Being the True Account of the Life of William Shakespeare, performed by Mr. William Beeston, Gent., and his Troop of Alchemical Spirits, at Posbrook Farm, Titchfield, Hampshire, in the Year of Our Lord, 1623.
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BEESTON
…………And stay she did. With all her court. And with all her soldiers. She had a beautiful musician with her….the dark-skinned Emilia Bassano…
(Enter EMILIA, with black, wiry hair. She sits and plays a lute)
…mistress to the Queen’s randy old cousin, Lord Hunsdon.
He paid her £40 a year for her services…
(To BEESTON, £40 a year is a fantastic sum…SHAKESPEARE enters and gazes at EMILIA)
Will wanted to find out if £40 gave Hunsdon exclusive rights.
(BEESTON opens First Folio and reads…)
SHAKESPEARE (approaching EMILIA, who continues to play)
Did not I dance with you in London once?
EMILIA (a cockney girl)
Did I not dance with you in London once?
SHAKESPEARE
I know you did.
EMILIA
How needless was it then to ask the question.!
SHAKESPEARE
You must not be so quick.
EMILIA
‘Tis long of you to spur me with such questions.
SHAKESPEARE
Your wit’s too hot, it speeds too fast, ‘twill tire.
EMILIA
Not till it leave the rider in the mire.
SHAKESPEARE
What time of day?
EMILIA
The hour that fools should ask.
(She puts down her lute and puts on a mask)
SHAKESPEARE
Now fair befall (sees EMILIA’S mask) your mask.
EMILIA
Fair fall the face it covers.
SHAKESPEARE
And send you many lovers.
EMILIA
Amen, so you be none….
SHAKESPEARE
(After a pause, in which he can’t think of anything to say) Nay then will I be gone.
(SHAKESPEARE exits – then EMILIA, with another infatuated man to add to her list, exits as well)
BEESTON (looking up from First Folio)
Shakespeare was ’ooked… (Looks back at book)
SHAKESPEARE (re-entering with parchment and pen)
O! And I forsooth in love!
I that have been love’s whip!
A very beadle to a humorous sigh: a critic,
Nay, a night-watch constable,
A domineering pedant o’er the boy…
What I love? I sue? I seek a wife?
A woman that is like a German clock,
Still a re-pairing, ever out of frame,
And never going aright, being a watch:
But being watch’d that it may still go right.
A whitely wanton with a velvet brow
With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes,
Aye, and by heaven, one that will do the deed,
Though Argus were her Eunuch and her guard…
(BEESTON closes book with a bang)
BEESTON
The Plague was raging in London, so Emilia stayed on at Titchfield. Will started writing sonnets to her instead of Harry…
(SHAKESPEARE sits and writes. HARRY approaches him quietly from behind and peers over his shoulder. SHAKESPEARE senses he is there and looks round. He quickly turns the page over so that HARRY cannot read it)
HARRY(delighted)
It’s another Sonnet, Will. I saw it. (Sitting) Read it to me. (Anticipating SHAKESPEARE’s excuse) I don’t care if it’s not finished….
SHAKESPEARE
(Reddening, reads) My (hesitates) master’s eyes are….nothing like the sun….
(HARRY looks startled)
Coral is far more red than his lips red,
If snow be white, why then his breasts are dun;
(Trailing off) If hairs be wires, black wires grown on his head…..
HARRY
(In a fury) Breasts? Black wires? (Snatching sonnet from SHAKESPEARE) HER breasts! HER head! (EMILIA enters) Will, you’re not writing to me – you’re writing to that dreadful….(SHAKESPEARE indicates to HARRY that EMILIA has entered. HARRY turns to look at her)
EMILIA
(Curtsying beautifully) Good day, m’Lord….
(HARRY bows stiffly and exits. EMILIA crosses and gazes rapturously after HARRY, glancing surreptitiously back at SHAKESPEARE to make sure he’s noticing)
BEESTON
Emilia liked to play hard to get….
SHAKESPEARE
(Turning EMILIA around) Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight
Dear heart, forbear to glance thy eye aside…
What need’st thou wound with cunning, when thy might
Is more than my o’er pressed defence can hide….
(Looking into EMILIA’S eyes) Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain,
Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain…..
(SHAKESPEARE starts to hug EMILIA closely.)
Will’t thou, whose will is large and spacious
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
(He holds her even closer)
Shall will in others seem right gracious
And in my will no fair acceptance shine…..
(EMILIA breaks away…SHAKESPEARE pursues her)
He rises at thy name and points out thee
As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride:
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side…..
(He pulls EMILIA to him and tries to make love to her. EMILIA pushes him away…)
EMILIA
Get lost, baldy!
(EMILIA runs off. SHAKESPEARE, recovering, muses to himself…)
SHAKESPEARE
Then will I swear beauty herself is black
And all they foul that her complexion lack…..
BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL……
(SHAKESPREARE exits)
BEESTON
Will asked Harry to plead his love-suit with Emilia. Now Harry wanted to hurt Will in any way he could. And, for Emilia, a rich, handsome, young aristocrat, however gay, was better than an aging playwright. So, to Will’s horror, Harry started an affair with Emilia….
SHAKESPEARE
(Entering and sitting) Two loves I have of comfort and despair
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair…..
(Enter HARRY – stands near to SHAKESPEARE)
The worser spirit, a woman coloured ill.
(Enter EMILIA, standing some distance away from SHAKESPEARE)
To win me soon to hell my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side….
(EMILIA approaches HARRY and kisses him. She then takes him away from SHAKESPEARE’S side)
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride…
(EMILIA starts to make violent and graphic love to HARRY…They exit)
And whether that my angel be turned fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me both to each friend….
I guess one angel in another’s….
(SHAKESPEARE, overcome with sexual jealousy, cannot finish what he was to say. He exits)
BEESTON
Will left Titchfield and went on tour again. He had to admit that the loss of Harry meant more to him than the loss of Emilia….
(SHAKESPEARE enters)
SHAKESPEARE (writing)
That thou ha’st her it is not all my grief
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly…
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief
A loss in love that touches me more nearly….
BEESTON
Will, finally, told Harry that he loved him…
SHAKESPEARE
(Writing. Music beneath.) Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
(He looks up – and we can see he is thinking ‘No!’)
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
And winter’s lease hath all too short a date….
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines…
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d,
And every fair, from fair, sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d….
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest….
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest….
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, (holding up the Sonnet)
…and this gives life to thee….
To Read Episode Five, please click: HERE!
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