The Shakespeare Code

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.

TO READ EPISODE ONE , PLEASE CLICK:  HERE

TO READ EPISODE TWO, PLEASE CLICK: HERE

TO READ EPISODE THREE, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

TO READ EPISODE FOUR, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

TO READ EPISODE FIVE, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

TO READ MORE ABOUT SHAKESPEARE THE PLAY PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

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BEESTON

The men returned to England to find that Marlowe had been murdered in a tavern. Will feared there were those also out to get young Harry who might use his sexual tastes against him. Like his mother, Harry had a weakness for working class men…

(BEESTON opens his book of Sonnets)

(HARRY and SHAKESPEARE enter. SHAKESPEARE has been ‘lecturing’ HARRY who clearly does not want to listen. HARRY carries a vase and a bunch of lilies which he places on the table. HARRY tries to block out SHAKESPEARE’S advice by doing a flower arrangement)

SHAKESPEARE

Thy outward parts with outward praise are crowned:

But those same tongues that give thee so thy own

In other accents do this praise confound,

By seeing further than the eye hath shown;

They look into the beauty of thy mind

And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds;

Then, churls, their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)

(SHAKESPEARE grabs a lily from HARRY’S hand)

To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds.

The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,

Though to itself it only live or die:

(SHAKESPEARE snaps the lily cleaning in two and throws it away. HARRY is horrified – but SHAKESPEARE ignores him and grabs another lily)

But if that flower with base infection meet

(SHAKESPEARE bends the stem of the lily so that the whole flower droops)

The basest weed outbraves his dignity

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds

(SHAKESPEARE looks at HARRY’s cod-piece. HARRY, in alarm, follows his gaze down)

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds…

(SHAKESPEARE holds the flower to his nose – then holds his nose in mock disgust and throws the flower down)

Harry, you must stop going to bed with working class men…

HARRY

(Darkly) But, Will, you’re a working class man yourself!

(HARRY exits with what is left of his flower arrangement. SHAKESPEARE, lamely picking up the broken lilies, follows after him)

BEESTON

It was time for Harry to go to the Court of Elizabeth. Everyone thought he would be the Queen’s new favourite. But, to everyone’s astonishment, he fell in love with the lovely Elizabeth Vernon, Maid-of-Honour to Queen Elizabeth and cousin to the Earl of Essex.

Essex, to encourage these tender shoots of heterosexuality, commissioned Shakespeare to write a play. He came up with Romeo and Juliet. The aging Moon was notoriously jealous of her young Ladies-in-Waiting. And Will couldn’t resist a dig….(BEESTON reads the First Folio)

ROMEO (entering and playing out front)

‘But soft what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the East and Juliet in the sun

Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon

Who is already sick and pale with grief

That thou her maid art far more fair than she.

Be not her maid since she is envious….’

BEESTON

It was ‘Lucy is Lousy’ all over again….

(ROMEO exits)

BEESTON

The Earl of Essex had many enemies at Court. One of the most powerful was Lord Cobham…..

Essex hit on the plan of attacking one of his ancestors. This was clearly a case for Cousin Will. So it was back here, to Posbrook Farm….

(NASHE and SHAKESPEARE enter and sit  at a table)

SHAKESPEARE

(Pause)  So what was this ancestor called again?

NASHE

Sir John something or other….

SHAKESPEARE

And he was a friend of Prince Hal?

NASHE

Yes.  And an early Protestant martyr who was slowly burnt to death…

SHAKESPEARE

Mmmm….

 NASHE

Not much comic mileage in that….

(BEESTON enters with a tray with more tankards and plates.  He plonks them down on the table…)

BEESTON

More sack! And more cheese!

(There is complete, gloomy silence)

More Molly?

NASHE

WILL YOU BELT UP!

(BEESTON sits at the table, uninvited, and drinks and joins in the gloom)

SHAKESPEARE

What would Cobham really hate….?

NASHE

An attack on the family honour?

BEESTON

No point in that…..

NASHE AND SHAKESPEARE

BELT UP!!!

BEESTON

(Ignoring them as he always does) Can honour set to a leg? No: or an arm? No: or take away the grief of a wound? No. (Sips) What is honour? A word. What is in that word, honour?  Air. (Sips again…NASHE is still sunk in gloom but SHAKESPEARE begins to stare at BEESTON) Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Honour is a mere ’scutcheon: and so ends my catechism…..(BEESTON gets up to go. SHAKESPEARE jumps up and pulls him back to the table…)

SHAKESPEARE

What did you say about sherry sack this morning?

BEESTON

No idea….

SHAKESPEARE

Try to remember….

(SHAKESPEARE puts a gold coin on the table. BEESTON’S memory immediately recovers…)

BEESTON

A good-sherris sack hath a two-fold operation in it…. (During the following speech, SHAKESPEARE, standing behind BEESTON, does everything to gain NASHE’s attention. In sign language, he tries to indicate to him that they could base the character of Sir John on BEESTON. But NASHE is slow on the up-take and doesn’t know what on earth SHAKESPEARE is doing) It ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish, dull and crudy vapours which environ it, makes it apprehensive and quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery and delectable shapes, which delivered o’er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. (BEESTON has become aware of something behind him and looks round. SHAKESPEARE puts his hands behind his back, looks up into the air and whistles. BEESTON continues…) The second property of your excellent sherries is the …

SHAKESPEARE

BELT UP!!!  Now say it all again, SLOWLY….

(SHAKESPEARE gives BEESTON another coin and mimes writing to NASHE. The penny finally drops…)

NASHE

Aaaah….

(NASHE seizes a quill and parchment as BEESTON begins his speech again…)

BEESTON

A good sherries-sack hath a two-fold operation in it…

(NASHE writes. SHAKESPEARE gives NASHE the thumbs up and NASHE returns it…)

(BEESTON dismisses the SPIRITS)

BEESTON

And so Sir John Falstaff was born.

(BEESTON bows low). But at the height of Will’s triumph, his son, Hamnet, died, aged eleven – a boy Will had hardly known.

Will threw himself into work, booze and gambling. He was even bound over to keep the peace. He did everything except what he should have done. Grieve with his family at Stratford-upon-Avon. Instead, he pretended nothing had happened. He even turned Harry into a substitute son….

(BEESTON returns to his book of Sonnets. HARRY enters, followed by SHAKESPEARE. HARRY is stripped to the waist and carrying a proto-type football. He has clearly jus t finished a game and is wiping the sweat from his face)

SHAKESPEARE (to HARRY)

As a decrepit father takes delight

To see his active child do deeds of youth,

So I made lame by fortune’s dearest spite

(SHAKESPEARE almost breaks down. HARRY puts his arm round him and SHAKESPEARE recovers)

Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth:

(SHAKESPEARE gazes at the athletic HARRY)

For whether beauty, birth or wealth or wit,

Or any of these, or all, or more,

Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,

I make my love engrafted to this store…..

(SHAKESPEARE puts his arm round HARRY’S waist. They exit)

BEESTON

The love between Will and Harry grew stronger. But it was never an exclusive love. Sometimes Will could be just as frisky as Harry….

(SHAKESPEARE enters, followed by HARRY, now in a shirt, brandishing a letter)

HARRY

(In a fury)  Well? Did you bonk him or didn’t you? The writer of this letter seems to think you did…. (HARRY bangs the letter down on a table. SHAKESPEARE picks it up)

SHAKESPEARE

And what’s this writer’s name?

HARRY

‘A Friend’.

SHAKESPEARE

Ha!

(SHAKESPEARE glances at the letter and realises that the game is up. He concedes…)

Alas, ‘tis true, I have gone here and there

And made myself a motley to the view,

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear

Made old offences of affections new.

BEESTON

Which, being translated is: ‘Yes. I have had sex with young men while on tour.’

SHAKESPEARE

Most true it is that I have looked on truth

Askance and strangely……

BEESTON

‘I have, in fact, been lying in my teeth…’

SHAKESPEARE

….but, by all above,

These blenches gave my heart another youth

And worse essays proved thee my best of love…

BEESTON

‘But it made me feel young again. And proved to me just how much I love you….’

(SHAKESPEARE attempts to embrace HARRY – but HARRY’S having none of it)

HARRY

(bitterly ironic) Ha! Ha! Ha!

SHAKESPEARE

That you were once unkind…..

BEESTON

‘That you once played away from home….’

SHAKESPEARE

….befriends me now…

BEESTON

‘….works to my advantage….’

HARRY

Befriends you?

SHAKESPEARE

For if you were by my unkindness shaken,

As I by yours, you’ve passed a hell of time,

BEESTON

‘For if I have hurt you as much as you once hurt me, then you’ve been through hell.’

SHAKESPEARE

And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

To weigh how once I suffered in your crime…..

BEESTON

‘I have behaved like a monster. I should have remembered the agony you once put me through’

HARRY

(Pause) Will, you could argue your way out of ANYTHING!

(Both men smile…and SHAKESPEARE, working up to a grand finale, picks up the letter again and reads it)

SHAKESPEARE

‘A Friend’….(In an outburst of bogus moral indignation)

Why should others false adulterate eyes

Give salutation to my sportive blood?

Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

Which in their wills count bad what I think good?

BEESTON

‘Gay is good!’

SHAKESPEARE

(Triumphantly tearing up the letter.) No. I am that I am, and they that level

At my abuses reckon up their own…..

(SHAKESPEARE folds his arms in triumph)

HARRY

(totally succumbing to SHAKESPEARE’S genius) Bravo, Cousin Will, bravo….

(BEESTON claps and the Spirits vanish)

BEESTON

The Moon sent the Earl of Essex to Ireland to crush a rebellion……..

…..but the Irish ran circles round him. He rushed back to England and burst into Moon’s morning bedchamber…..

(SPIRIT playing ESSEX rushes on and kneels down centre, eyes to the ground.  We assume Queen Elizabeth is where the audience is)

BEESTON

(Standing behind ESSEX)

Before she had risen….

(ESSEX listens with horror)

Before she had put on her make up….

(ESSEX listens with more horror)

And BEFORE SHE HAD PUT ON HER WIG!

(ESSEX finally looks up – screams at what he sees – and rushes off)

That was the end of him….

Essex and Harry tried to raise the citizens of London against the Queen….

(ESSEX and HARRY rush on down front, swords aloft in their hands, with a blood-curdling cry)

But the citizens of London didn’t want to know.

(Their swords fall limply by their sides)

Essex was beheaded. (ESSEX jerks his head forwards and exits) Harry was imprisoned in the Tower (OFFICER, from behind, claps his hand on HARRY’S shoulder and leads him off) Stripped of his title, his lands and his money, Harry fell desperately ill…

(BEESTON exits behind his screen)

SHAKESPEARE

(Entering in black, looking like Hamlet)

Tired with all these for restful death I cry:

As to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity

And purest faith unhappily forsworn

And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

And right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d,

And strength by limping sway disabled,

And art made tongue-tied by authority,

And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,

And simple truth miscalled simplicity

And captive good attending captain ill:

Tir’d with all these, from these I would be gone

Save that to die, I leave my love alone….

(Exit)

BEESTON

(Poking his head out from behind the screen) Once more, Will had to get out of town. But before he left, he wrote one more love poem to the dying Harry…

(Emerges in full alchemical gear)

An alchemical poem…..

(BEESTON bangs his staff against the ground. Music. The bubbling limbeck rises straight up into the air and disappears. This time it is the burning furnace itself which hovers round the room and settles in the middle…Flames start to rise from its top as BEESTON intones by heart, like a priest…)

Love and constancy is dead;

Phoenix and the Turtle fled

In a mutual flame from hence….

(The fire from the furnace rises higher and higher, and the two birds can be seen, entwined, in its flames. SPIRITS, drawn by the magical light, start to emerge from the shadows and look on in wonder)

SPIRIT ONE

So they lov’d, as love in twain

Had the essence but in one

Two distincts, division none;

Number there in love was slain…

SPIRIT TWO

Hearts remote, yet not asunder;

Distance, and no space was seen

‘Twixt this turtle and his queen;

But in them it were a wonder….

SPIRIT THREE

So between them love did shine

That the turtle saw his right

Flaming in the Phoenix sight;

Either was the other’s mine….

SPIRIT FOUR

Beauty, truth and rarity,

Grace in all simplicity,

Here, enclos’d, in cinders lie…..

(The flame from the furnace begins to die down and the two birds disappear)

ALL SPIRITS

(Merging with the shadows again)

Death is now the Phoenix nest….

And the turtle’s loyal breast

To eternity doth rest…..

BEESTON

(By the dying light of the furnace)

Truth may seem but cannot be;

Beauty brag, but ‘tis not she

Truth and beauty buried be.

To this urn let those repair

That are either true or fair:

For these dead birds sigh a prayer…..

(BEESTON wipes away a tear as the fire hovers on extinction. He exits behind the screen. The fire dies away entirely. BEESTON emerges, changed from out of his magus’s robes and holding a lighted candle)

BEESTON

I think we could all do with a drink.  (To the audience) Now what’ll you have?

BEESTON serves drinks in the…

INTERMISSION

TO READ EPISODE SEVEN, CLICK: HERE.