart's core, even in my heart of hearts.
And in high verse I will eternise him,
Blazoning his beauty forth, his name concealing
To set the wide world wondering who he was,
And sharp debate shall drain the inky stands
Of sage and scholar labouring to divine
If worth it was of his, or wit of mine.

Ann Shakespeare.
William, I know I am a beast of burden,
Yet wiser asses have admonished seers.
This is the old song, sung in Charlcote arbour,
Where, ere I called thee mine, I often heard thee
Discoursing of one Plato with my lady,
And widely stared to hear such clever folks
Propound such flagrant rubbish, till I saw
They strove to cheat each other and themselves.
There is a lizard who draws aliment
From unsubstantial air.

Shakespeare.
What more of him?

Ann Shakespeare.
He holdeth not one colour for an hour:
So is ethereal rapture mutable.
The friend, thy spirit's other moiety
Thou vauntest in anticipation,
Shall fade, and leave a mistress in his place.

Shakespeare.
My heart hath room for him and Poetry,
Close on her ruddy cushion shall they sit,
Both warbling one song, both in one key,
Nor shall another guest inhabit it.

Ann Shakespeare.
Speaks Poetry thus of thy friend to thee?

Shakespeare.
Aye, woman, that she doth, and adds moreover
What will not win thy thanks. She doth affirm
I shall not find him here in Warwickshire,
And thus enforces me to go and search
Prodigious London. To deal plainly with thee,
Soon will my steps turn thither.

Ann Shakespeare.
Leaving me
Penurious toil and doles of grudging kindred!
Of this thou reckest nothing, but may'st yet
Think of thy children.

Shakespeare.
Thou dost touch me nearly.
Therein indeed I wander with a wound.
Yet better far that they should lack a sire
Than that the first sound sped to tender ears,
Which nought should taste but honeyed syllables,
Should be the hateful clash of parents' jarring.
So I withdraw me, and await occasion
Of reappearance like the sudden beam
Of heaven's light shed around them. Think not, Anna,
I do abandon thee. The tie of Love
Is ruptured, rather say 'twas never knit;
The tie of duty holds. First to myself
And general mankind. If here I loiter
Until my nature, like the dyer's hand
Subdued to that wherein it operates,
Hath caught the trick of chiding; do I weakly
Wrangle away my precious moments, suffer
The spiritual shapes and essences
That else would mingle with my dreams, and foster
My wakeful studies, to be scared from me,
Die I not as the fool? And how wert thou
The better? Be assured, if gain I gather
Diving in London's ocean, thou shalt share it.

Ann Shakespeare.
When see I thee again?

Shakespeare.
What time my winnings
Suffice to buy me the best house in Stratford;
With all desirable appendages
Of gardens and commodious outbuildings.

Ann Shakespeare.
Thou'rt mad. What fairy's wand or wizard's spell
Will make this moonshine gold?

Shakespeare.
Thyself shall do
With Wit's alliance, cradled now but crescive.
Hate oft discharges offices of love,
And our bad neighbours make us early risers.
The rattle and the rasp of thy shrill tongue,
Thy waspishness and indocility
Have lent me matter for a merry jape,
Wherewith I look to split the groundlings' sides,
Nor much grieve the judicious. This shall pave
My reputation's road.

Ann Shakespeare.
How runs its title?

Shakespeare.
The Taming of a Shrew.

Ann Shakespeare.
Aroint thee, villain!
What! barbarous unmanly reprobate,
Rogue, rascal, viper, vagabond, wretch, base
Slubberdegullion!

Shakespeare.
Never did I hear
Such gallant chiding.

Ann Shakespeare.
Would'st thou make thy wife,
Defamed already for a scold in Stratford,
Scoff of the town's licentious theatre?

Shakespeare.
Not all deep-bosomed earth's wide fruitfulness
Bought me to traffic with my private wrongs,
And stand my sorrow's showman. Every part
May Shakespeare represent, except his own.
Yet if he hold the mirror up to Nature,
Needs must it image somewhat of himself,
And those who crossed his path to bless or ban.
I studied in thy soul the shrewish temper,
But have not painted thee in painting it.
And further, I have fashioned in my quean
No English daw, but jay of Attica.
And, for thy full assurance, I have feigned her
Contrite and well-conditioned at the last,
Which were not easily believed of thee.

Ann Shakespeare.
I credit thee no whit. O I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes! and tear out thine,
But that thou art too tall. But wait an instant,
I will return with that shall make us even.

[Rushes into the house. Shakespeare takes the crossbows from the hollow of a tree and exit. Diana extinguishes the Moon. Re-enter Ann Shakespeare, carrying a red-hot iron.
Ann Shakespeare.
He's gone, and all is darkness. William! William!
Come back unto my arms, 'tis all forgotten.
He will not come again, he's wisely cautious.
Yet scatheless should he be, my heart is melting,
My wrath cools with the iron in my hand.
[Throws it away.
I marvel not he thinks that I have wronged him,
And yet I am, I trust, a pious woman,
Whom grief at his unbridled levities
And seeming genial-venial faults, beguiled,
With full approof and warranty of conscience,
To deem that I trepanned him for his good.
But easier far to capture than to cage
This winged elf, this wight of quicksilver,
Not by thee, Anna, to be stayed or moulded,
Unless at disadvantage he be caught.
Matter it were for laud and thankfulness
If he did break his leg, or anything
Short of his neck, thus of discourse of reason
Made auditor. O that I had him fast,
With six comedians or more, his tribe,
To use my lawful tongue! With holy prayers
And wholesome syrups, drugs, and catapotions,
Soon would I make a formal man of him.
But strong is he as packhorse, sound as roach.
O better had I tended apes in hell!
O wit too wily! O cards played too well!

[Exit.

Scene IV.

—The Scholars awaiting Shakespeare by the side of a wood. Fitful moonlight.
First Scholar.
Our master tarrieth long. Unless he come,
Scarce shall we compass deed of noble note.

Second Scholar.
Without his cheering comradeship and counsel
The lions in our path roar horribly.

Sixth Scholar.
O are there any lions in the wood?

Third Scholar.
Our master spoke no word of any such.
Of foxes hath he told, stoats, otters, badgers,
Wild cats and martens, urchins, foumarts, weasels,
But ne'er of lions.

Fourth Scholar.
Or of wolves.

Fifth Scholar.
Or bears.

First Scholar.
I look not to meet such, but 'tis most certain
Goblins there are from whose unhallowed dens
The foot beguiled ne'er cometh forth again;
And elves that dance the traveller to death,
If heedless he transgress their fairy rings;
And shrieks of hags invisible, that freeze
The curdled blood to immobility.

Second Scholar.
Night ravens too, and hell-hounds.

Third Scholar.
Shrouded shapes
Of wicked ghosts. But it is wondrous comfort
These but the midnight hour unsepulchres,
And at the crow of cock they flee away.

First Scholar.
Welcome our master and the moon together!

Enter Shakespeare, carrying crossbows and a lantern, which he extinguishes.
Shakespeare.
Out, out, brief candle!

First Scholar.
We have waited, Master.

Shakespeare.
Aye, boys, I lingered, by this lantern tracking
A slot that shall conduct us to the deer.
Now the free wind has blown the rain away,
And swept the clouds from the serene of heaven,
We well may glimpse it, there it is, behold!
[Distributes the bows.
'Tis the long slot, which, rather than the round,
Doth the hart's bigness argue. Come we now
Beneath these jagged boughs, which though not yet
The leaf hath clothed them, hinder much the moon
From spilling silver on the mossy earth,
Now stealthy! stealthy!
[They move on cautiously.
Sad it is we lack
The fond and faithful hound. O that my palm
Were tickling his cold nose with vinegar,
Which sniffing, he should scent invigorate.
But breeding him I bred suspicion.

First Scholar.
Ourselves must hunters be and hunting-dogs.

Shakespeare.
Aye, wanting all pride, pomp and circumstance
Of glorious hunting; horse and horn and hound,
And flying stag, and toils that tangle him.
Talk in low tones, and use we well the time
When, in long duel of the light and shade,
Moonlight hath for a while the mastery.
And soon, I ween, we come upon the stag
Hid in some holt of holm, or where the spray
Of thorn gleams whitely in the van of spring.
'Tis now, as she doth loose the hard-bound earth,
The stag perceives the loosening of his horns,
And seeks the forest's privacy, to shed
The branching load, and hide him in the brake,
Secretly, sole companion to himself,
Until his antlered pride be grown again.
Pray heaven he harbour not in the high wood,
Whence scarcely hounds shall drive him, much less we.
But if, in coppice couched, we find him soon.
The fewter vouches him not far away.

First Scholar.
But grant him smit to death, how bear we off
The carcase?

Shakespeare.
Close at hand a narrow stream,
Or call it trench, creeps by, sluggish and dark,
And macerating yet the drifted leaf.
This rippling with faint stir rocks languidly
A punt with iron chain, which we unhook
And pole along till presently we reach
A charcoal-burner's cot, our good ally:
There for a season we bestow the spoil.
Silent and cautious must our voyage be,
For at the forest's issue is no choice
But entrance into light. Thus in life's chases
The shadowed ways of crafty policy
Heaven's beam doth on the sudden give to sight,
And the sly hunter on another's ground
Becomes himself the hunted.

[Moles suddenly appears with the Foresters.
Moles.
Comprehend them!

[The Foresters rush forward and seize Shakespeare and The Scholars.
Shakespeare.
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo's laurel bough.

[The curtain falls.