Discs of spinning yellow, pink, lavender:A hundred Kemps are jigging,each in yellow clown suit,grinning, clowning, enroute to the Globe.Kemp jigs onto the stage:Applause.
Discs of spinning yellow, pink, lavender:
A hundred Kemps are jigging,
each in yellow clown suit,
grinning, clowning, enroute to the Globe.
Kemp jigs onto the stage:
Applause.
HomeSo it went...As I left the Globe, near the end of a play, I found Will Kemp, slumped on the steps, by the street, head on his arms, sobbing: he would never clown for us again: he said he was too old, that he embarrassed us, that times had changed: as I stood beside him, he glanced away.I had watched him a hundred times and thought him better than Summers, or any clown: Kemp was legend, for jig and bawdy tale, for the laugh at the end of the play. Londoners flocked to see him—had flocked to see him for years.His make-up streaked by the rain, his yellow suit soaked, he tottered to his feet, as if drunk. Last summer he had danced his way across country, from place to place, enthusiastically received by villagers and townsmen—carried aloft on their shoulders.His wrinkled face was drunken-lined, shining in the rain. He yanked his hat lower: was he remembering his fustian scenes, hard-drinking, quarrelling? He was famous for his winnings at primero—stubby, rock-muscled, little, knotted—he wavered, seemed about to collapse.The play was over and the theatre crowd vomited out and milled around Kemp, encircled him, caught him up, hoisted him and bore him, through the streets, howling, cheering: KEMP...KEMP...KEMP!HomeA number of years before we dismissed Kemp at the Globe, I visited him at his Thames River home—a home in the Sir Walter style. Kemp’s carriage brought me. I strolled about his extensive garden for a few luxurious moments, viewing the river below, thinking how well it paid to invest in land and play primero. His doormen showed me in, for I had been invited to dinner.Mrs. Kemp, dressed in pale green, came toward me, to greet me, a charming young woman: like a clap of thunder, Kemp came at her, caned her, lashed her with fierce blows, and dragged her to her room. I didn’t wait for an explanation of his violence...I do my best on the pot and think of my sex and think I’ll be rotting soon, and I hear pegs moving in the beams, and I hear old time and new time—outside the church bells strike. Outside of what?Henley StreetStratfordFebruary 8, 1616Why do I write?All day Ann has sat by the windows, embroidering, soaking sun, her rheumatic fingers paining her, her silence and disdain evident.Her stooped shoulders anger me because they remind me of my age, and I rant at time’s disdain and irreparable devastations: a plague on time’s house, a plague on mine—sickly wife and sickly husband.Egypt—it is well you aren’t here, to be contorted, cheated, frailed or paunched. To nourish an illusion is hard and grows harder through the years. The only wisdom is the quiet heart, born of the smile of heaven, seeking nature, not the wild sea of conscience.But that is for the wise! Today, there is no Orpheus. The trees are not our sanctuary. The seas don’t hang their heads; I hang mine. Where’s the lute, the player? I travel round and round the dial, to Ellen and the cloak, the fog and loneliest of men. Time should cure all, they say. But time—as I see time—does not oblige.My last will...my last walk...my last play. I never thought of a last play.Henry VIIIwas to have another and yet another...creeping on but creeping to be sure...other sonnets...other songs...to sleep, to die, to sleep...O shit on death.HomeFebruary 10, ’16I used to wake with anticipation. I wake these mornings and know that I may not wake in another twenty days. When I lie down to sleep I think I may fall asleep and from that sleep never wake. I consider the worried faces about me and realize they will not have to endure me for long. Jonson visits me and I think this is his last visit.Cheat, your door, as it swings open, opens onto a cave; no shepherd’s note signals to watery star...cuckold...bastard...my tale will end and my small cubicle will be filled. Have I put down man’s spirit with enough spirit? Beauteous youth, have I recorded you? I never wanted to write love’s epitaph... Antony was my tongue in praise.I am certain that love is the best, love that is closest to beauty and the kindest of affections. Sensation surpasses thought. Imagination is well enough but it is not love. Between earth and heaven, imagination compares with no warm arms and legs.Feb. 11, ’16Stunned by poverty—how hard it was to write during those early years. Belly gnawing, I kept at it: I lay down, I got up, sat at the big table. Storms hunkered over the roof tops, the sun licked at the roofs, snow bundled them, and I was cold, cold. Smoke puffed from chimneys, bent in the icy mornings like hearse plumes. Chimneys—I never wanted to count them; broken, dying chimneys, strewed the city below me. One brick stack leaned far over, yet belched smoke.Pimps lived on one side of me, prostitutes on the other; I could not move without paying my rent. My place was never warm: my hands cracked because of the cold. I kept my legs wound in rags, coughing.Because of pleurisy I had to sell all of my books: Mary sold them for me, one by one, maybe two or three at a time. How old was Mary? Twenty? I was about twenty-five. It would take another twenty-five years to dim her memory: the stalk of her body, her restless, weightless feet. She bent a little to the left, as if injured, the arms also restless, the eyes inward. Did she ever laugh? Her smile always seemed something pushed into being, only a little jolt got it there.She sold my books and bought my food and fed me, the hell of pleurisy riding me: tears in my eyes I attempted to eat: tears of many kinds crushed me. The roofs, the cold, the sorrow, how they come back to me! The anguish in my side went on for weeks but Mary never failed or complained: she fucked men at night and succored me during the day: sometimes she slept on the floor beside my bed or lay across the foot of the bed, a blanket around her. Her black hair might unpin itself and lie about her.“Let’s keep a bird, when it’s Spring,” I suggested.“How can you feed it, w-w-w-without money?” she asked.“My father is sending money.”“When? Soon?”“Has someone written to him? You must see to it, Mary. Make someone write.”“I think s-s-s-so. I’ll try again, ton-n-n-night.”I managed to eat more when the money came and Mary ate well: I ate for those who were poor, I ate for my father, for the starving waifs, for the sick, those in prison, fighting in wars. I ate because it would soon be Spring. I ate because I must write.Wrens built a nest above my window. Day after day, they fluttered in and out; day after day it got warmer; I was able to take care of myself; Mary and I were planning to picnic beside the river; she never came; I waited and waited; I asked those who knew her; no one had seen her.I asked for her many times. There was absolutely no trace of her. She simply disappeared. Some criminal? Some man? Death? I never knew.Ave Maria!HomeOver the years I have read Ellen’s letters, hearing them almost. Those lines of hers, when I was dismal and lonely, shook off the curse of disillusionment. Even now, after these years, lines come to me:Surely the greatness of a play lies in its mystery: we are taken inside a private world that is tragic or amusing or sentimental; things that are a part of this world must be judiciously hinted at.Your plays take life apart because your poetry is so profound. It’s the finest poetry I know. Knowing you gives your work added profundity...The theatre gives man breadth: it’s his second life. A country without a theatre is a poor, barren country.Spring is the best part of the year...we decided: our lochs take on a greenness that must originate in deep, moss-covered rock. I think that water has a definite temperament, a personality, if you like... I like to walk when the sting of spray mingles with fog and underfoot, like a blanket, are the tiny flowers... I want you...My brother is fond of you. He laughs and asks what is it that makes me take to that man? You must come back to Scotland, Will. Write me seriously about a possible visit... Love finds a way...I wish you could be here, the castle is so beautiful, springtime is so evident, so unlike Scotland, full of gay things, white lilies and pansies along the paths, tulips and agnus-castus, roses around our statues and ramblers on the arbors. Only the biggest roses are in full flower: you should see the yellow ones. You know, I think yellow is my favorite color, and it’s because the sun is yellow, for what would this earth of ours be without the sun? We wouldn’t even have love, would we? And I wouldn’t even be able to dream of your kisses and your arms about me. And that’s what the sun is for, for dreaming, springtime dreaming...and I wish for you, to walk with me, and love me. I will pick a pansy and wear it for you. I will pick a rose and put it in my room, for you. Will, when can we see each other? Can’t you come here?...Her letters were like that...StratfordFebruary – 1616Queen Elizabeth came on our stage at the Palace as I played the role of king, the afternoon stainglass bangling her jewels. I was shocked at seeing her galled face and yet had the guts to continue my lines, adding improvisations as well, to force her to wait. While she waited, she dropped her glove (playing her part), and as I arranged my robe, talking as I stood there, I picked up her glove and slowly faced the audience and said:“Yet we stoop to pick up our Cousin’s glove.”How that amused her. “Such propriety!” she said.“Such folly,” I wanted to say.This is high class prostitution commonly called “purse penury,” our coldest-oldest art. The art is especially susceptible to jewels and the brazenness of crowns. Men have been hung for their inability to kowtow, with poverty in the wings, snivelling or prancing jubilantly.King James—Now that you are our new friend, sceptering this Brittic island with careful gaze, ours is the homage! We see that your awareness is aware of considerations, a King James version of Sleeves and Ruff duly pressed.You surely press promises without guilt for gilt. Through narrow lozenged glass the sun administers your ceremonials.Oh, king, your uniqueness Towers over us: you are our stiller of war, our buffer of hate, our unbiased protestant.You rise—and London rises.You walk—and London walks, for we are your guardians.If your latest diamond is somewhat small, speak to us and it will be remembered in moors, fens, and locks. If your crown, coming from a woman’s head, needs adjusting our adjusters are sure hands, toward continuity.Henley StreetStratfordWhen Susanna visited me in London we ate at the Swann: she loved the rich and badly seasoned food, the purpled windows and painted scripture walls. “Oh, Papa, this is a wonderful Inn... Oh, Papa, isn’t that a beautiful house by the river? Think of living there! Those people must be awful rich! Will we get that rich? ...Papa, I’ve never seen such beautiful books... And look, look at the Thames in the sun; the sun seems squashed right into the water. And can we really ride in a boat again, down toward the ocean?”Enthusiasm was her best quality. And very little perturbed her. Trash strewn in the street, a dead cat, brawling seamen...she drew back in disgust but soon found something exciting or beautiful. When I sleepwalked and stumbled against a table and broke the rush lamp, she was undisturbed. She kissed me, and we talked about what we’d do tomorrow. She was fifteen, then. Fifteen—what an age! She wanted to remain with me in London and I would have permitted it if I could have looked after her. There was no budging Ann to the city. Some thought Susanna a hussy.Fun-loving, keen at games, she outplayed her friends. While she played I would be at my writing. In the midst of her fun, she might pop up and say: “Papa, you’re working too hard: you never have fun.” Her consideration brought me to my senses and I remembered growing up with six kids: none of them had her brightness. Of course the years changed her: her copper hair darkened: her enthusiasm faded: marriage ruined her figure: marriage made her a business woman: her hussiness became sexmate: Dr. Hall her all! How clearly I can remember today...a warning. And why do I write?
Home
S
S
o it went...
As I left the Globe, near the end of a play, I found Will Kemp, slumped on the steps, by the street, head on his arms, sobbing: he would never clown for us again: he said he was too old, that he embarrassed us, that times had changed: as I stood beside him, he glanced away.
I had watched him a hundred times and thought him better than Summers, or any clown: Kemp was legend, for jig and bawdy tale, for the laugh at the end of the play. Londoners flocked to see him—had flocked to see him for years.
His make-up streaked by the rain, his yellow suit soaked, he tottered to his feet, as if drunk. Last summer he had danced his way across country, from place to place, enthusiastically received by villagers and townsmen—carried aloft on their shoulders.
His wrinkled face was drunken-lined, shining in the rain. He yanked his hat lower: was he remembering his fustian scenes, hard-drinking, quarrelling? He was famous for his winnings at primero—stubby, rock-muscled, little, knotted—he wavered, seemed about to collapse.
The play was over and the theatre crowd vomited out and milled around Kemp, encircled him, caught him up, hoisted him and bore him, through the streets, howling, cheering: KEMP...KEMP...KEMP!
Home
A number of years before we dismissed Kemp at the Globe, I visited him at his Thames River home—a home in the Sir Walter style. Kemp’s carriage brought me. I strolled about his extensive garden for a few luxurious moments, viewing the river below, thinking how well it paid to invest in land and play primero. His doormen showed me in, for I had been invited to dinner.
Mrs. Kemp, dressed in pale green, came toward me, to greet me, a charming young woman: like a clap of thunder, Kemp came at her, caned her, lashed her with fierce blows, and dragged her to her room. I didn’t wait for an explanation of his violence...
I do my best on the pot and think of my sex and think I’ll be rotting soon, and I hear pegs moving in the beams, and I hear old time and new time—outside the church bells strike. Outside of what?
Henley Street
Stratford
February 8, 1616
Why do I write?
All day Ann has sat by the windows, embroidering, soaking sun, her rheumatic fingers paining her, her silence and disdain evident.
Her stooped shoulders anger me because they remind me of my age, and I rant at time’s disdain and irreparable devastations: a plague on time’s house, a plague on mine—sickly wife and sickly husband.
Egypt—it is well you aren’t here, to be contorted, cheated, frailed or paunched. To nourish an illusion is hard and grows harder through the years. The only wisdom is the quiet heart, born of the smile of heaven, seeking nature, not the wild sea of conscience.
But that is for the wise! Today, there is no Orpheus. The trees are not our sanctuary. The seas don’t hang their heads; I hang mine. Where’s the lute, the player? I travel round and round the dial, to Ellen and the cloak, the fog and loneliest of men. Time should cure all, they say. But time—as I see time—does not oblige.
My last will...my last walk...my last play. I never thought of a last play.Henry VIIIwas to have another and yet another...creeping on but creeping to be sure...other sonnets...other songs...to sleep, to die, to sleep...
O shit on death.
Home
February 10, ’16
I used to wake with anticipation. I wake these mornings and know that I may not wake in another twenty days. When I lie down to sleep I think I may fall asleep and from that sleep never wake. I consider the worried faces about me and realize they will not have to endure me for long. Jonson visits me and I think this is his last visit.
Cheat, your door, as it swings open, opens onto a cave; no shepherd’s note signals to watery star...cuckold...bastard...my tale will end and my small cubicle will be filled. Have I put down man’s spirit with enough spirit? Beauteous youth, have I recorded you? I never wanted to write love’s epitaph... Antony was my tongue in praise.
I am certain that love is the best, love that is closest to beauty and the kindest of affections. Sensation surpasses thought. Imagination is well enough but it is not love. Between earth and heaven, imagination compares with no warm arms and legs.
Feb. 11, ’16
Stunned by poverty—how hard it was to write during those early years. Belly gnawing, I kept at it: I lay down, I got up, sat at the big table. Storms hunkered over the roof tops, the sun licked at the roofs, snow bundled them, and I was cold, cold. Smoke puffed from chimneys, bent in the icy mornings like hearse plumes. Chimneys—I never wanted to count them; broken, dying chimneys, strewed the city below me. One brick stack leaned far over, yet belched smoke.
Pimps lived on one side of me, prostitutes on the other; I could not move without paying my rent. My place was never warm: my hands cracked because of the cold. I kept my legs wound in rags, coughing.
Because of pleurisy I had to sell all of my books: Mary sold them for me, one by one, maybe two or three at a time. How old was Mary? Twenty? I was about twenty-five. It would take another twenty-five years to dim her memory: the stalk of her body, her restless, weightless feet. She bent a little to the left, as if injured, the arms also restless, the eyes inward. Did she ever laugh? Her smile always seemed something pushed into being, only a little jolt got it there.
She sold my books and bought my food and fed me, the hell of pleurisy riding me: tears in my eyes I attempted to eat: tears of many kinds crushed me. The roofs, the cold, the sorrow, how they come back to me! The anguish in my side went on for weeks but Mary never failed or complained: she fucked men at night and succored me during the day: sometimes she slept on the floor beside my bed or lay across the foot of the bed, a blanket around her. Her black hair might unpin itself and lie about her.
“Let’s keep a bird, when it’s Spring,” I suggested.
“How can you feed it, w-w-w-without money?” she asked.
“My father is sending money.”
“When? Soon?”
“Has someone written to him? You must see to it, Mary. Make someone write.”
“I think s-s-s-so. I’ll try again, ton-n-n-night.”
I managed to eat more when the money came and Mary ate well: I ate for those who were poor, I ate for my father, for the starving waifs, for the sick, those in prison, fighting in wars. I ate because it would soon be Spring. I ate because I must write.
Wrens built a nest above my window. Day after day, they fluttered in and out; day after day it got warmer; I was able to take care of myself; Mary and I were planning to picnic beside the river; she never came; I waited and waited; I asked those who knew her; no one had seen her.
I asked for her many times. There was absolutely no trace of her. She simply disappeared. Some criminal? Some man? Death? I never knew.
Ave Maria!
Home
Over the years I have read Ellen’s letters, hearing them almost. Those lines of hers, when I was dismal and lonely, shook off the curse of disillusionment. Even now, after these years, lines come to me:
Surely the greatness of a play lies in its mystery: we are taken inside a private world that is tragic or amusing or sentimental; things that are a part of this world must be judiciously hinted at.
Your plays take life apart because your poetry is so profound. It’s the finest poetry I know. Knowing you gives your work added profundity...
The theatre gives man breadth: it’s his second life. A country without a theatre is a poor, barren country.
Spring is the best part of the year...we decided: our lochs take on a greenness that must originate in deep, moss-covered rock. I think that water has a definite temperament, a personality, if you like... I like to walk when the sting of spray mingles with fog and underfoot, like a blanket, are the tiny flowers... I want you...
My brother is fond of you. He laughs and asks what is it that makes me take to that man? You must come back to Scotland, Will. Write me seriously about a possible visit... Love finds a way...
I wish you could be here, the castle is so beautiful, springtime is so evident, so unlike Scotland, full of gay things, white lilies and pansies along the paths, tulips and agnus-castus, roses around our statues and ramblers on the arbors. Only the biggest roses are in full flower: you should see the yellow ones. You know, I think yellow is my favorite color, and it’s because the sun is yellow, for what would this earth of ours be without the sun? We wouldn’t even have love, would we? And I wouldn’t even be able to dream of your kisses and your arms about me. And that’s what the sun is for, for dreaming, springtime dreaming...and I wish for you, to walk with me, and love me. I will pick a pansy and wear it for you. I will pick a rose and put it in my room, for you. Will, when can we see each other? Can’t you come here?...
Her letters were like that...
Stratford
February – 1616
Queen Elizabeth came on our stage at the Palace as I played the role of king, the afternoon stainglass bangling her jewels. I was shocked at seeing her galled face and yet had the guts to continue my lines, adding improvisations as well, to force her to wait. While she waited, she dropped her glove (playing her part), and as I arranged my robe, talking as I stood there, I picked up her glove and slowly faced the audience and said:
“Yet we stoop to pick up our Cousin’s glove.”
How that amused her. “Such propriety!” she said.
“Such folly,” I wanted to say.
This is high class prostitution commonly called “purse penury,” our coldest-oldest art. The art is especially susceptible to jewels and the brazenness of crowns. Men have been hung for their inability to kowtow, with poverty in the wings, snivelling or prancing jubilantly.
King James—
Now that you are our new friend, sceptering this Brittic island with careful gaze, ours is the homage! We see that your awareness is aware of considerations, a King James version of Sleeves and Ruff duly pressed.You surely press promises without guilt for gilt. Through narrow lozenged glass the sun administers your ceremonials.
Oh, king, your uniqueness Towers over us: you are our stiller of war, our buffer of hate, our unbiased protestant.
You rise—and London rises.
You walk—and London walks, for we are your guardians.
If your latest diamond is somewhat small, speak to us and it will be remembered in moors, fens, and locks. If your crown, coming from a woman’s head, needs adjusting our adjusters are sure hands, toward continuity.
Henley Street
Stratford
When Susanna visited me in London we ate at the Swann: she loved the rich and badly seasoned food, the purpled windows and painted scripture walls. “Oh, Papa, this is a wonderful Inn... Oh, Papa, isn’t that a beautiful house by the river? Think of living there! Those people must be awful rich! Will we get that rich? ...Papa, I’ve never seen such beautiful books... And look, look at the Thames in the sun; the sun seems squashed right into the water. And can we really ride in a boat again, down toward the ocean?”
Enthusiasm was her best quality. And very little perturbed her. Trash strewn in the street, a dead cat, brawling seamen...she drew back in disgust but soon found something exciting or beautiful. When I sleepwalked and stumbled against a table and broke the rush lamp, she was undisturbed. She kissed me, and we talked about what we’d do tomorrow. She was fifteen, then. Fifteen—what an age! She wanted to remain with me in London and I would have permitted it if I could have looked after her. There was no budging Ann to the city. Some thought Susanna a hussy.
Fun-loving, keen at games, she outplayed her friends. While she played I would be at my writing. In the midst of her fun, she might pop up and say: “Papa, you’re working too hard: you never have fun.” Her consideration brought me to my senses and I remembered growing up with six kids: none of them had her brightness. Of course the years changed her: her copper hair darkened: her enthusiasm faded: marriage ruined her figure: marriage made her a business woman: her hussiness became sexmate: Dr. Hall her all! How clearly I can remember today...a warning. And why do I write?
Shakespeare discovers Ellen’s blue cloakin a heap of theatre crud in his Stratford closet:Puzzled, he sits on the floor, holds up the cloak,checks the fabric, his face sickly:Fog at the door of his house.
Shakespeare discovers Ellen’s blue cloak
in a heap of theatre crud in his Stratford closet:
Puzzled, he sits on the floor, holds up the cloak,
checks the fabric, his face sickly:
Fog at the door of his house.
Henley StreetStratfordFebruary 24, 1616Rummaging in my storeroom, I found forgotten things, things I had supposed lost or destroyed, a velvet jacket faced with grubby ermine, a pair of crimson trousers, a leather breastplate and brass helmet ornamented with a dragon’s crest. It annoyed me that none of these things had deteriorated. For some unfathomable reason—Caesaria ego—I put on the breastplate and helmet and gaped at myself. How now, that sickly face and stupidity: my stupid room, some of it visible in the same glass: the odious German etchings Judith gave me, Papa’s cracked leather chest, the unpolished table, seamed plaster and varnished beams.Tossing breastplate and helmet into the storeroom, I noticed something. A cloak? Lifting it out of a box, unfolding it, I thought it was her blue theatre cloak. How could it be, after having disappeared years ago, in the street? But, holding it higher, I searched for the slash and the blood stains. Of course it had been cleverly cleaned and mended! I was too disturbed to go over it carefully. No...no...I dropped it and put out the light and went to bed.Lying there, I watched sky, clouds floating, white over stars and then the stars dazzlingly near and then the cloud-cloak covering them once more, drowning.Fear sifts through my fingers and mind.What am I—a lie? Was she a lie? Was life? The cloak?Why haven’t I, if I am sure of myself, seen to it that my plays have been published? I leave nothing. Nothing!Antony,Hamlet,Macbeth,Winter’sTale,Romeo...not one. I must speak to Jonson and Alleyn. I must write to them at once!Fog lay about in pieces like pieces of my life. Ground fog.In the starlight I glared at my hands and saw that they were swollen, as they have often been lately.Wasn’t that snow falling, flakes of morning?I tried to remember Ellen’s face, tried to feel her presence.When Ann brought me breakfast I could not look at her though she spoke to me kindly.I write with costly effort—hands worse. I am cold. My mind staggers.To the oriel—to look outside.Thinking makes poverty.Religion as we came to regard it in London was a glib and soiled art.Eclipses of our mental sun and moon betray us; so I beseech you, brain, do not regress as time shows time’s ending: old and reverend, think straight.Eater of broken meats I seem to be: knave, rascal, ruffian. Reverence to self...Perhaps this cold world will turn us all to fools and madmen...StratfordWhy is it I grimace so much? Alone I mug, pull my beard, rub flat of hand over my eyes, crack knuckles, shrug, sigh. Is this my sane monologue with self? What’s its purpose? Perhaps I must convince myself that I am alive and battling: grimace at the window, grimace on the pot, grimace at bed. Grimace is my hornbook. For the best of self-conviction I prefer knuckle cracking—such skeletal speech.StratfordFebruary 26, 1616So I’ll never know who attacked Ellen?Is it because I am sick that I care?Could it be that someone stepped from his stage of bitterness and struck her that night the fog drowned her carriage? Did he resent my luck? The harder poverty knocked the keener he felt my good luck: was that how it was? Was hunger a knife in his belly? Did he run away from London afterward? His hungry, motherless kids asked him to kill for money? Was that how it was?“Your brother Fred is here, bending over you...”“Was that Ann, who said that yesterday? Or was it Hall, bending over me, who said that Fred had come by?”Ellen, could you come? Or Hamlet? Othello? Marlowe?StratfordMarch 5, 1616Years ago I wrote this:Can honor set a leg? Or set an arm? Or take away the pain of a wound? What is honor? A word? What is that word? Air? What has it? The fellow who died on Wednesday, does he feel it? Does he hear it?But I still hear it...honor lives for me, in my memories of my father, for all those who have worked before I came into being, for the cathedral spire, the ship, the cut gem, the book, the play, the figure standing in sun and snow...13thVery sick for three days. Dr. Hall. Others.Pain.Can’t get to the oriel.Wouldn’t know a hawk from a handsaw.15thI go before my darling,I go before...Follow to the bower in the close alley,There we will together sweetly kissAnd like two wantons, dally—dally—dally...Sing it again—sing to me before I die—the candles are dying—the wind is dying—I suffocate in my room—I want to be with you—sing our song—oh, to dally once more—sing—March 18, 1616Judith married early because I felt I could not last much longer... Judith, will a hundred and fifty pounds help you, with that husband who doesn’t want to work? A fine son-in-law...but...ah, the trouble I have caused. She could have waited...but, at that time...she thought... My will is insufficient...Illness is such follyI still remember namesAlleyn was here to see me...Burbage won’t come...the man you care most to see, cares less for thee.March 19My affection remains, blazes as it were: there were winnings: good things strive to help us: come unto the yellow sands for their beneficence: hark: a pox against pain: who has pain! No. Defy the monsters, prod the phoenix, bury pignuts, come forward magical, fecundate freedom, build, levy songs.I need Raleigh’s elixir! If men concoct an elixir of youth it is too late for me.Then, that elixir of elixir of elixirs, hebenon!Sprinkle it.March 21, 1616Now that I am sick, it seems so rare a thing I once climbed elms for rook’s nest and slashed all afternoon, in the August sun, to scythe the timothy in rows. I was fifteen, I think it was. Larks flew and sang. I liked the click-a-click of my scythe as it bladed. Crickets chirped. Magpies and jackdaws took the air. There was a kingfisher diving.I long to dive where I used to swim, at Gray’s pool, alongside the burned mill; I used to strip and plunge off the sluice, after working in the field. Or we used to swim there—five or six of us—and test who could stay under longest, test—what was it I wanted to test?Cowslips grew cap-a-pie on two sides of that pool and their cinque-spotted faces got trampled underfoot as we dashed nakedly about, lewdly knuckling each other’s penis. Banks of violets were thick on the shady side of the mill, thickest among heaps of smashed and rotting shingles...her favorite flower! Hers!HomeSuppertimeGetting ready to die is looking across a stage through semi-darkness; it is muffing one’s lines; it is listening to incomprehensible promptings; it is taking the wrong exit. It is tampering with the plot, eliminating the star from the best scenes, substituting a beginner. Getting ready to die is watching the candle gutter, hearing the rooster before dawn, saying love’s good-bye; it is the footstep on the stair, the reveled, sleeved and broken sword.Getting ready to die is no man’s business!O, that this too, too solid flesh...Home – EveningMarch 27, 1616For several days my eyesight has failed and I have been unable to write. I have less pain but I can not eat. They talk to me and I lie here, restless, hearing, hearing... I want to hear something like a promise, an echo of things hoped for.That knocking at the door!Rain over the house.To sleep, to sleep...March 28, 1616When I was twenty, splendid, strong, I thought it would be noble to die in the Spring: ah, noble death I praised you childishly. This is springtime, and I see no signs of nobility.Tired with all these, for restful death I cry—how like a poem those lines read, and lie! At that time, when I wrote that sonnet, I was never more in love with life.For days the rain has been falling over the town, fine rain, grey rain that is determined to shatter the last of my courage...for days.Ann stands by my bedside, a plate of food in her hands, urging me to eat: “Take something...it will help you, Will.”Susanna sits by my side and sighs, “Papa, Papa.”Alleyn visits me, his voice warming my room, in the beaten way of friendship.March 30, ’16Again I am reminded I must complete my will—and so I must.Tomorrow I’ll dictate...how will it go?In the name of God, I, William Shakespeare, gentleman, in perfect health and memory, make and ordain this last will and testament...How can I say perfect health and memory?I commend my soul into the hands of God, hoping and believing to be made a partaker of life everlasting, and my body to the earth thereof it is made... Custom...Item: I bequeath to my daughter, Judith, a hundred and fifty pounds (shall I make it more?); in addition, I grant her my estate in Warr County—I like that place...To Joan—I leave my clothes. Why?To Elizabeth Hall, I leave my silverware...To Thomas Combe, my sword. (I liked that sword...its inlaid hilt!)To Richard Burbage (good friend), money for a ring.For daughter, Susanna Hall, my home, barns, stables, orchards, gardens, lands, tenements...my new house in Blackfriars.To Ben Jonson—fifty pounds and this journal. Short-changed again, Ben.Item: to my wife, my second best bed and our furniture. (It should be more. What shall it be?)To Dr. John Hall, all settlements after the payment of debts...there is no more...I must remember to speak in a clear voice.
Henley Street
Stratford
February 24, 1616
R
R
ummaging in my storeroom, I found forgotten things, things I had supposed lost or destroyed, a velvet jacket faced with grubby ermine, a pair of crimson trousers, a leather breastplate and brass helmet ornamented with a dragon’s crest. It annoyed me that none of these things had deteriorated. For some unfathomable reason—Caesaria ego—I put on the breastplate and helmet and gaped at myself. How now, that sickly face and stupidity: my stupid room, some of it visible in the same glass: the odious German etchings Judith gave me, Papa’s cracked leather chest, the unpolished table, seamed plaster and varnished beams.
Tossing breastplate and helmet into the storeroom, I noticed something. A cloak? Lifting it out of a box, unfolding it, I thought it was her blue theatre cloak. How could it be, after having disappeared years ago, in the street? But, holding it higher, I searched for the slash and the blood stains. Of course it had been cleverly cleaned and mended! I was too disturbed to go over it carefully. No...no...I dropped it and put out the light and went to bed.
Lying there, I watched sky, clouds floating, white over stars and then the stars dazzlingly near and then the cloud-cloak covering them once more, drowning.
Fear sifts through my fingers and mind.
What am I—a lie? Was she a lie? Was life? The cloak?
Why haven’t I, if I am sure of myself, seen to it that my plays have been published? I leave nothing. Nothing!Antony,Hamlet,Macbeth,Winter’sTale,Romeo...not one. I must speak to Jonson and Alleyn. I must write to them at once!
Fog lay about in pieces like pieces of my life. Ground fog.
In the starlight I glared at my hands and saw that they were swollen, as they have often been lately.
Wasn’t that snow falling, flakes of morning?
I tried to remember Ellen’s face, tried to feel her presence.
When Ann brought me breakfast I could not look at her though she spoke to me kindly.
I write with costly effort—hands worse. I am cold. My mind staggers.
To the oriel—to look outside.
Thinking makes poverty.
Religion as we came to regard it in London was a glib and soiled art.
Eclipses of our mental sun and moon betray us; so I beseech you, brain, do not regress as time shows time’s ending: old and reverend, think straight.
Eater of broken meats I seem to be: knave, rascal, ruffian. Reverence to self...
Perhaps this cold world will turn us all to fools and madmen...
Stratford
Why is it I grimace so much? Alone I mug, pull my beard, rub flat of hand over my eyes, crack knuckles, shrug, sigh. Is this my sane monologue with self? What’s its purpose? Perhaps I must convince myself that I am alive and battling: grimace at the window, grimace on the pot, grimace at bed. Grimace is my hornbook. For the best of self-conviction I prefer knuckle cracking—such skeletal speech.
Stratford
February 26, 1616
So I’ll never know who attacked Ellen?
Is it because I am sick that I care?
Could it be that someone stepped from his stage of bitterness and struck her that night the fog drowned her carriage? Did he resent my luck? The harder poverty knocked the keener he felt my good luck: was that how it was? Was hunger a knife in his belly? Did he run away from London afterward? His hungry, motherless kids asked him to kill for money? Was that how it was?
“Your brother Fred is here, bending over you...”
“Was that Ann, who said that yesterday? Or was it Hall, bending over me, who said that Fred had come by?”
Ellen, could you come? Or Hamlet? Othello? Marlowe?
Stratford
March 5, 1616
Years ago I wrote this:
Can honor set a leg? Or set an arm? Or take away the pain of a wound? What is honor? A word? What is that word? Air? What has it? The fellow who died on Wednesday, does he feel it? Does he hear it?
But I still hear it...honor lives for me, in my memories of my father, for all those who have worked before I came into being, for the cathedral spire, the ship, the cut gem, the book, the play, the figure standing in sun and snow...
13th
Very sick for three days. Dr. Hall. Others.
Pain.
Can’t get to the oriel.
Wouldn’t know a hawk from a handsaw.
15th
I go before my darling,
I go before...
Follow to the bower in the close alley,
There we will together sweetly kiss
And like two wantons, dally—dally—dally...
Sing it again—sing to me before I die—the candles are dying—the wind is dying—I suffocate in my room—I want to be with you—sing our song—oh, to dally once more—sing—
March 18, 1616
Judith married early because I felt I could not last much longer... Judith, will a hundred and fifty pounds help you, with that husband who doesn’t want to work? A fine son-in-law...but...ah, the trouble I have caused. She could have waited...but, at that time...she thought... My will is insufficient...
Illness is such folly
I still remember names
Alleyn was here to see me...
Burbage won’t come...the man you care most to see, cares less for thee.
March 19
My affection remains, blazes as it were: there were winnings: good things strive to help us: come unto the yellow sands for their beneficence: hark: a pox against pain: who has pain! No. Defy the monsters, prod the phoenix, bury pignuts, come forward magical, fecundate freedom, build, levy songs.
I need Raleigh’s elixir! If men concoct an elixir of youth it is too late for me.
Then, that elixir of elixir of elixirs, hebenon!
Sprinkle it.
March 21, 1616
Now that I am sick, it seems so rare a thing I once climbed elms for rook’s nest and slashed all afternoon, in the August sun, to scythe the timothy in rows. I was fifteen, I think it was. Larks flew and sang. I liked the click-a-click of my scythe as it bladed. Crickets chirped. Magpies and jackdaws took the air. There was a kingfisher diving.
I long to dive where I used to swim, at Gray’s pool, alongside the burned mill; I used to strip and plunge off the sluice, after working in the field. Or we used to swim there—five or six of us—and test who could stay under longest, test—what was it I wanted to test?
Cowslips grew cap-a-pie on two sides of that pool and their cinque-spotted faces got trampled underfoot as we dashed nakedly about, lewdly knuckling each other’s penis. Banks of violets were thick on the shady side of the mill, thickest among heaps of smashed and rotting shingles...her favorite flower! Hers!
Home
Suppertime
Getting ready to die is looking across a stage through semi-darkness; it is muffing one’s lines; it is listening to incomprehensible promptings; it is taking the wrong exit. It is tampering with the plot, eliminating the star from the best scenes, substituting a beginner. Getting ready to die is watching the candle gutter, hearing the rooster before dawn, saying love’s good-bye; it is the footstep on the stair, the reveled, sleeved and broken sword.
Getting ready to die is no man’s business!
O, that this too, too solid flesh...
Home – Evening
March 27, 1616
For several days my eyesight has failed and I have been unable to write. I have less pain but I can not eat. They talk to me and I lie here, restless, hearing, hearing... I want to hear something like a promise, an echo of things hoped for.
That knocking at the door!
Rain over the house.
To sleep, to sleep...
March 28, 1616
When I was twenty, splendid, strong, I thought it would be noble to die in the Spring: ah, noble death I praised you childishly. This is springtime, and I see no signs of nobility.
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry—
how like a poem those lines read, and lie! At that time, when I wrote that sonnet, I was never more in love with life.
For days the rain has been falling over the town, fine rain, grey rain that is determined to shatter the last of my courage...for days.
Ann stands by my bedside, a plate of food in her hands, urging me to eat: “Take something...it will help you, Will.”
Susanna sits by my side and sighs, “Papa, Papa.”
Alleyn visits me, his voice warming my room, in the beaten way of friendship.
March 30, ’16
Again I am reminded I must complete my will—and so I must.
Tomorrow I’ll dictate...how will it go?
In the name of God, I, William Shakespeare, gentleman, in perfect health and memory, make and ordain this last will and testament...
How can I say perfect health and memory?
I commend my soul into the hands of God, hoping and believing to be made a partaker of life everlasting, and my body to the earth thereof it is made... Custom...
Item: I bequeath to my daughter, Judith, a hundred and fifty pounds (shall I make it more?); in addition, I grant her my estate in Warr County—I like that place...
To Joan—I leave my clothes. Why?
To Elizabeth Hall, I leave my silverware...
To Thomas Combe, my sword. (I liked that sword...its inlaid hilt!)
To Richard Burbage (good friend), money for a ring.
For daughter, Susanna Hall, my home, barns, stables, orchards, gardens, lands, tenements...my new house in Blackfriars.
To Ben Jonson—fifty pounds and this journal. Short-changed again, Ben.
Item: to my wife, my second best bed and our furniture. (It should be more. What shall it be?)
To Dr. John Hall, all settlements after the payment of debts...there is no more...
I must remember to speak in a clear voice.
In two sepia rectangles, the renowned Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare and the famous Gerard bust...The bust revolves slowly as a voice intones Shakespeare’s last will.The talking portrait speaks from the Stratford church wall: through the open door of the church a blue cloak half conceals theNon Sanz Droictcoat-of-arms.
In two sepia rectangles, the renowned Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare and the famous Gerard bust...
The bust revolves slowly as a voice intones Shakespeare’s last will.
The talking portrait speaks from the Stratford church wall: through the open door of the church a blue cloak half conceals theNon Sanz Droictcoat-of-arms.
Lincoln’s Journal
Lincoln’s Journal
For Freedom
All of the quotations of Abraham Lincoln’s writings are in the public domain:Pages521lines 9-10522entire page523lines 1-4 and 22-24524 lines 2-5528 lines 1-3534 lines 11-12537 lines 25-30538 lines 1-26 and 30539 lines 1-21 and 26-33544 lines 10-14548 lines 18-20556 lines 29-30557 lines 1-4560 lines 3-11563 line 15568 lines 5-7 and 12-20572 lines 14-17575 lines 17-20579 line 3585 lines 18-25586lines 1-6588 lines 22-29: Diary quotation, Doneway & Evans,A Treasury of the World’s Great Diaries589 lines 1-2:ibid.591 lines 5-16: quotation from Ohn Quincy, President ofHarvard,Harvard Record591lines 19-23592 lines 1-2598 line 26: song, “Tenting Tonight”603 lines 15-23605 lines 23-26606 lines 9-15607 lines 24-28610 lines 15-19: Shiloh quotation, Doneway & Evans
All of the quotations of Abraham Lincoln’s writings are in the public domain:
Pages
521lines 9-10
522entire page
523lines 1-4 and 22-24
524 lines 2-5
528 lines 1-3
534 lines 11-12
537 lines 25-30
538 lines 1-26 and 30
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563 line 15
568 lines 5-7 and 12-20
572 lines 14-17
575 lines 17-20
579 line 3
585 lines 18-25
586lines 1-6
588 lines 22-29: Diary quotation, Doneway & Evans,A Treasury of the World’s Great Diaries
589 lines 1-2:ibid.
591 lines 5-16: quotation from Ohn Quincy, President of
Harvard,Harvard Record
591lines 19-23
592 lines 1-2
598 line 26: song, “Tenting Tonight”
603 lines 15-23
605 lines 23-26
606 lines 9-15
607 lines 24-28
610 lines 15-19: Shiloh quotation, Doneway & Evans
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