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 EPISODE SIX, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

TO READ EPISODE SEVEN, PLEASE CLICK: HERE

TO READ EPISODE EIGHT, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

TO READ EPISODE NINE, PLEASE CLICK: HERE..

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

BEESTON

(Entering from behind the screen) Jennet kept true. She had a son called Will and whenever Shakespeare visited Oxford, he would cover his face with a hundred kisses.

And though he had lost his first son, Will still had his daughter. (BEESTON opens First Folio)

SUSANNA

(Bursting onto the stage, dressed as the Goddess Flora with flowers in her hair and a trug of dried flowers)

(She addresses the audience…)

Here’s flowers for you….

(Lights up on audience. SUSANNA gives flowers to them)

….and you….and you…

(Then she turns her attention to the younger women in the audience)

…and you and you….

That wear upon your virgin-branches yet

Your maidenheads, growing…

(Then she suddenly sees DR. JOHN HALL – a handsome young, man dressed in black, sitting in the audience. She gives him some flowers.)

Now my fair’st friend

I would I had some flowers of the spring, that might

Become your time of day…

(SUSANNA suddenly becomes embarrassed and turns away. She sees her father SHAKESPEARE who has entered earlier and has stood watching SUSANNA with joy and pride. SUSANNA spots him, runs to him and kneels before him)

O look upon me sir,

And hold your hand in benediction o’er me…..

(SHAKESPEARE makes the sign of the cross over his daughter, then kneels to her and kisses her)

(laughing) Oh sir! You must not kneel!

(SUSANNA raises SHAKESPEARE to his feet and gives him flowers)

Here’s flowers for you, father.

Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram,

The marigold that goes to bed with th’ sun

And with him rises, weeping: these are flowers of middle summer…

(Kneeling as to deity) O Proserpina,

For flowers now that (frighted) thou let’st fall

From Dis’s wagon! Daffodils……

That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty; violets, (dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes

Or Cytherea’s breath)…..

……..pale primroses,

That die unmarried, ere they can behold

Bright Phoebus in his strength…..

…..bold oxlips……

…….and/The crown imperial…….

….lilies of all kinds…

(To SHAKESPEARE) O these I lack

To make you garlands of….

(Returning to HALL)… and my sweet friend,

To strew him o’er and o’er!

JOHN HALL

What? Like a corpse!

SUSANNA

No, like a bank for love to lie and play on:

Not like a corpse; or if, not be buried

But quick and in my arms….

(SUSANNA is again overcome by embarrassment. She rushes back to SHAKESPEARE on the stage)

Methinks I play as I have seen them do

In Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine

Does change my disposition…

JOHN HALL

(Following SUSANNA onto the stage…)

What you do,

Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,

I’d have you do it ever: when you sing,

I’d have you buy and sell so, so give alms,

Pray so, and, for the ord’ring your affairs,

To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you

A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do

Nothing but that, move still, still so,

And own no other function….

(To SUSANNA) Trust me, Susanna. I’m a Doctor! (He looks to SHAKESPEARE and bows.)

Sir….

( SHAKESPEARE smiles and bows back. They exit)

BEESTON

Susanna married Dr. Hall and soon became pregnant. Will had been a dreadful father, but he planned to be a brilliant grandfather. He moved to Stratford-upon-Avon and bade farewell to his London public in the figure of the magician, Prospero….

(BEESTON exits behind screen. SHAKESPEARE enters from trapdoor in a robe and staff identical to BEESTON’S)

SHAKESPEARE/PROSPERO

Our revels now are ended.

These our actors, as I foretold you,

Were all spirits, and have melted into air, thin air…..

BEESTON

(Enters from behind screen in identical robe and staff)

Now wherever can Cousin Will have got that idea….? (Exits behind screen again)

(SHAKESPEARE/PROSPERO breaks his staff and flings off his robe)

SHAKESPEARE/PROSPERO

Now my charms are all o’erthrown

And what strength I have’s mine own

Which is most faint: now ‘tis true

I must be here confined by you,

Lest you release me from my bands

With the help of your good hands:

Gentle breath of yours my sails

Must fill, or else my project fails,

Which was to please. Now I want

Spirits to enforce, Art to enchant;

And my ending is despair

Unless I be relieved by prayer,

Which pierces so that it assaults

Mercy itself, and frees all faults.

(He kneels to the audience)

As you from crimes would pardon’d be,

Let your indulgence set me free…

(SHAKESPEARE/PROSPERO exits. BEESTON enters from behind the screen)

BEESTON

Two years later, Will was back in London. Retirement wasn’t for him. His huge house in Stratford was more like a hotel than a home – filled with in-laws, outlaws and guests of the Stratford council. He didn’t get on with his wife, the locals kept trying to tap him for money and people were rioting about the enclosures. So it was back to London, more plays and more collaboration.

But then the Globe burnt down….

(Eyes heaven-wards) Someone, he thought, was trying to tell him something. So he returned home and did what any man of sense would have done. He got slaughtered in The Bear in Bridge Street every Saturday night….

(The entire COMPANY OF SPIRITS enter with SHAKESPEARE, now looking as fat as he did at the beginning of the Interlude…….

The SPIRITS laugh and pat SHAKESPEARE on the back and shout ‘Happy Birthday’)

MARTIN (who sits next to his wife, Jane)

(When the laughter subsides) Do you remember, Will, the challenge from ‘tipsy Bidford’? (Roars) Word had got round you were a ‘superior eminence in the profession of drinking’ so the Bidford Topers invited us all down for a contest…But when we arrived they were all plying their unholy trade at Evesham Fair. Only the Sippers were left. ‘We’ll take you Sippers on’ you said…and ended up comatose under the crabtree….(Roars) They call it ‘Will’s Canopy’ to this day…(More laughter)

SHAKESPEARE

Martin, I’d like to propose a toast to your wife. To Jane….

ALL

To Jane! (All drink)

MARTIN

(Mystified) Why did you propose a toast to her?

SHAKESPEARE

Because she has all the qualifications of a toast: she’s dry and brown!

(Roars)

THOMAS COMBE (with a whispy beard)

My brother John, God rest his soul, (crosses himself as the others in the tavern do) once gave you a challenge, Will. ‘Write my epitaph’ he said, ‘Here! Now! In The Bear! I want to know what you’ll say about me when I’ve gone!’(Laughter) A pottle pot if you can remember it!

SHAKESPEARE

(Instantly remembering it)

Ten in the hundred (mimes counting money) he lies here ingraved

‘Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved (Laughter)

If any man asks who lies in this tomb,

Oh ho! Quoth the Devil, ’tis my John-a-Combe! (Roars)

THOMAS (giving SHAKESPEARE a pottle pot)

Now do me, Will – for another pottle pot!

SHAKESPEARE

What can I possibly say about the tight-fisted bastard who’s enclosed all the common land in Stratford-upon-Avon?

(Laughter. SHAKESPEARE drinks and thinks…

Thin in beard and thick in purse,

Never man beloved worse.

He went to the grave with many a curse…

(Drinks and thinks) The Devil and he had both one nurse…..(ROARS)

(COMBE sets up another pottle pot – not sure if he’s pleased or not)

Don’t worry, Tom. (Kisses him on the head) I love you, even if no-one else does. I’ve left you my sword….

JANE

You made a wicked ballad extempore when you was a boy, Will. Bet you can’t remember it now!

SHAKESPEARE

Bet you I can! (Takes sip)

JANE

Bet you can’t sing it!

SHAKESPEARE

Bet you I can! (Takes sip)

JANE

Bet you can’t dance it!

SHAKESPEARE

Bet you I can!

(Drains off his pottle pot – to the cheers of the crowd. He then sings and dances…)

SHAKESPEARE

A Parliament member, a justice of peace,

At home a poor scarecrow in London an ass,

If Lucy is lousy as some volke miscall it

Sing Lousy Lucy whatever befall it…..

(CHORUS repeat and join in the dance…)

A Parliament member, a justice of peace,

At home a poor scarecrow in London an ass,

If Lucy is lousy as some volke miscall it

Sing Lousy Lucy whatever befall it…..

SHAKESPEARE

He thinks himself great, yet an ass in his state,

We allow by his ears but with asses to mate….

 CHORUS rpt

If Lucy is lousy as some volke miscall it

Sing Lousy Lucy whatever befall it…..

SHAKESPEARE

To the sessions he went and did sorely complain…..

(SHAKESPEARE suddenly stops, clutches his heart and falls to the ground. JANE screams)

THOMAS

Fetch Doctor Hall!

(EXIT ALL)

BEESTON

Dr. Hall took Will back to his surgery and examined him. There was no hope….

(Lights up on SHAKESPEARE lying on a couch. SUSANNA is kneeling by him, holding his hand and singing, unaccompanied)

When that I was and a little tiny boy,

With a heigh ho, the wind and the rain,

A foolish thing was but a toy

And the rain it raineth every day….

But when I came to man’s estate….

With a heigh (rpt.)

‘Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate….

And the rain (rpt.)

When I came, alas, to wive…..

With a heigh (rpt.)

By swaggering could I never strive….

And the rain (rpt.)

But when I came unto my beds….

With a heigh (rpt.)

With toss-pots still had drunken heads…

And the rain (rpt.)

A great while ago the world begun

With a heigh ho, the wind and the rain,

But that’s all one, our play is done

And we’ll strive to please you every day….

BEESTON

And so Will slipped quietly away. But to return to the questions I posed at the beginning this Interlude – ‘Did Will conquer death?’ Well, let’s see what his old rival Ben Jonson says about him. (Opening First Folio) Some people say Ben was at Will’s Birthday Bash, but everyone was too pissed to remember….

Ah, here it is….

(mumble, mumble…then reads)

Thou art alive still, while thy book doth live

And we have wits to read and praise to give…

He was not of an age but for all time….

I’ll go along with that. But did Will lead a religious life? As a man of Science, I’m happy to say the answer must be a resounding ‘no’…..

(BEESTON’S den erupts. Ghostly noises as windows flap, doors fly open, paintings fall from the walls and the bookshelves collapse. To a flash of lightning and screams, the corpse of SHAKESPEARE suddenly sits bolt up-right. Complete silence…then)

SHAKESPEARE

Hang on a moment, Apis Lapis. The show ain’t over till the fat poet sings…..As a Roman Catholic, I demand the Last Rites!

SUSANNA

(Overcome with joy and defiantly crossing herself) Father, the Last Rites shall be yours! (Cheers from the SPIRITS offstage)

BEESTON

The lunatics have taken over the asylum…..

(SUSANNA defiantly claps her hands. Triumphant liturgical trumpets as THE CHURCH OF ROME enters in procession through the audience, including, if the budget allows, the POPE, in Triple Crown, carried on his sedia gestatoria…..

……SHAKESPEARE, in clouds of incense, receives the communion and is anointed. He then lies back, peacefully, on his bed and dies. The SPIRITS, gathered round his bed-side, turn, in question, to BEESTON)

THE SPIRITS

Well?

BEESTON

(Unable to beat them, he joins them…)

Our poet did, in the nick of time, lead a religious life. And entered the Kingdom of Heaven.

For what sort of God would ever shut his doors on Our Cousin Will…

All turn to look at the body of SHAKESPEARE which clearly has a smile on its face. BEESTON, with some relief, bangs his staff on the floor.

And, with a quaint device, the production vanishes…

THE END

© Stewart Trotter August, 2012

CHARACTERS (in order of appearance)

William Beeston, Boy (voice off-stage), Older Shakespeare, Calvin, Princess Elizabeth, Angel, John Shakespeare, Young Shakespeare, Two Henchmen, Aristocrat (played by BEESTON), Anne Hathaway, Clients in the Bear Tavern, Christopher Marlowe, Handsome Young Man, Thomas Nashe, Robert Greene, Rev. Robert Crowley (Played by BEESTON), Midlands Gentleman, Mary, Second Countess of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (known as ‘Harry Southampton), Emilia Bassano, Attendants 1 and 2, Romeo, Earl of Essex, Soldier, Spirits 1-4, John de Critz (played by BEESTON) Thomas Thorpe, John Davenant, Jennet Davenant, Launce, Susanna, Dr. John Hall, Prospero (played by SHAKESPEARE) Martin, Jane, Thomas Combe, Spirits as Clients in Bear Tavern, Spirits as The Church of Rome.

QUOTATIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE

As well as William Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Venus and Adonis, Lucrece and The Phoenix and the Turtle, OUR COUSIN WILL quotes from: The First Folio, Henry IV Parts One and Two, Love’s Labour’s Lost, All’s Well that Ends Well, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.

The lyrics to Lucy is Lousy are attributed, by tradition, to Shakespeare – as is much of the conversation – and verse-making – in the second Bear Tavern scene.

Shakespeare’s heavy drinking is also a local Warwickshire tradition.

PERFORMING RIGHTS

‘Our Cousin Will’ which, as well as being performed at Titchfield, has been professionally work-shopped in London by Jane Howell. Performing rights, world-wide are now available. Please leave a contact address below if your company would like to perform this play. S.T.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT……….

WILLOBIE HIS AVISA DECODED!!!

 

 

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 EPISODE SIX, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

TO READ EPISODE SEVEN, PLEASE CLICK: HERE

TO READ EPISODE EIGHT, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

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

BEESTON

Later that year, I was down here at Posbrook, reading those very Sonnets, in this very chair, when, late at night, there came a knock at the door…..

(BEESTON gets up from the table and exist. Off)

Look who the cat’s brought in! Come on in. Get yourself warm.

(SHAKESPEARE enters with BEESTON. He is wrapped in a cloak. BEESTON places SHAKESPEARE near the alchemical furnace)

BEESTON

We never thought we’d see you here again….

SHAKESPEARE

I never thought I’d be here.

BEESTON

Cheese? Cider? Molly’s a bit past it now….

SHAKESPEARE

No thanks, Will. I can’t stay long. (Stands and sees the volume of Sonnets on BEESTON’s table) I see you’re reading it….

 BEESTON

Reading it! Everyone’s reading it! Trixie the Cat’s reading it….

SHAKESPEARE

And Harry?

BEESTON

It’s his copy….

SHAKESPEARE

He used to mark the lines he liked best…..

(SHAKESPEARE snatches it up and looks through to see if there are any markings…There are none. He looks at BEESTON)

BEESTON

The spine cracked when I opened it….(A knife to SHAKESPEARE’S heart) Well, he’d read most of them before. And little James is taking up a lot of his time…(Another knife)

SHAKESPEARE

You think I’m a bastard, don’t you?

BEESTON

Yes.

SHAKESPEARE

And I should never have published them….

BEESTON

No. They are the most sublime things I’ve ever read. Sublime, but toxic….

SHAKESPEARE

He deserved it….

 BEESTON

Toxic for you. (SHAKESPEARE looks startled. BEESTON picks up the volume and looks through, quoting) ‘As a decrepit father takes delight’, ‘Like a deceived husband’, ‘Being your slave’….Will, you were none of these things. You were Will Shakespeare and he was Harry Southampton. Once you had something to give each other. Now you don’t…

SHAKESPEARE

(Rising to go) He took everything….

BEESTON

He gave you £1,000 pounds! (SHAKESPEARE looks shocked). Everyone knows, Will. Everyone. Without him, you’d never have written a single Sonnet….Look, I’m a fat old fart. But I do know this. Yesterday’s happiness is an old, worn out glove….(Both men smile) Get a new one, Will. Get a new one. Now I can’t give you a Sonnet to take with you on your journey – but I can give you a nice lump of cheese.

(BEESTON cuts a piece of cheese from a block. As he does so, SHAKESPEARE looks at BEESTON’s alchemical furnace)

SHAKESPEARE

Still wasting your time on this?

BEESTON

(Full of enthusiasm) I tell you, Will, it really works. (BEESTON leaves the cheese and rushes behind the screen to put on his robe) Let me summon up my spirits for you…

(BEESTON emerges in full regalia)

SHAKESPEARE

(Looking BEESTON up and down with a professional’s contempt) I’d rather leave it to my imagination, thanks…

BEESTON

(Taking off his robes and putting them on his table) Will. You really take the cheese. (Pause) So take the cheese!

(BEESTON gives SHAKESPEARE the lump of cheese)

SHAKESPEARE

(As he goes, he blesses BEESTON, making the sign of the cross) Bless you, Apis Lapis….

BEESTON

You’re still a Papist?

SHAKESPEARE

Of course.

BEESTON

Why?

SHAKESPEARE

Think what a monster I’d be I’d be if I wasn’t. (SHAKESPEARE exits)

BEESTON

(Picking up the Sonnets. Music)

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds

Nor bends with the remover to remove…’

(BEESTON walks behind screen – then re-emerges without his alchemical regalia)

BEESTON

John Davenant (DAVENANT enters) was a wine-merchant who ran the Crown Tavern in Oxford.

He was a grave, sophisticated man who spoke several languages and who liked plays and playwrights. He had a beautiful, witty wife, called Jennet (enter JENNET) whom he loved (DAVENANT kisses JENNET) and who loved him. (JENNET kisses him back)

On his way to Stratford, Will used to stay at the Crown. His plays were often performed in Oxford and one night he went with John and his wife to see a comedy….

(SHAKESPEARE enters and sits between DAVENANT and JENNET. ACTOR playing LAUNCE enters with a dog)

 (During LAUNCE’S speech, JENNET laughs away and SHAKESPEARE is clearly pleased – but he begins to notice with alarm that DAVENANT isn’t laughing. He’s not even smiling)

LAUNCE (with dog)

I think that Crab my dog be the sourest natured dog that lives. My mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, Trixie the cat wringing her hands and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone. A very pebble stone and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would have wept to see our parting. (SHAKESPEARE looks nervously at DAVENANT – still no laughter) Why my grandma, having no eyes, look you wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I’ll show you the manner of it…This shoe is my father. No this left shoe is my father, nay that cannot be so either. Yes it is, So it is. It hath the worser sole….( Exit LAUNCE. Applause. Lights up.)

DAVENANT

Jennet, could you leave us a moment….

(JENNET bobs to her husband and leaves the two men – an awkward pause)

SHAKESPEARE

John. Can I make a confession? (Silence) I didn’t write all that crap about Crab the dog. Tom Nashe did…. (More silence)….

He’s dead now….He’s the one who was anti-semitic, not me….I created Shylock, remember…

DAVENANT

Can I make a confession?

SHAKESPEARE

Of course.

DAVENANT

I thought it was funny. I just never laugh…..Never have done. Never will….(Silence) Trouble is, I like being with funny people. That’s why I run a tavern. I get them drunk so they don’t notice I’m not laughing…. (Silence) Can I make another confession? Jennet and I can’t have children…

SHAKESPEARE

Sorry to hear that…I had wondered…

DAVENANT

But the doctor says she could have children with someone else….Your son’s dead. Would you like another?

SHAKESPEARE

Of course I would but…(It gradually dawns on SHAKESPEARE what DAVENANT means)

DAVENANT

I love your plays. I’d love my son to have just a smidgeon of your talent. I’d call him ‘Will’ so everyone would know….

SHAKESPEARE

But what about Jennet?

DAVENANT

She’s in agreement. She adores you, Will. Like me.

SHAKESPEARE

But how would you feel about….

DAVENANT

(He pauses) Some loves run very deep… (Calling) Jennet….(JENNET appears, shyly) Jennet, it’s a done deal.

(JENNET approaches SHAKESPEARE and kisses him gently on the cheek. DAVENANT shakes him by the hand)

DAVENANT

Cousin Will….

(DAVENANT exits. JENNET kisses SHAKESPEARE more passionately then whispers something in SHAKESPEARE’S ear)

BEESTON

Jennet swore she would only sleep with Will and her husband…but she was a beautiful woman, desperate for a child, in a city full of handsome young undergraduates. Would she be content with occasional visits from Will?

(JENNET withdraws)

SHAKESPEARE

(Looking after her, then crossing to a couch and starting to undress)

When my love swears that she is made of truth

I do believe her, though I know she lies,

That she might think me untutor’d youth,

Unlearned in the world’s false subtlelties.

(Takes out a hand mirror and combs what’s left of his hair)

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue….

On both sides thus is simple truth suppress’d.

But wherefore says she not she is unjust?

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

(Puts his hand-mirror away)

Oh, love’s best habit is in seeming trust

And age, in love, love’s not to have years told…

(JENNET re-appears in a slip. SHAKESPEARE motions to her to join him on the couch)

Therefore I lie with her, and she with me

And in our faults, by lies, we flattered be…..

(The two kiss and start to make love. Slow exit to music, via trapdoor)

TO READ THE CONCLUDING EPISODE TEN, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

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 EPISODE SIX, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

TO READ EPISODE SEVEN, PLEASE CLICK: HERE

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

(BEESTON opens the First Folio. HARRY enters)

HARRY

(speaking out front, as if to SHAKESPEARE) I know thee not old man. Fall to thy prayers:

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!

I have long dreamed of such a kind of man,

So surfeit-swell’d, so old and so prophane:

But, being awake, I do despise my dream.

Make less thy body (hence) and more thy grace,

Leave gourmandising: know the grave doth gape

For thee thrice wider than for other men.

Reply not to me with a fool-borne jest.

Presume not that I am the thing I was,

For heaven doth know (so shall the world perceive)

That I have turn’d away my former self,

So will I those that kept me company.

(HARRY exits)

BEESTON

Now Will had lost two sons and his unexpressed grief came flooding back. From a decade before….

(SHAKESPEARE enters, dressed in black again, holding his dead, eleven year old son, HAMNET, in his arms)

SHAKESPEARE

Howl, howl, howl, howl. O you are men of stones!

Had I your tongues and eyes I’d use them so

That heaven’s vault should crack! He’s gone for ever…

I know when one is dead and when one lives…

He’s dead as earth…..No, no, no life….

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life

And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never….

(SHAKESPEARE, if possible, hurls the body of his son into the air. It disappears. Otherwise he takes it off stage)

BEESTON

Grief hardened into sexual disgust…

SHAKESPEARE

Th’expence of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action; and till action, lust

(Spirits – of indeterminate sex – enter and make violent love to one another, acting pout the words of the Sonnet)

Is perjur’d, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight;

Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,

Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,

On purpose laid to make the taker mad;

Mad in pursuit, and in possession so,

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;

A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;

(The Spirits wail and vanish)

Before a joy proposed, behind a dream…..

He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a whore’s oath or a boy’s love….

BEESTON

(Putting the painting of HARRY in drag onto the easel)

Disgust hardened into hatred. Will had promised Harry the certainty of immortality. Now he promises him the certainty of death…

SHAKESPEARE

(Staring at the painting of HARRY) O thou my (bitterly sarcastic) lovely boy who in thy power

Dost hold Time’s fickle glass his sickle hour,

Who hast by waning grown…..

(HARRY walks across the stage with his new-born baby son in his arms)

…..and therein show’st

Thy lover withering….

(SHAKESPEARE points to baby)

 …..as thy sweet self grow’st…..

(HARRY fondles the baby – then exits)

If nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,

As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,

She keeps thee to this purpose that her skill

May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.

(SHAKESPEARE takes the painting of HARRY in his hands) Yet fear her, o thou minion of her pleasure:

She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!

Her audit, though delayed, answered must be,

And her quietus is to render thee….

(SHAKESPEARE smashes the painting to pieces and exits…)

BEESTON

Hate hardened into revenge….

(THOMAS THORPE, a printer, enters and sits at a table, proof-reading and correcting.  Enter SHAKESPEARE with 154 separate sheets of paper which he plonks down)

SHAKESPEARE

Tom, I want you to publish these.

TOM

(Continuing to proof-read and correct) Are you selling by the pound?

SHAKESPEARE

One hundred and fifty four sonnets…

TOM

Not for me, Will.  Sonnets don’t sell. People don’t like them….

SHAKESPEARE

But they’re by ME!

TOM

(Tom becomes interested and stops correcting) And you’ll put your name to them?

SHAKESPEARE

I’ll be proud to….

TOM

(looking them over with a quick, practised eye) Some of these are a bit hot.  You’ll be changing the ‘he’s’ to ‘she’s’….?

SHAKESPEARE

No…

TOM

Narrows the market….

SHAKESPEARE

Not in Southwark it doesn’t…. I’ll pay for publication myself!

TOM

And what about libel?  I don’t want Southampton’s thugs smashing up my press…

SHAKESPEARE

I won’t dedicate the book to the Earl of Southampton….

TOM

Well that’s a relief….

SHAKESPEARE

No. I’ll dedicate it to Mr. Henry Wriothesley – remind him of his time in the Tower…

TOM

Are you insane?

SHAKESPEARE

Well, Mr. H. W. then….

TOM

(Sarcastically) Impenetrable code….

SHAKESPEARE

Look Tom, I want everyone to know it’s him….

TOM

How about Mr. W. H.….?

SHAKESPEARE

Would you publish if I agree?

TOM

(Looking at the Sonnets and realising they are masterpieces) I will, Will, I will…

SHAKESPEARE

(SHAKESPEARE rises to go. Then remembers) Oh there’s another poem I’d like to go at the end – A Lover’s Complaint…

(SHAKESPEARE hands TOM another manuscript)

TOM

(Suspicious) What’s this one about?

SHAKESPEARE

Relax, Tom. It’s about a woman….She is seduced by a vain, psychotic, lover who abandons her….

TOM

Spare me tragedy, Will.  We can’t give tragedy away….

SHAKESPEARE

But by the end she realises that her experience was wonderful… that, despite her suffering, she’d go through the whole affair again…

TOM

In other words, Will Shakespeare in drag…(Thinks about it – then sees a great marketing opportunity)  King James will LOVE it! He’ll buy the whole run!

(Smiles and shakes SHAKESPEARE’S hand. Both exit)

TO READ EPISODE NINE, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

A TRIXPOSÉ

(An Exposé by Trixie the Cat)

Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code,

Last Saturday, Your Cat was in Brighton……

……..an English, South Coast, seaside resort, renowned for its artistic young men……

She was accompanied by The Code’s Senior Fellow, Janet St.John-Austen……

………on TOP SECRET Code business…….

However, this did not stop us taking time off to hear a recital of swoony French music…….

……..given by the renowned virtuoso, chocolatier and Priest, Simon Hobbs….

……..on the organ of St. Paul’s Church, Brighton……

……..a church so high it sells Holy Water by the bottle…….

……..and, though Anglican, was blessed by His Holiness, Pope John Paul II…….

After the recital, we lunched with Fr. Hobbs at Brown’s, in the heady Lanes of Brighton……

One of Simon’s HIGHLY CULTIVATED guests suddenly dropped a bombshell…..

Trixie, have you read today’s article in The Guardian? [10th August]

It’s got a piece about Shakespeare’s Dark Lady.

It even decodes Willobie his Avisa……

Brothers and Sisters of The Code, it was as though the DELICIOUS sea bass I was eating….

……..had risen from my plate and slapped me across the face!

As you all well know, I stated, on the 4th August:

Tom and I and all the Code Agents are hot-footing it down to Dorset for field work on our AMAZING new project…….

WILLOBIE HIS AVISA DECODED!!!

Our findings will STAGGER the world of Shakespearean scholarship……

This was such an extraordinary coincidence that, for a moment, I had doubts…..

Could our dishy, new agent, the mysterious ‘Tom X’……

…… be a DOUBLE agent?

Could he have leaked Code secrets to The Guardian?

One glance at the article, which I kindled up, proved Tom to be entirely innocent……

(Sorry Tom! I’ll make it up to you….)

But the wretched Guardian Newspaper was………

 ENTIRELY GUILTY!!!

They had printed two and a half thousand words of tosh…..

What’s new?

…….I hear Brothers and Sisters of The Code cry aloud.

Hold your judgement till Your Cat reveals all!

Saul Frampton, the writer of the article, makes the following astonishing claims:

1. That John Florio……..

….. published the Sonnets of Shakespeare and wrote A Lover’s Complaint as an attack on him…..

2. That Florio wrote Willobie his Avisa as an attack on Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton…….

……..in 1594………

……. after leaving Southampton’s service…

3. That Avis Danyell, born 8^th February, 1556, in Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, was…….

(a) the model for Avisa in Willobie his Avisa and……

(b) the Dark Lady of the Sonnets……..

……..the dark-skinned, raven-browed, wiry-haired, coquettish mistress of both Shakespeare and Southampton.

This is Shakespeare ‘scholarship’ on a level with Titchfield’s own hilarious Ken Groves…….

See: TITCHFIELD KEN’S BEEN AT IT AGAIN!

…….who, parroting the ideas of the fine, true, local historian, George Watts……

……claims that Shakespeare’s Sonnets were published by William Harvey……..

……the third husband of Wriothesley’s mother……

……the Second Countess of Southampton!!!

(The idea was, in fact, first put forward in 1922 by Charlotte Stopes, mother of Marie.)

We know FOR CERTAIN that the Sonnets were NOT published by John Florio……

Nor were they published by William Harvey…..

THEY WERE PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE HIMSELF!!!

The playwright and pamphleteer, Thomas Heywood…..

……writing in his An Apology for Actors in 1612…….

……clearly states that Shakespeare published his poems…..

……in his own name

…….so that  he could……

…….do himself right

WHEN WILL PEOPLE ABANDON THE LUDICROUS IDEA THAT SHAKEPEARE’S SONNETS WERE STOLEN?

AND THEN PUBLISHED AGAINST HIS WISHES?

A Lover’s Complaint (which concludes the volume of The Sonnets) CANNOT be an attack on Shakespeare…….

‘The seducer’ of ‘the young woman’ in the poem is young, aristocratic and handsome…….

His browny locks did hang in crooked curls

And every light occasion of the wind

Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls…..

ONE GLANCE at the First Folio engraving……..

…….will show that ‘the seducer’ CANNOT be the balding, aging Shakespeare……

He is much more likely to be the follicly-rich, psychotic Henry Wriothesley……..

Frampton is WRONG when he states that Florio had broken with Southampton by 1594……..

…… and had then written an attack on him in Willobie his Avisa…..

Willobie was registered on 3 September, 1594……..

But Florio was still working for Southampton……….

……..ON 12th OCTOBER OF THE SAME YEAR!!!

He was travelling on the Southampton-Itchen ferry with Humphrey Drewell – Southampton’s barber – when they found Lawrence Grose, the sheriff of Southampton, on board with them.

Grose had helped raise the hue and cry about the Danvers brothers, Hooray-Henry friends of the Earl of Southampton……

…….who had killed a family enemy…….

…….and whom Southampton was sheltering at his notoriously louche Whitely Lodge in Titchfield….

[The great George Watts has described Whitely Lodge as the Southampton family’s ‘knocking-shop’. It is why the loose-living, DARK-SKINNED Rosaline in Love’s Labour’s Lost…………..

………is described as a……..

 WHITELY wanton

………It was implied that the character was staying at the Southampton Lodge……]

Florio and Drewell……

threatened to cast him, the said Grose, overboard and said they would teach him to meddle with his fellows with many other threatening words….

Is it conceivable that Florio would have published an anonymous attack on his master, Southampton, five weeks earlier?

Four years later (in 1598) Florio even dedicated his Dictionary to Southampton (amongst others) stating that he had been in Southampton’s…..

…… pay and patronage for some years……

Frampton’s last claim, that Avis Danyell……

…………born 8^th February, 1556, in Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire………

………..is  the model for Avisa in Willobie his Avisa……..

……….and indeed the Dark Lady of the Sonnets herself……….

………..is perhaps the most risible.

The chaste, gorgeous, but penniless, Avisa, is meant to be 20 years old……

AVIS DANYELL, IN 1594, WOULD HAVE BEEN PUSHING FORTY!!!

It is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that she was the mistress of Shakespeare and Southampton……

SHE WAS EIGHT YEARS OLDER THAN SHAKESPEARE AND SEVENTEEN YEARS OLDER THAN SOUTHAMPTON!!!

And, as a native of Tudor Wiltshire, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that she had a……

……complexion…..

……that was….

…black [Sonnet 132]

Frampton is free to write what he likes…….

……… as the Agents of The Code are free to write what THEY like……

But The Code takes issue with Paul Laity, the Literary Editor of The Guardian…..

…….who not only published this article…….

…….but also commends it as a…….

……marvellous piece of detective work……

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/10/search-shakespeares-dark-lady-florio

The Code takes EVEN MORE issue with The Guardian newspaper itself….

……..which has published a HUGE article about Shakespeare……

……..but has closed ALL discussion about it on its virtual pages…….

……..and has allowed NO DISCUSSION OF IT AT ALL on its newsprint pages……

This is precisely the sort of Fascism against which The Guardian has historically fought……..

In the old days………

……….when Code Chief Agent, Stewart Trotter, was a boy reporter……..

………writing anonymous reviews for the Times Literary Supplement……..

………heads would have rolled because of this…..

But not any more, it seems…..

LE GUARDIAN…

 J’ACCUSE!!!

‘Bye, now……

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 EPISODE SIX, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

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

ACT TWO

(The easel is in the centre with the famous painting of Southampton in the Tower of London – but with the cat not yet painted in. Artwork: copyright Kevin Fraser August 2013)

(Everything else is back to normal)

BEESTON (entering)

The Queen died and everything turned round. James became King of both Scotland and England…..

(SHAKESPEARE enters, looking a bit plumper than he did before the interval)

BEESTON

Shakespeare wrote a Sonnet. Like everyone else, he had got it all wrong. Harry did NOT die in jail…

SHAKESPEARE

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul

Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,

Can yet the lease of my true love control,

Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom…

BEESTON

The death of the Moon did NOT bring about Civil War……

SHAKESPEARE

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,

And the sad augurs mock their own presage;

Uncertainties now crown themselves assured

And peace proclaims olives of endless age….

BEESTON

It brought in the peaceful reign of King James. He is like a magic tonic for England. He makes Harry well again and gives Will miraculous powers….

SHAKESPEARE

Now with the drops of this most balmy time

My love looks fresh…….

(HARRY enters with his arm in the sling, like the painting, but looking sleek and handsome)

 …..and death to me subscribes,

Since ’spite of him I’ll live in this dull rhyme

While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes:

(SHAKESPEARE looks lovingly across the room at HARRY)

And thou in this shall find a monument

When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent…

(SHAKESPEARE exits as HARRY sits – again as in the painting)

BEESTON

(Turning round the easel, picking up a palette and putting on an artist’s smock )

Will galloped back to London to be re-united with his lover who was still in the Tower, having his portrait painted by one John de Critz….

 (Enter SHAKESPEARE)

HARRY

(With massive affection) Will! (HARRY goes to get up)

DE CRITZ/BEESTON

(With heavy Dutch accent) Don’t make the movement!

(HARRY obeys.  From behind his back, SHAKESPEARE produces a cat.  HARRY screams and rises in terror)

DE CRITZ/BEESTON

Don’t make the movement! Don’t make the movement!

HARRY

Will! You KNOW I hate cats…..

SHAKESPEARE

But De Critz said….

HARRY

(To DE CRITZ) What did you say?

DE CRITZ/BEESTON

Sir.  We agreed that this painting must be fit for a King. It must be SYMBOLICAL…

HARRY

(Not quite understanding) Yes….of course…

DE CRITZ/BEESTON

We want to show the new King how much you make the change….

HARRY

Yes…

 

DE CTITZ/BEESTON

How much you make the suffering….

HARRY

Yes….

DE CRITZ/BEESTON

And how much you make the learning…..

HARRY

Yes. (Stroking his hair) And how much I make the beauty!

DE CRITZ/BEESTON

Of course, sir. Goes without saying, sir….But the whole world knows you hate cats….

HARRY

So why get Will to bring one into my cell?

DE CRITZ/BEESTON

To show you have OVERCOME the fear…..To show you have CONQUERED the passion.  I shall inscribe the painting ‘IN VINCULIS INVICTUS’ – ‘In the chains, but unconquered…..

HARRY

(Warming to the theme) ‘Bloodied but unbowed’…

SHAKESPEARE

‘Don’t let the buggers get you down…’

HARRY

You really are an oik, Will….

DE CRITZ/BEESTON

So, Master Shakespeare, if you will hold the cat to the right of m’lord, I shall commit him to the canvas…

SHAKESPEARE

Her…

HARRY

A country oik as well….

(SHAKESPEARE stands holding the cat for a moment.)

SHAKESPEARE

What’s the point of all this?

HARRY

Word is that James is looking for a new favourite. The Pembroke boys, of course, have rushed North to fawn all over him while I’m stuck in the Tower…

SHAKESPEARE

You did commit high treason….

(SHAKESPEARE sneaks a look at the painting.)

DE CRITZ/BEESTON

DON’T MAKE THE MOVEMENT!!!

SHAKESPEARE

Sorry.  So you want James to think that you are beautiful….

HARRY

Know that I’m beautiful. My arm may be in a sling: but it shows off my wrist…And my hair becomes me well, does it not…

SHAKESPEARE

(Stifling a laugh) Wouldn’t it be best if I wrote a sonnet or two to accompany the painting….just to reinforce the idea?

HARRY

Excellent!

SHAKESPEARE

(Pause) I can’t write a sonnet while I’m holding a cat….

(He offers the cat do DE CRITZ)

DE CRITZ/BEESTON

And I can’t make the painting….

(SHAKESPEARE and DE CRITZ both look at HARRY)

HARRY

(His vanity overcoming his phobia) Oh all right then…..

(HARRY, shaking with fear, takes the cat from SHAKESPEARE and holds her in his right hand.) 

DE CRITZ/BEESTON

Please stop the shake-shake, m’Lord. The cat will be blurred…

(HARRY tries to master himself as SHAKESPEARE takes out parchment and quill sits and writes a couple of lines)

HARRY

Well, Master Shake-Shake? What have you writ-writ?

SHAKESPEARE

‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit Trixie the Cat….’

(DE CRITZ turns round the painting to show the Cat painted in)

(SHAKESPEARE and HARRY exit)

BEESTON (taking off his smock)

King James did NOT make Harry his new favourite: he preferred younger, prettier men. But he did make Will a Groom of the Chamber. Dressed in the King’s scarlet livery, he held the sacred canopy over the King at his Coronation. But, compared to his love for Harry, this honour meant nothing…

(SHAKESPEARE enters dressed in scarlet, with three other SCARLET SPRITS, holding up a scarlet canopy)

SHAKESPEARE (full of joy and confidence)

Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,

With my extern the outward honouring

Or laid great bases for eternity

Which proves more short than waste or ruining…

(SHAKESPEARE – relishing his new power – starts to take over from BEESTON. He now snaps his fingers himself and the Canopy and the other THREE SPIRITS vanish)

No! Time thou shalt not boast that I do change….

Thy pyramids, built up with newer might….

(SHAKESPEARE now suddenly snaps his fingers at BEESTON who, taken by surprise, temporarily succumbs to SHAKESPEARE’S authority. BEESTON places an illustration of a Coronation obelisk on the easel)

BEESTON

(explaining to the audience) …..the City Guilds had built obelisks to greet the new King as he…..

SHAKESPEARE (interrupting BEESTON)

…..to me are nothing novel, nothing strange;

They are but dressings of a former sight….

(SHAKESPEARE snaps his fingers at BEESTON again who places the illustration of the obelisk from Rome on the easel)

BEESTON

Will’s love for Harry was like the obelisk in Rome. It was….

SHAKESPEARE

(interrupting BEESTON again) ….builded far from accident;

It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls

Under the blow of thralled discontent,

Whereto th’inviting time our fashion calls:

It fears not policy, that heretic,

Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,

But all alone stands hugely politic,

That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers…

 To this I witness call the fools of time……

(SHAKESPEARE himself summons up the SPIRITS OF THE MARTYRS. They enter from the shadows, covered in blood and wearing halters round their necks. They walk, zombie-like, with a heavy drum-beat, towards the audience)

BEESTON

(Explaining to the audience, in terror and awe, as the MARTYRS advance)

….the Catholic martyrs slaughtered by Queen Elizabeth…..

SHAKESPEARE

Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime…

(SHAKESPEARE orders the drumming to stop. He crosses himself and kneels. The MARTYRS cross themselves and kneel.  BEESTON, carried away, crosses himself and kneels. SILENCE. TABLEAU. BEESTON suddenly comes to his senses)

BEESTON

What the…(He grabs his alchemical staff and attacks SHAKESPEARE and the other SPIRITS) Off! Off! Off!

(The SPIRITS flee. Then BEESTON, calm again continues…)

BEESTON

A year after the Coronation, Harry’s wife, Countess Elizabeth, gave birth to a baby. She’d given birth to girls before. But this time it was a boy. Harry now had a son to impress. Will, the actor, had to go….

TO READ EPISODE EIGHT, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

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.

•

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.

Dear Subscribers,

The Shakespeare Code has re-issued Episode 5 of Our Cousin Will in a bolder, larger type-face.

CLICK: HERE.

We hope to post the whole play over the Summer Break.

In the meantime, Tom and I and all the Code Agents are hot-footing it down to Dorset for field work on our AMAZING new project…….

WILLOBIE HIS AVISA DECODED!!!

Our findings will STAGGER the world of Shakespearean scholarship……

‘Bye now,,,,,

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 MORE ABOUT SHAKESPEARE THE PLAY PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

•

BEESTON

Emilia became pregnant and was married off ‘for colour’. Will returned to Titchfield and Harry….

(Music continues. HARRY enters.  SHAKESPEARE enters and kneels in front of him, but HARRY raises SHAKESPEARE to his feet and embraces him. NASHE enters and sees this. SHAKESPEARE and HARRY walk off)

There was a problem in all this for Will and Harry….(COUNTESS MARY  enters)

Mother Mary! (MARY sits and does needlework) Will wasn’t exactly fulfilling his job description…

(NASHE crosses over to MARY, bows, kneels to her) Nashe felt obliged to tell Mary what he had seen. (NASHE whispers in MARY’s ear. MARY looks horrified. NASHE whispers again) And one or two things that he hadn’t. (MARY looks even more horrified. NASHE exits) Mary summoned Will….

(SHAKESPEARE enters and kneels in front of MARY. BEESTON opens First Folio)

MARY

 Do you love my son?

SHAKESPEARE

Your pardon noble mistress?

 MARY

Love you my son?

SHAKESPEARE

Do you not love him, madam?

MARY

Go not about. My love hath in’t a bond,

Whereof the world takes note. Come, come, disclose

The state of your affection, for your passions

Have to the full appeach’d.

SHAKESPEARE

Then I confess

Here on my knees, before high heaven and you,

That before you, and next unto high heaven,

I love your son. My dearest madam,

Let not your hate encounter with my love,

For loving where you do….

BEESTON

Will then reminded Mary that, when she was younger, she herself had been in love with someone she shouldn’t have been….

SHAKESPEARE

…..but if yourself

Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,

Did ever in so true a flame of liking,

Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Diane

Was both herself and love – o then give pity

To him whose state is such that cannot choose….

(A pause. MARY reddens, then raises SHAKESPEARE to his feet and kisses him on the cheek. She is accepting him into the family)

MARY

Cousin Will….

(Exit together)

BEESTON

To celebrate Mother Mary’s acceptance of their love, Harry and Will travelled to Europe, with Tom, as ever, in tow…They were meant to be spying for Harry’s great friend, the Earl of Essex. But three more hopeless spies it would be hard to imagine. (Enter SHAKESPEARE, HARRY and NASHE) They travelled to Spain….

(Entering) ATTENDANT 1

His Majesty will see you now, sir….

(HARRY and SHAKESPEARE follow ATTENDANT 1 off)

NASHE

(White-faced) No-one must ever know we visited Philip of Spain…

(NASHE follows the others)

BEESTON

And they travelled to Italy….

 (Entering) ATTENDANT 2

His Holiness will see you now, sir…

(HARRY and SHAKESPEARE follow ATTENDANT 2 off)

NASHE

(Even more white-faced) No-one must ever know we visited (mouths) the Pope….

(NASHE follows the others)

BEESTON

This visit to Europe transformed Will….(Music) At the Court of Philip II  he saw two paintings by Titian….(BEESTON pulls the easel to a central position – and places a painting on it) One was the randy ‘Venus and Adonis’.

(SHAKESPEARE enters and stares at the painting in wonder)

SHAKESPEARE

‘Even as the sun with purple-coloured face

Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,

Rose cheek’d Adonis hied him to the chase;

Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn.

Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,

And like a bold-fac’d suitor ’gins to woo him….’

(BEESTON whisks away ‘Venus and Adonis’)

BEESTON

And the other was the terrifying ‘Rape of Lucrece’…

(BEESTON places ‘The Rape of Lucrece’ on the easel)

SHAKESPEARE

(Altering his tone and his manner completely)

‘He shakes aloft his Roman blade

Which like a falcon towering in the skies,

Coucheth the fowl below with his wings’ shade,

Whose crooked beak threats, if he mounts, he dies:

So under his insulting falchion lies

Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells

With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon’s bells…’

(BEESTON places an illustration of the obelisk at Rome over ‘The Rape of Lucrece’. It has an immediate effect on SHAKESPEARE who crosses himself and kneels in prayer. HARRY enters, sees the obelisk, also crosses himself and kneels in prayer)

BEESTON (adopting a pious tone)

At Rome, Harry and Will venerated the obelisk that the Pope had set up in front of St. Peter’s.

It was the last thing St. Peter saw before he was crucified….

(BEESTON whisks away the easel, breaking the mood of piety)  Allegedly!

(The SPIRITS playing HARRY and SHAKESPEARE are furious at BEESTON’S blasphemy. More and more they are BECOMING the parts they are playing. It looks as though they are about to rebel – but BEESTON quells them with a snap of his fingers)

BEESTON

 Then the men travelled through the rest of Italy via network of canals…..

 (BEESTON returns to First Folio)

HARRY

(Getting a sudden idea) I have it full….

We have not yet been seen in any house,

Nor can we be distinguished by our faces

For man or master. Then it follows thus:

Thou shalt be master in my stead,

I will some other be, some Florentine,

Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.

‘Tis hatch’d, and shall be so. Will, at once

Uncase thee, take my coloured hat and cloak….

(They do so)

SHAKESPEARE

Sith it your pleasure is,

And I am tied to be obedient –

For so your mother charged me at our parting

‘Be serviceable to my son’ quoth she,

Although I think ’twas in another sense –

I am content to be Southampton

Because so well I love Southampton….

And besides, this might prove a good device for a play….

(SHAKESPEARE and HARRY exit)

 TO READ EPISODE SIX, PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

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 MORE ABOUT SHAKESPEARE THE PLAY PLEASE CLICK: HERE.

•

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!

TOM HAGGARD…..

……. the celebrated West London mystic and recluse…….

…… recently astounded the world by getting married.

To celebrate the event, he wrote a poem…….

……. and asked The Shakespeare Code if we would like to publish it……

LIKE TO???

A new poem from Haggard is a literary event of international magnitude……

…….especially after nearly half a century of silence.

The Code feels honoured……

 …….and humbled……

……..to have been chosen.

AN OLDER BRIDEGROOM TO HIS YOUNGER BRIDE

Silver turns my golden shaft

As ‘What has been’ dwarfs ‘What’s to be’…

But as we down our wedding draught,

(Shampers – stabilised by tea)

I make the vow men cannot make

While blood’s commotion stirs and mars:

To hold you till we both awake

And take our walk among the stars…

Copyright: Tom Haggard, June 2013.