MARLOWE. What have you heard of me?
MARY. That you were somebody’s brother-in-art! What have you
heard of me?
MARLOWE. That you were his sister-in-art.
MARY. A man’s sister! I’d as soon be a cold pudding! What did he
say of his sister, brother?
MARLOWE. That you brought him luck.
MARY. That he leaves behind him!
MARLOWE. Like the blind man’s lucky sixpence that the Jew stole
when he put a penny in his plate.
MARY. A Jew of Malta?
MARLOWE. What, do _you_ read me? You?
A STAGE HAND [_in the passage_]. Last act, please!
Last act! Last act!
MARY. I must go watch it.
MARLOWE. Don’t you know it?
MARY. Oh, by heart! Yet I must sisterly watch it.
MARLOWE. Stay a little.
MARY. Till he comes? Then I shall miss all, for he’ll keep me.
MARLOWE. Against your will?
MARY. No, with my Will.
MARLOWE. Is it he or his plays?
MARY. Not sure.
MARLOWE. If I were he I’d make you sure.
MARY. I wonder if you could! I wonder--how?
MARLOWE. Too long to tell you here, and--curtain’s up!
MARY. Come to my house one lazy day and tell me!
MARLOWE. Hark! That’s more noise than curtain!
HENSLOWE’S VOICE. Shakespeare! Shakespeare! [_Entering._] Here’s
a calamity! Where’s Shakespeare? He should be in the green-room!
Why does he tuck away in this rat-hole when he’s wanted? And
what’s to be done? Where in God’s name is Shakespeare?
MARY. With the Queen.
MARLOWE. The curtain’s up; he’ll be here in a minute.
MARY. What’s wrong?
HENSLOWE. Everything! Juliet! The clumsy beasts! They let him
fall from the bier: they let him fall on his arm! Now he’s
moaning and wincing and swears he can’t go on, though he has
but to speak his death scene. I’ve bid them cut the afterwards.
MARLOWE. Broken?
HENSLOWE. I fear so.
MARY. Let it be broken! Say he must go on!
What? Spoil the play? These baby-men!
HENSLOWE. He will not.
MARLOWE. The understudy?
HENSLOWE. Playing Paris. Where’s Shakespeare? What’s to be done?
The play’s spoiled.
MARLOWE. He’ll break his heart.
MARY. He shall not break his heart!
This is our play! Back to your Juliet-boy,
Strip off his wear and never heed his arm!
Bid them play on and bring me Juliet’s robes!
I’ll put them on and put on Juliet too.
Quick, Henslowe!
HENSLOWE. What! a woman play on the stage?
MARY. Ay, when the men fail! Quick! I say I’ll do it!
SHAKESPEARE [_entering_].
Here still? You’ve heard?
MARY [_on the threshold_]. And heeded. Never stop me!
You shall have Juliet. You shall have your play.
_She and_ HENSLOWE _hurry out._
MARLOWE. There goes a man’s master! But does she know the part?
SHAKESPEARE. She knows each line, she knows each word, she
breathed them
Into my heart long ere I wrote them down.
MARLOWE. But to act! Can you trust her?
SHAKESPEARE. She? Go and watch! I need not.
MARLOWE. But is it in her? She’s Julia not Juliet, not your young
Juliet, not your June morning--or is she?
SHAKESPEARE. You talk! You talk! You talk! What do you know of
her?
MARLOWE. Or you, old Will?
SHAKESPEARE. I dream her.
MARLOWE. Well, pleasant dreams!
SHAKESPEARE. No more. I’m black awake.
MARLOWE. What’s wrong? Ill news?
SHAKESPEARE. From Stratford. Yes, yes, yes, Kit! And it must come
now, just now, after ten dumb years!
MARLOWE. Stratford? Whew! I’d forgotten your nettle-bed. What
does she want of you?
SHAKESPEARE. Hark! Mary’s on.
MARLOWE. It’s a voice like the drip of a honey-comb.
SHAKESPEARE. Can she play Juliet, man? Can she play Juliet?
I think she can. Kit?
MARLOWE. Ay?
SHAKESPEARE. Oh, is there peace
Anywhere, Kit, in any, any world?
MARLOWE. What is it, peace?
SHAKESPEARE. It passeth understanding.
They round the sermon off on Sunday with it,
Laugh in their sleeves and send us parching home.
This is a dew that dries ere Monday comes,
And oh, the heat of the seven days!
MARLOWE. I like it!
The smell of dust, the shouting, and the glare
Of crowded noon in cities, and such nights
As this night, crowning labour. What is--peace?
STAGE HAND [_entering_]. Sir, sir, sir, will you come down, sir,
says Mr. Henslowe. The end’s near and the house half mad. We’ve
not seen a night like this since--since _your_ night, sir! Your
first night, sir, your roaring Tamburlaine night! Never anything
like it and I’ve seen many. Will you come, sirs?
SHAKESPEARE. You go, Marlowe!
STAGE HAND. There’s nothing to fear, sir! It runs like clockwork.
The lady died well, sir! Lord, who’d think she was a woman!
There, there, it breaks out. Listen to ’em! Come, sir, come, come!
MARLOWE. We’ll come! We’ll come!
_The man goes out._
SHAKESPEARE. Not I! Oh, if you love me, Marlowe, swear I’m ill,
gone away, dead, what you please, but keep them away! I can stand
no more.
MARLOWE. It’s as she said--mad--mad--to fling your luck away.
SHAKESPEARE. A frost has touched me, Marlowe, my fruit’s black.
Help me now! Go, go! Say I’m gone, as I shall be when I’ve seen
Mary--
MARLOWE. A back stairs? Now I understand.
SHAKESPEARE. Oh, stop your laughter! I’m to leave London in half
an hour.
MARLOWE. Earnest? For long?
SHAKESPEARE. Little or long, what matter? I’ve missed the moment.
Who has his moment twice?
MARLOWE. Shall you tell her why you go?
SHAKESPEARE. Mary? God forbid!
VOICES. Shakespeare! Call Shakespeare!
SHAKESPEARE. D’you hear them? Help me! Say I am gone! Oh, go, go!
MARLOWE. Well, if you wish it!
_He goes out leaving the door ajar. As_ SHAKESPEARE _goes on
speaking the murmurs and claps die away and the noises of the
stage are heard, the shouts of the scene-shifters, directions
being given, and so on. Finally there is silence._
SHAKESPEARE. Wish it? I wish it? Have you no more for me
Of comfort, Marlowe?
Oh, what a dumb and measureless gulf divides
Star from twin star, and friend from closest friend!
Women, they say, can bridge it when they will:
As seamen rope a ship with grappling irons
These spinners of strong cords invisible
Make fast and draw the drifting glory home
In the name of love. I know not. Better go!
I am not for this harbour--
_There is a sound of hasty footsteps and_ MARY FITTON _enters
in Juliet’s robes. She stands in the doorway, panting, exalted,
with arms outstretched. The door swings to behind her, shutting
out all sound._
MARY. Oh, I faced
The peacock of the world, the arch of eyes
That watched me love a god, the eyes, eyes, eyes,
That watched me die of love. Wake me again,
O soul that did inhabit me, O husband
Whose mind I uttered, to whose will I swayed,
Whose self of love I was! Wake me again
To die of love in earnest!
SHAKESPEARE. Mary! Mary!
MARY. I cannot ride this hurricane. I spin
Like a leaf in the air. Die down and let me lie
Close to the earth I am! O stir me not
With rosy breathings from the south, the south
Of sun and wine and peaks that flame to God
Suddenly in the dark! O wind, let be
And drive me not; for speech lies on my lips
Like a strange finger hushing back my soul
With words not mine, and thoughts not mine arise
Like marsh-flame dancing! As a leaf to a tree
Upblown, O wind that whirls me, I return.
Master and quickener, give me love indeed!
SHAKESPEARE. These are the hands I never held till now:
These are the lips I never felt on mine:
This is the hour I dreamed of, many an hour:
This is the spirit awake. God in your sky,
Did your heart beat so on the seventh dawn?
MARY. ’Ware thunder!
SHAKESPEARE. Sweet, He envies and is dumb,
Dumb as His dark. He was our audience.
Now to His blinding centrum home He hies,
Omnipotent drudge, to wind the clocks of Time
And tend His ’plaining universes all--
To us, to us, His empty theatre of night
Abandoning. But we too steal away;
For the play’s done,
Lights out--all over--and here we stand alone,
Holding each other in a little room,
Like two souls in one grave. We are such lovers--
ANNE’S VOICE. As there’s no room for in the human air
And green side of the grass--
SHAKESPEARE. A voice! A voice!
MARY. No voice here!
SHAKESPEARE. In my heart I heard it cry
Like a sick child waked suddenly at night.
[_Crying out_]
A child--a sick child! Unlink your arms that hold me!
MARY. Never till I choose!
SHAKESPEARE. Put back your hair! I am lost
Unless I lose all gain. O moonless night,
In your hot darkness I have lost my way!
But kiss me, summer, once! On London Bridge
At midnight--I’ll be there! Has the clock struck?
MARY. Midnight long since.
SHAKESPEARE. Oh, I am damned and lost
In hell for ever!
MARY. Fool, dear fool, what harm?
If this be hell indeed, is not hell kind?
Is not hell lovely, if this love be hell?
Is not damnation sweet?
SHAKESPEARE. God does not know
How sweet, how sweet!
MARY. Were they not wise, those two
Whose same blood beats again in you and me,
That chose the desert and the fall and went
Exultant from their garden and their God?
Long shall the sworded angels stand at ease
And idly guard the undesired delight:
Long shall the grasses grow and tall the briars,
And bent the branches of the ancient trees:
And many a year the wilding flowers shall blaze
Under a lonely sun, and fruited sweets
Shall drop and rot, and feed the roots that feed,
And bud again and ripen: long and long
Silent the watchman-lark in heaven shall hang
High over Eden, e’er they come again
Those two, whose blood is our blood, and their love
Our love, our own, that no god gave us, ours,
The venture ours, the glory ours, the shame
A price worth paying, then, now, ever--
SHAKESPEARE. Eve,
Eve, Eve, the snake has been with you! You draw,
You drink my soul as I your body--
MARY. Kiss!
THE CURTAIN FALLS.
ACT III.
SCENE I.
SHAKESPEARE’S _lodging. It is the plain but
well-arranged room of a man of fair means and
fine taste. The walls are panelled: on them hang
a couple of unframed engravings, a painting,
tapestry, and a map of the known world. There is
a four-post bed with a coverlet and hangings of
needlework, and on the window-sill a pot of early
summer flowers. There is a chair or two of oak
and a table littered with papers_. SHAKESPEARE
_is sitting at it, a manuscript in his hand. On
the arm of the chair lolls_ MARLOWE, _one arm
flung round_ SHAKESPEARE’S _neck, reading over
his shoulder._
SHAKESPEARE. Man, how you’ve worked! A whole act to my ten lines!
You dice all day and dance all night and yet--how do you do it?
MARLOWE. Like it?
SHAKESPEARE. Like it? What a word for a word-master! Consider,
Kit! When the sun rises like a battle song over the sea: when the
wind’s feet visibly race along the tree-tops of a ten-mile wood:
when they shout “Amen!” in the Abbey, praying for the Queen on
Armada Day: when the sky is a brass gong and the rain steel rods,
and across all suddenly arch the seven colours of the promise--do
I _like_ these wonders when I stammer and weep, and know that God
lives? Like, Marlowe!
MARLOWE. Yes, yes, old Will! But do you like the new act?
SHAKESPEARE. I like it, Kit! [_They look at each other and
laugh_].
MARLOWE. And now for your scene, ere I go.
SHAKESPEARE. My scene! I give you what I’ve done. Finish it
alone, Kit, and take what it brings! I’m sucked dry.
MARLOWE. I’ve heard that before.
SHAKESPEARE. I wish I had never come to London.
MARLOWE. Henslowe’s back. Seen him?
SHAKESPEARE. I’ve seen no-one. Did the tour go well?
MARLOWE. He says so. He left them at Stratford. Well, I must go.
SHAKESPEARE. Where? To Mary?
MARLOWE. Why should I go to your Mary?
SHAKESPEARE. Because I’ve asked you to, often enough. Why else?
You’ve grown to be friends. You could help me if you would.
MARLOWE. Never step between a man and a woman!
SHAKESPEARE. But you’re our friend! And they say you know women.
MARLOWE. They say many things. They say we’re rivals, Will--that
I shall end by having you hissed.
SHAKESPEARE. Let them say! But have you seen Mary? When did you
last see Mary?
MARLOWE. I forget. Saturday.
SHAKESPEARE. Did you speak of me, Kit? Kit, does she speak of me?
MARLOWE. If you must have it--seldom. New songs, new books, new
music--of plays and players and the Queen’s tantrums--not of you.
SHAKESPEARE. I have not seen her three days.
MARLOWE. Why, go then and see her!
SHAKESPEARE. She has company. She is waiting on the Queen. She
gives me a smile and a white cool finger-tip, and--“Farewell, Mr.
Shakespeare!” Yet a month ago, ay and less than a month--! Did
you give her my message? What did she say?
MARLOWE. She laughed and says you dream. She never liked you
better.
SHAKESPEARE. Did she say that?
MARLOWE. She says you cool to her, not she to you.
SHAKESPEARE. Did she say that?
MARLOWE. Swore it, with tears in her eyes.
SHAKESPEARE. Is it so? I wish it were so. Well, you’re my good
friend, Marlowe!
MARLOWE. Oh, leave that!
SHAKESPEARE. Kit, do you blame me so much?
MARLOWE. Why should I blame you?
SHAKESPEARE. That I’m here and not in Warwickshire.
MARLOWE. I throw no stones. Why? Have you heard aught?
SHAKESPEARE. No, nor dared ask--nor dared ask, Marlowe. The
boy’s dead. I know it. But I will not hear it. Marlowe, Marlowe,
Marlowe, do you judge me?
MARLOWE. Ay, that putting your hand to the plough you look back.
Would I comb out my conscience daily as a woman combs out her
hair? I do what I choose, though it damn me! Blame you? The round
world has not such another Mary--or so, had I your eyes, I should
hold. For this prize, if I loved her, I would pay away all I had.
SHAKESPEARE. Honour, Kit?
MARLOWE. Honour, Will!
SHAKESPEARE. Faith and conscience and an only son?
MARLOWE. It’s my own life. What are children to me?
SHAKESPEARE. Well, I have paid.
MARLOWE. But you grudge--you grudge! Look at you! If you go to
her with those eyes it’s little wonder that she tires of you.
SHAKESPEARE. Tires? Who says that she tires? Who says it?
MARLOWE. Not I, old Will! Not I! Why, Shakespeare?
SHAKESPEARE [_shaken_]. I can’t sleep, Kit! has come to me? I
think I go mad. [_He starts._] Was that the I can’t write. What
boy on the stairs? I sent him to her. I wrote. I have waited her
will long enough. She shall see me to-night. I’ll know what it
means. She plays with me, Kit. Are you going?
MARLOWE. I shall scarce reach Deptford ere dark.
SHAKESPEARE. How long do you lodge in Deptford?
MARLOWE. All summer.
HENSLOWE [_pounding at the door_]. Who’s at home? Who’s at home?
MARLOWE. That’s Henslowe.
SHAKESPEARE. Why does the boy stay so long?
HENSLOWE [_in the doorway_]. Gentlemen, the traveller returns!
For the last time, I tell you! My bones grow too old for
barnstorming. Do you go as I come, Kit? Thank you for nothing!
MARLOWE. Be civil, Henslowe! ‘The Curtain’ ’s on its knees to me
for my next play.
HENSLOWE. Pooh! This man can serve my turn.
MARLOWE. You see, they’ll make rivals of us, Will, before they’ve
done. I’ll see you soon again. [_He goes out._]
HENSLOWE. Well, what’s the news?
SHAKESPEARE. I sit at home. You roam England. You can do the
talking. How did the tour go?
HENSLOWE. You’re thin, man! What’s the matter? Success doesn’t
suit you?
SHAKESPEARE. How did the tour go?
HENSLOWE. By way of Oxford, Warwick, Kenilworth--
SHAKESPEARE. I said “how” not “where.”
HENSLOWE. --and Leamington and Stratford. We played ‘Romeo’ every
other night--and to full houses, my son! I’ve a pocketful of
money for you. They liked you everywhere. As for your townsfolk,
they went mad. You can safely go home, boy! You’ll find Sir
Thomas in the front row, splitting his gloves. He’ll ask you to
dinner.
SHAKESPEARE. Were you there long?
HENSLOWE. Two nights.
SHAKESPEARE. Did you see--anyone?
HENSLOWE. Why not say--
SHAKESPEARE. I say, did you pass my house?
HENSLOWE. I had forgot the way.
SHAKESPEARE. As I have, Henslowe!
HENSLOWE. Should I have sought her?
SHAKESPEARE. No.
HENSLOWE. Yet I did see her.
Making for London, not a week ago,
Alone on horseback, sudden the long grey road
Grew friendly, like a stranger in a dream
Nodding “I know you!” and behold, a love
Long dead, that smiles and says, “I never died!”
Then in the turn of the lane I saw your thatch.
Summer not winter, else was all unchanged.
Still in the dream I left my horse to graze,
And let ten years slip from me at your gate.
SHAKESPEARE. Is it ten years?
HENSLOWE. The little garden lay
Enchanted in the Sunday sloth of noon:
In th’ aspen tree the wind hung, fast asleep,
Yet the air danced a foot above the flowers
And gnats danced in it. I saw a poppy-head
Spilling great petals, noiseless, one by one:
I heard the honeysuckle breathe--sweet, sweet:
The briar was sweeter--a long hedge, pink-starred--
SHAKESPEARE. I know.
HENSLOWE. There was a bush of lavender,
And roses, and a bee in every rose,
Drowning the lark that fluted, fields away,
Up in the marvel blue.
SHAKESPEARE. Did you go in?
HENSLOWE. Why, scarce I dared, for as I latched the gate
The wind stirred drowsily, and “Hush!” it said,
And slept again; but all the garden waked
Upon the sound. I swear, as I play Prologue,
It watched me, waiting. Down the path I crept,
Tip-toe, and reached the window, and looked in.
SHAKESPEARE. You saw--?
HENSLOWE. I saw her; though the place was gloom
After the sunshine; but I saw her--
SHAKESPEARE. Changed?
HENSLOWE. I knew her.
SHAKESPEARE. Who was with her?
HENSLOWE. She was alone,
Beside the hearth unkindled, sitting alone.
A child’s chair was beside her, but no child.
Her hands were sleepless, and beneath her breath
She tuned a thread of song--your song of ‘Willow.’
But when I tapped upon the window-pane,
Oh, how she turned, and how leaped up! Her face
Glowed white as iron new lifted from the forge:
Her hair fled out behind her in one flame
As to the door she ran, with little cries
Scarce human, tearing at the bolt, the key,
And flung it crashing back: ran out, wide-armed,
Calling your name: then--saw me, and stood still,
So still you’d think she died there, standing up,
As a sapling will in frost, so desolate
She stood, with summer round her, staring--
SHAKESPEARE. Well?
HENSLOWE. I asked her, did she know me? Yes, she said,
And would I rest and eat? So much she said
To the lawn behind me--oh, to the hollyhock
Stiff at my elbow--to a something--nothing--
But not to me. I could not eat her food.
I told her so. She nodded. Oh, she knows
How thoughts run in a man. No fool, no fool!
I spoke of you. She listened.
SHAKESPEARE. Questioned you?
HENSLOWE. Never a question.
SHAKESPEARE. She said nothing?
HENSLOWE. Nothing.
SHAKESPEARE. Not like her.
HENSLOWE. But her eyes spoke, as I came
By way of London, Juliet, ‘The Rose,’
And the Queen’s great favour (“And why not?” they said)
Again to silence; so, as I turned to go
I asked her--“Any greeting?” Then she said,
Lifting her chin as if she sped her words
Far, far, like pigeons flung upon the air,
And soft her voice as bird-wings--then she said,
“Tell him the woods are green at Shottery,
Fuller of flowers than any wood in the world.”
“What else?” said I. She said--“The wind still blows
Fresh between park and river. Tell him that!”
Said I--“No message, letter?” Then she said,
Twisting her hands--“Tell him the days are long.
Tell him--” and suddenly ceased. Then, with good-bye
Pleasantly spoken, and another look
At some wraith standing by me, not at me,
Went back into the house and shut the door.
SHAKESPEARE. Ay, shut the door, Henslowe; for had she been this she
Ten years ago and I this other I--
Well, I have friends to love! Heard Marlowe’s news?
He’s three-part through Leander! Oh, this Marlowe!
I mine for coal but he digs diamonds.
HENSLOWE. Yet fill your scuttle lest the world grow chill! Is the
new play done?
SHAKESPEARE. No.
HENSLOWE. Much written?
SHAKESPEARE. Not a line.
HENSLOWE. Are you mad? We’re contracted. What shall I say to the
Queen?
SHAKESPEARE. What you please.
HENSLOWE. Are you well?
SHAKESPEARE. Well enough.
HENSLOWE. Ill enough, I think!
SHAKESPEARE. Write your own plays--bid Marlowe, any man
That writes as nettles grow or rain comes down!
I am not born to it. I write not so.
Romeo and Juliet--I am dead of them!
The pay’s too small, good clappers! These ghosts
need blood
To make ’em plump and lively and they know it,
And seek their altar. Threads and floating wisps
Of being, how they fasten like a cloud
Of gnats upon me, not to be shoo’d off
Unsatisfied--and they drink deep, drink deep;
For like a pelican these motes I feed,
And with old griefs’ remembrance and old joys’
Sharper remembrance daily scourge myself,
And still they crowd to suck my scars and live.
HENSLOWE. Now, now, now--do I ask another ‘Juliet’ of you? God
forbid! A fine play, your ‘Juliet,’ but--
SHAKESPEARE. Now come the “buts.”
HENSLOWE. Man, we must live! Can we fill the theatre on love and
longing, and high words? Ay, when Marlowe does it to the sound
of trumpets. But you--you’re not Marlowe. You know too much.
Your gods are too much men and women. Who’ll pay sixpence for a
heart-ache? and in advance too! Give us but two more ‘Romeo and
Juliet’'s and you may be a great poet, but we close down. Another
tragedy? No, no, no, we don’t ask that of you! We want light
stuff, easy stuff. Oh, who knows as well as you what’s wanted?
It’s a court play, my man! The French Embassy’s to be there and
the two Counts from Italy, and always Essex and his gang, and you
know _their_ fancy. Get down to it now, there’s a good lad! Oh,
you can do it in your sleep! Lovers and lasses, and quarrels and
kisses, like the two halves of a sandwich! But court lovers, you
know, that talk verse--and between them a green cress of country
folk and country song, daffodils and valentines, and brown
bowls of ale--season all with a pepper of wit--and there’s your
sandwich, there’s your play, as the Queen likes it, as we all
like it!
SHAKESPEARE. Ay, as you like it! There’s your title pat!
But I’ll not serve you. I’m to live, not write.
Tell that to the Queen!
_A boy enters whistling and stops as he_
_sees_ SHAKESPEARE.
Well, Hugh, what answer?
BOY. None, sir!
SHAKESPEARE. What? No answer?
HENSLOWE. See here, Will! If you do not write me this play you
have thrice promised, I’ll to the Queen--sick or mad I’ll to the
Queen this very day for your physic--and so I warn you.
SHAKESPEARE [_to the boy_]. Did you see--?
BOY. The maid, sir!
HENSLOWE. I’ll not see ‘The Rose’ in ruins for a mad--
SHAKESPEARE [_to the boy_]. But what did I bid you?
BOY. Wait on the doorstep till Mistress Fitton came out, though
I waited all night. But indeed, sir, she’s gone; for I saw her,
though she did not see me.
HENSLOWE. Oh, the Fitton! Now I see light through the wood!
SHAKESPEARE. What’s that you say?
HENSLOWE. I say that the Queen shall know where the blame lies.
SHAKESPEARE. You lie. _I_ heard you. _I_ saw you twist your lips
round a white name.
HENSLOWE. Will! Will! Will!
SHAKESPEARE. Did you not?
HENSLOWE. Why, Will, you have friends, though you fray ’em to the
parting of endurance.
SHAKESPEARE. What’s this?
HENSLOWE. I say you have friends that see what they see, and are
sorry.
SHAKESPEARE. Yes, I am blessed in one man and woman who do not
use me as a beast to be milked dry. I have Marlowe and--
HENSLOWE. Marlowe? And I said, God forgive me, that you knew men
and women! Marlowe!
SHAKESPEARE. You speak of my friend.
HENSLOWE. Ay, Jonathan--of David, the singer, of him that took
Bathsheba, all men know how. [SHAKESPEARE _makes a threatening
movement._] No, no, Will! I am too old a man to give and take
with you--too old a man and too old a friend.
SHAKESPEARE. So you’re to lie and I’m to listen because you’re an
old man!
HENSLOWE. Lie? Ask any in the town. I’m but a day returned and
already I’ve heard the talk. Why, man, they make songs of it in
the street!
SHAKESPEARE. It? It? It?
HENSLOWE. Boy?
BOY. Here, sir?
HENSLOWE. What was that song you whistled as you came up the
stairs?
BOY. ‘Weathercock,’ sir?
HENSLOWE. That’s it!
BOY. Lord, sir, I know but the one verse I heard a drayman sing.
HENSLOWE. How does it go?
BOY. It goes--[_singing._]
Two birds settle on a weathercock--
How’s the wind to-day--O?
One shall nest and one shall knock--
How’s the wind to-day--O?
Turn about and turn about,
Kit pops in as Will pops out!
Winds that whistle round the weathercock,
Who’s her love to-day--O?
It’s a good tune, sir!
HENSLOWE. Eh, Will? A good tune! A rousing tune!
SHAKESPEARE [_softly_]. “For this prize, if I loved her, I would
pay all I had! I do what I choose though it damn me!”
BOY. May I go, sir?
SHAKESPEARE. Go, go!
BOY. And my pay, sir? Indeed I’d have stopped the lady if I
could. But she made as if she were not herself, and rode out of
the yard. But I knew her, for all her riding-coat and breeches.
HENSLOWE. What’s all this?
SHAKESPEARE [_to the boy_]. You’re dreaming--
BOY. No, sir, there was your ring on her finger--
SHAKESPEARE. Be still! Take this and forget your dreams!
[_He gives him money._] Henslowe, farewell! If you’ve lied to me
I’ll pay you for it, and if you’ve spoken truth to me I’ll pay you
for it no less.
HENSLOWE. Pay? I want no pay. I want the play that the Queen
ordered, and will have in the end, mark that! You have not yet
served the Queen.
SHAKESPEARE. Boy! Hugh!
BOY. Sir?
SHAKESPEARE. Which way did she ride?
BOY. Am I asleep or awake, sir?
SHAKESPEARE. Which way did she ride?
BOY. Across the bridge, sir, as I dreamt it, along the Deptford
road.
SHAKESPEARE. Marlowe! The Deptford road! The Deptford road!
[_He rushes out._]
BOY [_showing his money_]. Dreaming pays, sir! It’s gold.
HENSLOWE. Boy, boy! Never trust a man! Never kiss a woman! Work
all day and sleep all night! Love yourself and never ask God for
the moon! So you may live to be old. This business grows beyond
me. I’ll to the Queen.
_He trots out, shaking his head. The boy skips after him,
whistling his tune._
THE CURTAIN FALLS.
ACT III.
SCENE II.
_A private room at an inn late at night. Through
the door in the right wall is seen the outer
public room, with men sitting drinking. There
is a window at the back, set so low in the wall
that, above the window-sill, the heads of summer
flowers glisten in the moonlight. On the left
wall is the hearth and between it and the window
a low bed. In the centre is a table with candle,
glasses and mugs, and two or three men sitting
round it drinking_. MARLOWE _stands with his back
to the window, one foot on a chair, shouting out
a song as the curtain rises._
MARLOWE [_singing_].
If Luck and I should meet
I’ll catch her to me crying,
‘To trip with you were sweet,
Have done with your denying!’
Hey, lass! Ho, lass!
Heel and toe, lass!
Who’ll have a dance with me?
ALL TOGETHER. Hey, Luck! Ho, Luck!
Ne’er say no, Luck!
I’ll have a dance with thee!
A MAN [_hammering the table_]. Again! Again!
LANDLORD [_at the door_]. Sir, sir, there’s without a young
gentleman hot with riding--
MARLOWE. Does the hot young gentleman give no name?
LANDLORD. Why yes, sir, Archer, Francis Archer! He said you would
know him.
MARLOWE. I knew an Archer, but he died in Flanders.
LANDLORD. He may well come from Flanders, sir, for he’s muddy.
MARLOWE. Are Flanders’ graves so shallow? Tell him if he’s alive
I don’t know him, and if he’s dead I won’t know him, and so
either way let him go where he belongs.
_The_ LANDLORD _goes out._
THE MAN. What, Kit! send him to hell with a dry throat?
MARLOWE. And all impostors with him!
THE MAN. But what if it were a true ghost? Have a heart! You’ll
be one yourself some day, and watch old friends run away from you
when you come to haunt them in pure good fellowship.
LANDLORD [_at the door_]. Sir, he says indeed he knows you. His
business is private.
MARLOWE. Well, let him come in. No, friends, sit still! If he’s
the death he pretends we’ll face him together as the song teaches.
[_Singing._] When Death at last arrives,
I’ll greet him with a chuckle,
I’ll ask him how he thrives
And press his bony knuckle,
With--Ho, boy! Hey, boy!
Come this way, boy!
Who’ll have a drink with me?
MARY’S VOICE [_on the stairs_].
Hey, Sir! Ho, Sir!
No, no, no, Sir!
Why should he drink with thee?
ALL TOGETHER. Hey, Death! Ho, Death!
Let me go, Death!
I’ll never drink with thee!
MARLOWE. What voice is that?
MARY _stands in the doorway. She is dressed as a boy, with cloak,
riding boots, and slouch cap._
MARY [_singing_]. If Love should pass me by,
I’ll follow till I find him,
And when I hear him sigh,
I’ll tear the veils that blind him.
Up, man! Dance, man!
Take your chance, man!
Who’ll get a kiss from me?
ALL TOGETHER. Hey, Love! Ho, Love!
None shall know, Love!
Keep but a kiss for me! [_They clap._]
THE MAN [_to_ MARLOWE]. Ghost of a nightingale! D’you know him?
MARLOWE. I think I do. [_To_ MARY, _aside_] What April freak is
this?
THE MAN [_with a glass_]. Spirits to spirit, young sir! Have a
drink!
MARY. I should choke, sir! We drink nectar in my country.
THE MAN. Where’s that, ghost?
MARY. Oh, somewhere on the soft side of heaven where the poppies
grow.
THE MAN. He swore you were dead and buried.
MARY. And so I was. But there’s a witch in London so sighs for
him and so cries for him, that in the end she whistled me out of
my gravity and sent me here to fetch him home to her.
THE MAN. Her name, transparency, her name?
MARY. Why, sir, I rode in such haste that my memory could not
keep up with me. It’ll not be here this half hour.
MARLOWE. Landlord, pour ale for a dozen, and these friends will
drink to her, name or no name--in the next room.
THE MAN. Kit, you’re a man of tact! I’m a man of tact. We’re all
men of tact!
Ho, boys! Hey, boys!
Come this way, boys!
Who’ll have a drink with me?
_The door closes on them._
MARY. Well, did you ever see a better boy? My hair was the only
trouble.
MARLOWE. Madcap! What does this mean?
MARY. What I said! [_singing_].
Moth, where are you flown?
To burn in a flame!
Moth, I lie alone--
You’ve not been near me these four days.
MARLOWE. Uneasy days--I could not.
MARY. Are you burned, moth? Are the poor wings a-frizzle?
MARLOWE. Not mine, dear candle, but a king of moths,
But a great hawk-moth, velvet as the night
He beats with twilight wings, he, he is singed,
Fallen to earth and pitiful.
MARY. Oh, Shakespeare!
My dear, I’ve run away because I hate
The smell of burning.
He was to come to me to-night to tell me his tragedies and his
comedies and--oh, I yawn! And I played her so well too at the
first--
MARLOWE. Who?
MARY. The cool nymph under Tiber stairs--what’s her
name?--Egeria. Am I your Egeria, Marlowe?
MARLOWE. Something less slippery.
MARY. Oh, she was fun to play--first to please the Queen and
then to please myself. For I was caught, you know. It’s something
to be hung among the stars, something to say--“I was his Juliet!”
MARLOWE. What, you--you Comedy-Kate?
MARY. Why, I’m a woman! that is--fifty women!
While he played Romeo to my Juliet
I could be anything he chose. O Kit!
I sucked his great soul out. You never lit the blaze
I was for half an hour: then--out I went!
MARLOWE. He stoops o’er the embers yet.
MARY. But ashes fanned
Fly from their centre, lighter than a kiss,
And settle--where they please! [_She kisses him._]
D’you love me?
MARLOWE. More than I wish.
MARY. Would you be cured?
MARLOWE. Not possible.
MARY [_singing_]. Go to church, sweetheart,
A flower in your coat!
Your wedding bells shall prove
The death of love! The death of love!
Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
The death of love!
Or so Will says.
MARLOWE. He should know.
MARY. What’s that?
MARLOWE. Nothing.
MARY. He’s married?
MARLOWE. I do not tell you so.
MARY. Married! He shall pay me. Married! I guessed it--but he
shall pay me. A country girl?
MARLOWE. If you must know! He has not seen her these ten years.
She sent for him the night of ‘Juliet.’
MARY. Why now all’s plain.
So she’s the canker that hath drooped our rose!
If I had loved him--I do not love him, Marlowe--
This would have fanned a flame. Well, we’re all cheats!
But now I cheat with better conscience. Married!
Lord, I could laugh! He must not know I know it.
MARLOWE. I shan’t boast I told you. O Mary, when I first came to
you, it was he sent me. He came like a child and asked me to see
you, to say what good of him I could,
Because I was his friend. And now, see, see,
How I have friended him!
MARY. I love you for it.
He shall not know. Why talk of him? Forget him!
MARLOWE. Can you?
MARY. Why, that I cannot makes me mad--
MARLOWE. Forget him?
As soon forget myself! I am his courage,
His worldly wisdom--Mary, I think I am
The youth he lost in Stratford. Yet we’re one age,
And now we write one play. If I died of a sudden,
It seems he’d breathe me as I left my body,
And I should live in him as sunshine lies
Forgotten in a forest, and be found
In slants and pools and patterns, golden still
In all he writes.
MARY. O dull Kit! have I adventured here to hear you talk of
dying?
MARLOWE. You borrowed Archer’s name.
MARY. I wanted one that would startle you out to me, and you told
me the tale of him once, how young he died.
MARLOWE. And how unwilling! You’ve set him running in my head
like a spider in a skull,
Spinning across the hollows of mine eyes
A web of dusty thought. Sweet, brush him off!
Death’s a vile dreg in this intoxicant,
This liquor of the gods, this seven-hued life.
Sometimes I pinch myself, say--“Can you die?
Is it possible? Will you be winter-nipped
One day like other flies?” I’m glad you came.
Stay with me, stay, till the last minute of life!
Let the court go, the world go, stay with me!
MARY [_her arms round him_].
So--quiet till the dawn comes, quiet! Hark!
Who called? Did you hear it?
MARLOWE. Birds in the ivy.
MARY. No.
Twice in the road I stopped and turned about
Because I heard my name called. There was nothing;
Yet I had heard it--Mary--Mary--Mary!
MARLOWE. You heard your own heart pound from riding.
MARY. Again!
Open the window! [MARLOWE _rises and goes to the window._]
Do you see anything?
MARLOWE. All’s sinister. The moon fled out of the sky
Long since, and the black trees of midnight quake.
MARY. And the wind! What a wind! It tugs at the window-frame
Like jealousy, mad to break in and part us.
Could you be jealous?
MARLOWE. If I were a fool
I’d let you guess it.
MARY. Wise, you’re wise, but--jealous?
Too many men in the world! I’d lift no finger
To beckon back the fool that tired of me,
Would you? But he, he glooms and says no word,
But follows with his eyes whene’er I stir.
I hate those asking eyes. Look thus at me
But once and--ended, Marlowe! I’ll not give
But when I choose. [_He sits beside her._]
MARLOWE. But when _I_ choose.
_Behind them the blur of the window is darkened._
MARY [_in his arms_]. Why yes!
Had he your key-word--! Sometimes I like him yet,
When anger comes in a white lightning flash,
Then he’s the man of men still, then with shut eyes
I think him you and shiver and I like him,
Held roughly in his arms, thinking of you.
The Warwick burr is like an afterwards
Of thunder when he’s angry, in his speech.
MARLOWE. What does he say?
MARY. He says he is not jealous!
He would not wrong me so, nor wrong himself.
Then the sky lightens and we kiss--or kiss not!
Who cares?
Then in come you. It’s well he thinks you his
In friendship--
MARLOWE. So I was.
SHAKESPEARE _swings himself noiselessly over the sill._
MARY. And so you are,
And have all things in common as friends should.
Eh, friend?
Oh, stir not! Frowning? If you were a fool--
(How did it run?) you’d let me guess you--jealous!
But you’re no fool.
MARLOWE. Let’s have no more! You know
I loved--I love the man.
MARY. Why, so do I.
MARLOWE. You shall not!
MARY. Then I will not. Not to-night.
SHAKESPEARE [_standing by the window_].
Why not to-night, my lover and my friend?
_He comes down into the room as they start up._
Will you not give me wine and welcome me?
Sit down, sit down--we three have much to say!
But tell me first, what does that hand of yours
Upon her neck, as there were custom in it?
Part! Part, I say! Part! lest I couple you
Once and for all!
MARY. He’s armed!
MARLOWE. He shall not touch you!
SHAKESPEARE. You, Marlowe! You!
MARLOWE. Stand out of her way!
SHAKESPEARE. You! You!
MARLOWE. Why then--
MARLOWE _darts at_ SHAKESPEARE _and is thrown off. He staggers
against the table, knocking over the candle. As he strikes the
second time his arm is knocked up, striking his own forehead.
He falls across the bed. There is an instant’s pause, then_
SHAKESPEARE _rushes to him, slipping an arm under his shoulder._
MARY. Dead? Is he dead? Oh, what an end!
I never saw a dead man. Will--to me!
SHAKESPEARE. Get help!
MARY. I dare not.
MARLOWE. Oh!
SHAKESPEARE. What is it?
MARLOWE. Oh!
My life, my lovely life, and cast away
Untasted, wasted--
Death, let me go! [_He dies._]
MARY. What now? Rouse up! Delay
Is dangerous. Wake! Wake! What shall we do?
SHAKESPEARE. O trumpet of the angels lent to a boy,
Could I not spare you for the golden blast,
For the great sound’s sake? What have I done?
ANNE’S VOICE. Ah! Done
The thing you would not do--
MARY. Rouse! Rouse yourself!
What now?
ANNE’S VOICE. Remember--
SHAKESPEARE. Hark! A sigh!
MARY. The wind
Keening the night--
SHAKESPEARE. A sound of weeping--
MARY. Rain.
Is this a time for visions? White-cheeked day
Stares through the pane. Each minute is an eye
Opening upon us. What shall we do now?
SHAKESPEARE. Weep, clamorous harlot! We have given him death,
And shall we dock his rights of death, his peace
Upon his bed, his sun of hair smoothed, hands
Crossed decently by me, his friend? Close you
His eyes with kisses, lest I kill you too!
Give him his due, I say! his woman’s tears!
You were his woman--oh, deny it not!
You were his woman. Pay him what you owe!
MARY. What? Do you glove my clean hand with your stain,
Red fingers? Soft! This is your kill, not mine!
My free soul is not sticky with your sins.
_You_ pinch your lips? _You_ singe me with your tongue?
Your country lilac that you left for me
Taught you strange names for a woman. Harlot? I?
Sweep your own stable, trickster, married man!
Lie, cheat, break faith, until you end a man
That bettered you as roses better weeds--
SHAKESPEARE. That is well known.
MARY. --and now you’ll stare and weep
Until the watch comes and the Queen hears all.
Then--ends all!
And I caught with you! She’s a devil of ice
Since Leicester died. No man or woman stirs her;
But she must have her toys! London’s her doll’s house,
Its marts, its theatres. This death was half her pride,
And you the other. Was I not set to mould you?
What will she do to me now her doll’s broken,
Broken in my hand? I fear her, oh, I fear her,
The green eyes of her justice and her smile.
Will, if you love me--you who have had my lips,
And more, and more, and shall have all again,
All that you choose, and gladly given--awake!
Fly while there’s time to save yourself and me!
Look not on him--he’s blind--he cannot speak,
Nor stretch a hand to stay you--he’s cold nothing!
But we, we live! Here on my throat, here, here,
(Give me your fingers!) feel the hot pulse live!
Yet I’ll die sooner than be pent. You know me!
Must I lie still for ever at his side
Because you will not rouse yourself?
SHAKESPEARE. Who speaks?
O vanished dew, O summer sweetness gone,
O perfume staled in a night, that yesterday
Was fresh as morning roses--do you live?
Are you still Mary? O my shining lamp
Of love put out, how dark the world has grown!
Did you want him so? Did it come on you suddenly,
And shake you from your north--
MARY. The dawn! the dawn!
SHAKESPEARE. Or did you never love me--where do you point?
MARY. To save ourselves comes first!
SHAKESPEARE. To answer me!
MARY. Fool! Fool! Will you hang? Let go, fool!
SHAKESPEARE. Answer me!
MARY. Will, for the love of living--
SHAKESPEARE. Answer me!
MARY. I never loved you. Are you answered?
ANNE’S VOICE. Oh--
For a month--in the spring--
SHAKESPEARE. Is it a month ago?
The trees are not yet metalled with the dust
Of summer, that were greening when we two--
MARY. Oh, peace!
SHAKESPEARE. --in a night of spring--
MARY. Ah, was it love?
SHAKESPEARE. Remember, Beauty, when you came to me,
As came the beggar to Cophetua,
As queens came conquered to the Macedon,
As Cressid came by night to Diomed,
As night comes queenly to the bed of day
Enmantled in her hair, so you to me,
Juliet, and all your night of hair was mine
To curtain me and you--
MARY. Forgotten, forgotten--
SHAKESPEARE. That night you loved me--
ANNE’S VOICE. I was drunk with dreams
That night.
SHAKESPEARE. That night of victory you loved me!
I have my witnesses. O watching stars--
MARY. The eyes, the eyes, the arch of eyes!
SHAKESPEARE. --speak for me!
Once was a taper that outshone you all,
It burned so bright. Oh, how you winked and pried!
I saw you through the tatters of the dark
And mocked you in my hour. Yet speak for me,
Eternal lights, for now my candle’s blown
Past envy! But she loved me then!
MARY. I know not.
SHAKESPEARE. Though god and devil deny--you loved me then!
MARY. But was it love?
I could have loved if you had taught me loving.
Something I sought and found not; so I turned
From searching. I have clean forgotten now
That ever I sought--and so live merrily--
And so will live! Why wreck myself for you?
SHAKESPEARE. O heart’s desire, and eyes’, desire of hands,
Self of myself, have pity!
MARY. What had you?
If I had borne you children (but I was wise,
Knowing my man, as men have taught me men)
What name had you to give them, to give me?
No, no, I wrong you, for you christened me
But now, first having slain him who had struck
The rankness from your mouth.
SHAKESPEARE. What I have done--
MARY. Lied, lied to me!
--and if I did--
ANNE’S VOICE. To hold you!
I couldn’t lose you. I was mad with pain.
MARY. Tricked me--
SHAKESPEARE. To hold--listen to me--to hold you!
Lest I should lose you. I was mad with pain.
MARY. Are you so womanish that a breath of pain--
SHAKESPEARE. A breath! God, listen! A breath, a summer breath!
MARY. --could blow away your honour?
SHAKESPEARE. Once it was mine.
I laid it up with you. Where is it now?
I’m stripped of honour like an oak in June
Whose leaves a curse of caterpillars eat,
That stands a mockery to flowers and men,
With naked arms praying the lightning down.
ANNE’S VOICE. At Shottery the woods are green--
SHAKESPEARE. My God!
ANNE’S VOICE. And full of flowers--
SHAKESPEARE. Let be, let be! My honour?
I bought it with a woman--not like you,
A faithless-faithful woman--not like you;
But weak as I’m weak, loving as I love,
God help her! not like you--no black-eyed Spain
Whose cheeks hang out their red to match the red
When bull meets man--no luxury that wears
A lover like new clothes, and all the while
Eyes other women’s fashions; but a woman
That should have loved me less, poor fool, and less--
MARY. You should have loved me less, my fool, and less!
SHAKESPEARE. Yet from this folly all the music springs
That is in the world, and all my hopes that ranged
Lark-high in heaven! Yet murder comes of it.
Look where he lies! He was true friend to me,
And I to him, until you came, you came.
MARY. I came and I can go.
SHAKESPEARE. Mary! [_There is a clatter of hoofs._]
MARY. D’you hear?
Horses! What do they seek? You, Marlowe, me?
SHAKESPEARE. This they call conscience.
MARY. Take your hand away!
I’ll slip through yet; nor shall you follow me;
You had your chance. Listen! A boy was here;
One Francis Archer. Say it after me--
No woman, but a boy, a stranger to you!
SHAKESPEARE. Strange to me, Mary.
_There is a sound of voices in the yard._
MARY. If you hold me now
I’ll scream and swear you stabbed him as he slept,
They’re drinking still. [_She opens the door._]
VOICES [_in the outer room_].
Hey, boy! Ho, boy!
Heel and toe, boy!
Who’ll have a drink with me?
MARY. If you should get away.
Send me no message, come not near me! Now!
_She slips into the room_. SHAKESPEARE _stands at
the half open door watching._
A MAN. Sing another verse!
ANOTHER. There’s the boy back. Make him sing it!
MARY. I’m to fetch more wine first.
THE MAN. Sing another verse!
ANOTHER. If Love and I should meet,
I’ll catch her to me--
ANOTHER. Luck, you fool, not love!
ANOTHER. Where’s the difference? If you’re in love you’re in luck.
ANOTHER. Here, stop the boy!
MARY. Let me pass, gentlemen!
THE MAN. Sing another verse!
ANOTHER. If Love and I--
ANOTHER. Shut up now and let the kid sing it!
MARY. Why yes, if you’ll let me pass afterwards, sir, like love
in the song.
THE MAN. Sing another verse! Sing twenty other verses!
MARY [_singing_]. If Love should pass me by,
I’ll follow till I find him,
And when I hear him cry,
I’ll tear the veils that blind him!
THE MAN. Now then, chorus!
ALL TOGETHER. Hey, Love! Ho, Love!
None shall know, Love!
Keep but a kiss for me!
MARY _disappears in the crowd. The door swings to as_
SHAKESPEARE _turns back into the room_.
SHAKESPEARE. Marlowe! Marlowe!
She is gone, Marlowe, that was a fume of wine
Between us. Marlowe, Marlowe, speak to me!
Never a sound. We have seen many a dawn
Creep like a house-wife on the drunken night,
And tumble him from heaven with work-day hand
And bird-shrill railing; but such a waking up
As this we never knew. Sorry and cold
I look on you. Kit, Kit, this mark of the knife
Is the first blot I ever saw in you,
The first ill-writing. Kit, for your own sake,
You should have wronged a stranger, not your friend;
For like a looking-glass my heart still served you
To see yourself, and when you struck at me,
You struck yourself, and broke this mirror too.
_A knock._
Mary? Is it Mary? Lie you quiet, Marlowe!
We will not let her in.
HENSLOWE. Within, who’s within there?
SHAKESPEARE. Two dead men.
HENSLOWE. Is it Marlowe?
Is Shakespeare there?
SHAKESPEARE. Come in, come in, come in!
HENSLOWE _comes in hurriedly. He leaves the
door half open behind him._
VOICES [_singing_]. Ho, boy! Hey, boy!
Come this way, boy!
Who’ll have a drink with me?
HENSLOWE. Why, here’s a bird of wisdom sitting in the dark! Shut
your eyes, man, and use candles or you’ll scorch out your own
sockets! What’s wrong now? But tell me that as we ride; for the
Queen wants you in a hurry, and what’s more an angry Queen. I’d
not be you! Here I’ve hunted London for you from tavern to lady’s
lodging till I ferreted out that Marlowe was here, and so I
followed him for news.
SHAKESPEARE. Here’s news enough. Henslowe, look here!
HENSLOWE. Who did it?
SHAKESPEARE. We--he and I. There was another in it.
HENSLOWE. Was it the youngster passed me in the yard,
Caught at his horse and rode like fear away?
SHAKESPEARE. Was’t a pale horse?
HENSLOWE. I saw not. In the dark
A voice cried “Hurry!”
SHAKESPEARE. That was she.
HENSLOWE. Who? Who?
SHAKESPEARE. Death. She has fled and left her catch behind.
Can you do anything?
HENSLOWE. For the living scarce--
You must be got away. Are you known here?
SHAKESPEARE. As men know Cain. All, all is finished, Henslowe!
LANDLORD [_putting his head in at the door_].
Is anything wrong sir?
HENSLOWE. Wrong? What should be wrong? But we’re in haste.
Call the ostler! We want a second horse.
_He slips his arm through_ SHAKESPEARE’S _and tries
to lead him to the door._
LANDLORD. Is the gentleman ill, sir? He sways.
HENSLOWE. Your good wine, host.
A MAN [_over the_ LANDLORD’S _shoulder_].
The best on the Surrey side!
HENSLOWE. He’ll tell the Queen so in an hour if you’ll make way.
MEN [_crowding into the doorway_]. The Queen!
Did you hear?
He’s been sent by the Queen!
HENSLOWE. Keep your people back, landlord!
THE MAN [_staggering into the room_].
I say, three cheers for the Queen!
ANOTHER. The Queen! The Queen! Three cheers for Bess!
[_Singing_]. Hey, Bess! Ho, Bess!
Heel and toe, Bess!
Ladies and gentlemen, here’s a man on the bed.
HENSLOWE. Ay! My friend! Let him be!
THE MAN. Is he drunk too?
THE OTHER. If I were a judge I’d say “Very drunk”! He’s spilled
his wine on his clothes. What I say is “Waste not, want not!”
LANDLORD. Come now, come away! You hear what the gentleman says.
THE MAN [_throwing him off_].
Hey, Death! Ho, Death!
Let me go, Death!
Shall I wake him?
SHAKESPEARE [_turning in the doorway_]. Ay, wake him, wake him,
old trump of judgment! Wake him if you can,
And if you cannot let him sleep his sleep
And envy him that he can sleep so sound!
THE MAN. Ay sir, he shall sleep till he wakes. But we, sir, we’ll
sing you off the premises, for the love of Bess.
Hey, Bess? Ho, Bess!
ANOTHER [_hammering the table_]. Death, not Bess! Death! Death!
Death! Come along chorus!
TWO OR THREE [_as they lurch out of the room_].
Ho, boy! Hey, boy!
Come this way, boy!
Who’ll have a drink with me?
ALL [_following_]. Hey, Death! Ho, Death!
Out you go, Death!
We’ll never drink with thee!
_The door swings to and quiet settles on the lightening room.
The first ray of sunlight touches the bed. Outside the birds
are beginning to sing._
THE CURTAIN FALLS.
ACT IV.
_A room in the palace, hung with tapestries. On the
right wall is a heavy, studded door: on the left,
a great raised seat on a low platform. On the
back wall is a small curtained door and a large
window. A girl in a primrose-coloured gown stands
at it holding back its curtain. Set slantwise in
front of it, nearer the centre of the stage, is a
writing table with scattered papers. At it sits_
ELIZABETH, _a secretary beside her. The Queen’s
dress is of dull grey brocade with transparent
lawn and jewels of aquamarine; but as the evening
deepens its colour becomes one with the dusk and
only her white face and hands are clearly seen._
A HAWKER [_chanting in the street far away_].
Cress! Buy cress!
Who’ll buy my cress-es?
ELIZABETH _lays down her pen._
ELIZABETH. These three are signed. Take them to Burleigh. This
I’ll not grant. Tell him so! [_The man bows and goes out._]
HAWKER [_nearer_]. Cress! Buy cress!
ELIZABETH. There! Put the papers by!
_The girl at the window comes down to the table and
begins to sort them._
ANOTHER HAWKER. Strawberries! Ripe strawberries!
THE GIRL. I wonder, Madam, that you choose this room
Here on the noisy street.
ELIZABETH. Child, when you marry
Who’ll rule your nursery, you or your maids?
GIRL. Why, that I will!
ELIZABETH. Then you must sit in it daily. Where’s Mary Fitton?
GIRL. In waiting, Madam, and half asleep. She was up early
to-day. I saw her from my window by the little garden door and
called to her. She had been out to pick roses, as you bade her,
ere the dew dried on them.
ELIZABETH. As I bade her?
GIRL. Yes, Madam, she said so.
HAWKER [_close at hand_]. Cress! Buy cress!
Fit for Queen Bess!
ELIZABETH. Open the window! [_The girl opens it._]
HAWKER. Cress! Buy cress!
Who’ll buy my cress-es?
ELIZABETH. Fetch me my purse!
_The girl goes out by the little door. As she does so_,
ELIZABETH _takes her purse from a drawer and going to
the window, throws out a coin._
HAWKER. Cress! Buy cress!
Are you there, lady? [ELIZABETH _throws out another coin._]
I plucked my riches
From Deptford ditches,
I came by a Deptford Inn;
Where a young man lies,
With pennies on his eyes--
Murdered, lady, and none saw who did it!
Cress! Buy cress!
ELIZABETH _flings out another coin._
There was a boy that ran away, and Henslowe the Queen’s man,
and a third-- Cress! Buy cress!
A supper for Queen Bess!
ELIZABETH _lays down the purse on the table as the
girl comes back._
GIRL [_distressed_]. Madam--
ELIZABETH. It was here. That cress seller has a sweet voice.
Fling her a coin and ask her where she lives!
GIRL [_going to the window_]. Hey, beggar!
HAWKER. Bless you, lady!
GIRL. Where do you come from with your green stuff?
HAWKER. Marlow, lady, Marlow!
Down by the river where the cresses grow,
And buttercups like guineas.
Cress! Buy cress!
Who’ll buy my cress-es?
_Her voice dies away in the distance._
GIRL. She has come a long way.
Marlow’s across the river, far from us.
ELIZABETH. Marlowe’s across the river, far from us.
If any ask to speak with me, let me know it!
GIRL. Why, Madam, Henslowe, the old player, has been waiting
since noon, and Mr. Shakespeare with him.
ELIZABETH. The name’s not written here. Whose duty?
GIRL. Mary Fitton’s.
ELIZABETH. Send Henslowe! And when I ring let Mary Fitton answer!
GIRL. I’ll tell her, Madam.
_She goes out_. ELIZABETH _rises and goes slowly
across the room to the dais and seats herself.
There is a pause. Then a page throws open the big
door facing the dais and_ HENSLOWE _enters._
ELIZABETH. Henslowe, you’re not welcome
For the news you bring.
HENSLOWE. Madam, that Marlowe’s dead
I know because I found him--I am new come from Deptford--
But how you know I know not.
ELIZABETH. Why, not a keel
Grounds on the Cornish pebbles, but the jar
Thrills through all English earth home to my feet.
No riderless horse snuffs blood and gallops home
To a girl widowed, but I the sparking hoofs
Hear pound as her heart pounds, waiting; for my spies
Are everywhere. Do not my English swifts
Report to me at dusk, eavesdropping low,
The number of my English primroses
In English woods all spring? The gulls on Thames
Scream past the Tower “Storm in Channel! Storm!”
And if I hear not, sudden my drinking glass
Rings out “Send help, lest English sailors drown!”
The lantern moon swings o’er unvisited towns
Signalling “Peace!” or a star shoots out of the west
Across my window, flashing “Danger here!”
And is it Ireland rising, or a child
On chalk-pit roof after the blackberries,
I’m warned, and bid my human servants haste.
The flat-worn stones, the echoes of the streets
At night when drunkards tumble, citizens
In the half silence and half light trot home,
Reveal the well, the ill in my own land.
I am its eyes, its pulse, its finger-tips,
The wakeful partner of its married soul.
I know what darkness does, what dawn discovers
In all the English country. I am the Queen.
You have done my errand? Shakespeare the player is with you?
HENSLOWE. He waits without.
ELIZABETH. Then he too was at Deptford last night.
HENSLOWE. None knows it.
ELIZABETH. That’s well! But was it he, Henslowe--he?
HENSLOWE. No, no, no! I’ll swear it.
ELIZABETH. But will he swear it?
HENSLOWE. He’s dazed, he will say anything--yes--no--
Just as you prompt him, as if one blow had struck
His soul and Marlowe’s body. Madam, he’s not his witness!
Yet, if t’were true, if he has lost us Marlowe,
Must we lose him? Then has the English stage
Lost both her hands and cannot feed herself,
Starves, Madam!
ELIZABETH. You’re honest, Henslowe! Your son’s son one day
May help a king to thread a needle’s eye.
But do you think he did it?
HENSLOWE. No, though he says it,
For he loved him.
ELIZABETH. Loved him, but a woman better.
HENSLOWE. There was no woman with them.
ELIZABETH. So I hear; but a boy!
HENSLOWE. Unknown.
ELIZABETH. Did you see him?
HENSLOWE. Not his face. He was past me in a flash, crying “Hurry!”
ELIZABETH. Well, I’ll see Shakespeare.
HENSLOWE. Madam--
ELIZABETH. I thread my own needles, Henslowe, being a woman.
[MARY FITTON _enters._] Send Mr. Shakespeare to me!
[_Then, as_ MARY _turns to go_--] Mary!
MARY. Madam?
ELIZABETH. Bid him hurry! [MARY _turns to the door._] Mary!
MARY. Madam?
ELIZABETH. What did I tell you but now?
MARY. Madam, to bid him hurry.
HENSLOWE [_recognising the voice_]. “Hurry!”
ELIZABETH. Wait. Daylight, Henslowe? Girl, you’re slow. You go
heavily. Have you not slept? Let Henslowe do your errand!
[_To_ HENSLOWE.] Let him wait at hand!
MARY. Madam, I can well go.
ELIZABETH. No hurry now. [HENSLOWE _goes out._] D’you guess why I
send for your teller of tales?
MARY. No, Madam.
ELIZABETH. He has told a tale, it seems, that I’d hear told again.
MARY. Told?
ELIZABETH. Why are you not in black, Mary?
MARY. I, Madam?
ELIZABETH. Marlowe is dead.
MARY. I grieve to hear it.
ELIZABETH. When did you hear?
MARY. Why, Madam, now--you tell me!
ELIZABETH. Then I tell you wrong. He is alive and has told all.
MARY. Alive? They lie to you, Madam! What has he told?
Who says it?
ELIZABETH. You, Mary Fitton! For by your dark-ringed eyes
Your dreaming service and those blind hands of yours
Seeking a hold, I think you saw him die,
Ere you passed Henslowe in the dark, crying “Hurry!”
MARY. Madam, it was your errand. For this Shakespeare,
This quill you thrust on me to sharpen up,
Jealous of Marlowe, though he had no cause
(What! must I live his nun, his stay-at-home?
Your servant and a lady of the court!),
Sent me a letter--
ELIZABETH. Let me read!
MARY. I tore it!
--so inked in threat that I post-haste for Deptford--
ELIZABETH. Ill judged!
MARY. I know! I followed my first fear.
--rode to warn Marlowe. Shakespeare following,
Spying upon us, spying upon us, Madam!
Found us in counsel. Then, with a hail of words
That Marlowe would not bear, with “stale” and “harlot,”
He beat me down, till Marlowe flung ’em back;
Then like two dogs they struggled. Marlowe fell.
ELIZABETH. Struck down?
MARY. Struck down, but blindly, not to kill--
I will not think to kill--and as he fell
His own knife caught him, here.
ELIZABETH. What did you then?
MARY. I, Madam?
ELIZABETH. You, Madam? Did you fold your hands
And watch this business as you’d watch a play,
And clap them on? Or, as a short month since
You played a part I think, did you strike in
And play a part? Why did you call for help?
MARY. I did not, Madam!
ELIZABETH. Why did not Mary Fitton
Cry help against--which lover?
MARY. Lover, Madam?
ELIZABETH. There’s tinker, tailor, soldier--the old rhyme--
There’s Pembroke, Marlowe, Shakespeare--
MARY. Madam! Madam!
I’ll not bear this!
ELIZABETH. Ay, you have fierce black eyes--
What will you do then if you will not bear it?
You have leave to show.
MARY. I say I did cry out
To both that they should cease.
ELIZABETH. So you cried out!
Bring up your witnesses that heard you cry!
MARY. I did not stand and watch. I ran upon them.
I was flung off and bruised.
ELIZABETH. Show me the bruise!
MARY. High on my arm--
ELIZABETH. Rip up your sleeve and show me!
You stand, you stare, you’re white. I think you shake.
MARY. Anger not fear, though you were ten times Queen
Of twenty Englands!
ELIZABETH. Quiet, and quiet, my girl!
This ill-spent night has left you feverish.
You are too free for court,
Too bruised and touzled for my gentlemen.
You shall go home, I think, to heal this bruise,
To cleanse your body and soul in country air
And banished quiet till I send for you.
MARY. Upon what count?
ELIZABETH. On none. But I’ve no time,
No room for butter-fingers. Here’s a man slain
Upon your lap that England needed. Go!
Go, blunted tool! [_She touches a bell._]
MARY. Madam! Madam! You wrong me!
ELIZABETH. I’ve wronged your betters, Mary, Mary Fitton,
As tide wrongs pebble, or as wind wrongs chaff
At threshing time.
_A page enters at the great door on the right._
Send Mr. Shakespeare to me!
MARY. This is the justice of the Queen of England!
ELIZABETH. My justice.
MARY. Have I not served you?
ELIZABETH. All things serve me.
They choose their path. I use them in their path.
MARY. As once you used, they say--
ELIZABETH. Do not dare! Do not dare!
MARY. Dare, Madam? May I not wonder, like another.
Why you have used me thus?
ELIZABETH. I used you, dirt,
To show a man how foul the dirt can be;
But now I brush you from him.
_The main door opens and_ HENSLOWE _enters followed
by_ SHAKESPEARE. _She beckons to_ HENSLOWE.
Henslowe!
HENSLOWE. Madam?
_They speak privately for a moment, then_
HENSLOWE _goes out by the small door._
MARY [_to_ SHAKESPEARE].
You come to cue!
SHAKESPEARE. What has fallen?
MARY. Sent away
Because of you, because my name is Mary!
SHAKESPEARE. Go to my lodging! Wait for me! I’ll follow,
For where you go I go.
MARY. Ay, bring your wife!
This act is over! There are other men!
_She goes out._
SHAKESPEARE. Mary! Love, life, the breath I breathe, come back!
Mary, you have not heard me! Mary! Mary
Come back! [_The door shuts with a clang._]
ANNE’S VOICE. Come back!
ELIZABETH. Never in any world!
Fasten the door there!
SHAKESPEARE [_struggling to open it_]. Open! Open, I say!
ELIZABETH. Beat, beat your heart out! Let me watch you beat
Those servants of your soul until they bleed,
Mash, agonise, against a senseless door!
Beat, beat your weaker hands than that dead tree,
Tear, tear your nails upon its nails in vain.
Beat, beat your heart out--you’ll not pass the door!
Can you not come at her? She goes--beat, beat!
The distance widens, like a ship she goes
Utterly from you. Follow! Beat your hands!
What? Are you held, you who bow men with words
Windily down like corn-fields? Is she gone?
Call up the clouds to carry you who walk
Sky-high, star-level, eyeing the naked sun.
Where are your wings? Beat, beat your heart out! Beat!
Where is your strength? Will not the wood be moved?
Cannot your love-call reach her, you who know
The heart of the lark and how the warm throat thrills
At mating-time? Is there a living thing
You do not dwell in, cannot stir, and yet
You cannot move this door?
SHAKESPEARE. I am not so bound--
ELIZABETH. Why, yes, there’s the window! You may cast down and be
done with it all--done with it all! I’ll not stop you. Who am I
to keep a man from his sweet rest? And yet--what of me, my son,
before you do it? What of me and this England that I am?
SHAKESPEARE. Madam, I have not slept these five nights. I do not
know what you say.
ELIZABETH. Or care?
SHAKESPEARE. Or care, Madam, forgive me! God’s pity, Madam, open
the door!
ELIZABETH. It shall not serve you.
SHAKESPEARE. I know it.
ELIZABETH. She has sold you, man.
SHAKESPEARE. I know it. Open the door!
ELIZABETH. Come here, my son! Why do I hold you here, think you?
SHAKESPEARE. Marlowe--
ELIZABETH. Tell me nothing! I’ll know nothing! Mr. Shakespeare,
where is the work I should have from you? Where is the new play?
You sold and I bought. Give me my goods! Then go!
SHAKESPEARE. A play? You are Queen, Madam, you do not live our
lives; so I call you not pure devilish to keep me here for so
little a thing.
ELIZABETH. Yet I will have it from you! There’s paper, pen--
I’ll have your roughed-out scene ere Henslowe leaves
To-night. And ere the ended month this play,
This English laughter, ringing all her bells,
Before the pick of Europe at my court
Performed, shall link our hands with Italy,
With old immortal Athens. This you’ll do,
For this you can.
SHAKESPEARE [_crying out_]. I am to live, not write,
To love, not write of love, to live my life
As others do, to live a summer life
As all the others do!
ELIZABETH. I thought so too
When I was young. Then, ’mid my state affairs
And droning voices of my ministers,
The people’s acclamation and the hiss
Of treacheries to England and to me,
Ever I heard the momentary clock
Ticking away my girlhood as I reigned;
While she--while she--
Mary of Scotland, Mary of delight,
(I know her sweetheart names) Maybird, Mayflower,
The three times married honeysuckle queen,
She had her youth. Think you I’d not have changed,
Sat out her twenty years a prisoner,
Ridden her road from France to Fotheringay,
To have her story? Am I less woman, I,
That I’d not change with her? For the high way
Is flowerless, and thin the mountain air
And rends the lungs that breathe it; and the light
Spreading from hill to everlasting hill,
Welling across the sky as from a wound,
A heart of blood between the breasts of the world,
Is not much nearer, no, nor half as warm
As the kissing sun of the valleys: and we climb
(You’ll climb as I do) not because we will,
Because we must. There is no virtue in it;
But some pride. Fate can force but not befool me!
I am not drunken with religious dream
Like the poor blissful fools of kingdom come:
I know the flesh is sweetest, when all’s said,
And summer’s heyday and the love of men:
I know well what I lose. I’m head of the Church
And stoop my neck on Sunday--to what Christ?
The God of little children? I have none.
The God of love? What love has come to me?
The God upon His ass? I am not meek,
Nor is he meek, the stallion that I ride,
The great white horse of England. I’ll not bow
To the gentle Jesus of the women, I--
But to the man who hung ’twixt earth and heaven
Six mortal hours, and knew the end (as strength
And custom was) three days away, yet ruled
His soul and body so, that when the sponge
Blessed his cracked lips with promise of relief
And quick oblivion, he would not drink:
He turned his head away and would not drink:
Spat out the anodyne and would not drink.
This was a god for kings and queens of pride,
And him I follow.
SHAKESPEARE. Whither?
ELIZABETH. The alley’s blind.
For the cross rules us or we rule the cross,
Yet the cross wins in the end.
For night is older than the daylight is:
The slack string will not quiver for the hand
Of cunningest musician.
Does the cross care, a chafer on a pin,
Whether Barabbas writhe, or very God?
All’s one to the dead wood! Dead wood, dead wood,
It coffins us in the end. God, you and me
And everyone--the dead wood baffles all.
And why I care I know not, but I know
That I’ll die fighting--and the fight goes on.
Yet not uncaptained shall the assault go on
Against dead wood fencing the hearts of men.
For this I chose you.
I am a barren woman. Mary’s child
Reigns after me in England. Yet, to-night,
I crown my heir. I, England, crown my son.
SHAKESPEARE. There was a better man but yesterday--
To him the crown! King was he of all song.
ELIZABETH. He’s king now of the silence after song,
When the last bell-note hovers, like a high
And starry rocket that dissolves in stars,
Lost ere they reach us. He is lord of that
For ever.
SHAKESPEARE. He--he had the luck; but I,
But England was not lucky.
ELIZABETH. Be assured
Had England chosen Marlowe, here to-night
England had crowned him, and you in Surrey ditch
Had lain where he lies, dead, my dead son, dead.
Take you the kingship on you!
SHAKESPEARE. A player-king--
ELIZABETH. As I a player-queen! I play my part
Not ill, not ill. Judge me, my English peer,
And witness for me, that I play not ill
My part! And if by night, unseen, I weep,
Scourging my spirit down the track of the years,
Hating the name of Mary, as she said;
Yet comes and goes my hour, and comes again,
My hour, when I bear England in my breast
As God Almighty bears His universe,
England moves in me, I for England speak,
As I speak now. It is not the shut door,
But I, but England, holds you prisoner.
SHAKESPEARE. But to what service, England, and what end?
ELIZABETH. I send my ships where never ships have sailed,
To break the barriers and make wide the ways
For the after world.
Send you your ships to the hidden lands of the soul,
To break the barriers and make plain the ways
Between man and man. Why else were we two born?
SHAKESPEARE. What’s the worth of a play?
ELIZABETH. My ships are not so great
And ride not like firm islands of dry land
As Philip’s do; yet these my cockle-boats
Have used the vast world as a village pound,
And fished for treasure above the planets’ bed
In the drowned palaces where, water-bleached,
Atlantis gleams as gleams the skull-white moon,
Rolled in the overwhelming tides of time
Hither and down the beaches of the sky.
Send out your thoughts as I send out my men,
To earn a world for England!--paying first
The toll of the pioneer. I do not cheat.
Here is the bill--reckon it ere you pay!
SHAKESPEARE. Have I not paid?
ELIZABETH. Nay, hourly, till you die.
I tell you, you shall toss upon your bed
Crying “Let me sleep!” as men cry “Let me live!”
And sleeping you shall still cry “Mary! Mary!”
This will not pass. Think not the sun that wakes
The birds in England and the daisy-lawns,
Draws up the meadow fog like prayer to heaven,
And curls the smoke in cottage chimney stacks,
Shall once forget to wake you with a warm
And kissing breath! The four walls shall repeat
The name upon your lips, and in your heart
The name, the one name, like a knife shall turn.
These are your dawns. _I_ tell you, I who know.
Nor shall day spare you. All your prospering years,
The tasteless honours for yourself--not her--
The envy in men’s voices, (if they knew
The beggar that they envied!) all this shall stab,
Stab, stab, and stab again. And little things
Shall hurt you so: stray words in books you read,
And jests of strangers never meant to hurt you:
The lovers in the shadow of your fence,
Their faces hid, shall thrust a spare hand out,
The other held, to stab you as you pass:
And oh, the cry of children when they play!
You shall put grief in irons and lock it up,
And at the door set laughter for a guard,
Yet dance through life on knives and never rest,
While England knows you for a lucky man.
These are your days. I tell you, I, a queen,
Ruling myself and half a world. I know
What fate is laid upon you. Carry it!
Or, if you choose, flinch, weaken, and fall down,
Lie flat and howl, and let the ones that love you
(Not burdened less) half carry it and you!
Will you do that? Proud man, will you do that?
SHAKESPEARE. Because you are all woman--
ELIZABETH. Have you seen it?
None other sees.
SHAKESPEARE. --and not as you’re the Queen,
I’ll let you be the tongue to my own soul,
Yet not for long I’ll bear it.
ELIZABETH. To each his angel
For good or ill.
Women to a man, the man to a woman ever
Mated or fated. I am this fate to you,
As to me once a fallen star you knew not.
It’s long ago. You should have known the man.
He was the glory of the English night,
Its red star in decline. For see what came--
His fires were earthy and he choked himself
In his own ash. Not good but goodly was he,
A natural prince of the world: and he had been one
Had he been other, or I blind, or--Mary.
Lucifer! Lucifer! He loved me not,
But would have used me. Well--he used me not.
He died. I loved him. This between us two.
Bury it deep!
SHAKESPEARE. Deep as my sorrow lies.
But Queen, what cometh after?
ELIZABETH. Work.
SHAKESPEARE. And after?
ELIZABETH. Sleep comes for me.
SHAKESPEARE. And after?
ELIZABETH. Sleep for you.
SHAKESPEARE. And after?
ELIZABETH. Nothing. Only the blessed sleep.
SHAKESPEARE. And so ends all?
ELIZABETH. And so all ends.
SHAKESPEARE. Love ends?
ELIZABETH. And so love ends.
SHAKESPEARE. I have a word to say.
Give me this crown and reach the sceptre here!
The end’s not yet, but yet the end is mine;
For I know what I am and what I do
At last! Give me my pen, ere the spark dies
That lights me! And now leave me!
_He turns to the table and his work._
ELIZABETH [_loudly_]. Open the door!
SHAKESPEARE. Sesame, sesame! A word to say--
_The door is flung open and the long passage is seen._
O darkness, did she pass between your walls,
And left no picture on the empty air,
No echo of her step that waits for mine
To wake it in a message? What do I here?
“A word to say”! There’s nothing left but words.
ELIZABETH _has descended from her throne and
crossing the room, pauses a moment beside him._
ELIZABETH. Is the harness heavy--heavy?
SHAKESPEARE. Heavy as lead.
Heavy as a heart.
ELIZABETH. It will not lighten.
SHAKESPEARE. Go! [_She goes out._]
I had a word to say.
Oh, spark that burned but now--!
ANNE’S VOICE. It dips, it dies--
SHAKESPEARE. A night-light, fool, and not a star. I grope
Giddily in the dark. I shall grow old.
What is my sum? I have made seven plays,
Two poems and some sonnets. I have friends
So long as I write poems, sonnets, plays.
Earn then your loves, and as you like it--write!
Come, what’s your will?
Three sets of lovers and a duke or two,
Courtiers and fool--We’ll set it in a wood,
Half park, half orchard, like the woods at home.
See the house rustle, pit gape, boxes thrill,
As through the trees, boyishly, hand on hip,
Knee-deep in grass, zone-deep in margarets,
Comes to us--Mary!
ANNE’S VOICE. Under the apple-trees,
In the spring, in the long grass--Will!
SHAKESPEARE. Still the old shame
Hangs round my neck with withered arms and chokes
Endeavour.
ANNE’S VOICE. Will!
SHAKESPEARE. At right wing enter ghost!
It should be Marlowe with his parted mouth
And sweep of arm. Why should he wake for me?
That would be friendship, and what a friend was I!
Well--to the work!
ANNE’S VOICE. Will! Will!
SHAKESPEARE. What, ghost? still there?
Must I speak first? That’s manners with the dead;
But this haunt lives--at Stratford, by the river.
Maggot, come out of my brain! Girl! Echo! Wraith!
You’ve had free lodging, like a rat, too long.
I need my room. Come, show yourself and go!
“Changed?” “But I knew her!”--Say your say and go!
You’d a tongue once.
ANNE’S VOICE. You’re to be great--
SHAKESPEARE. Stale! Stale!
That’s the Queen’s catch-word.
ANNE’S VOICE. But I know, I know,
I’m your poor village woman, but I know
What you must learn and learn, and shriek to God
To spare you learning--
SHAKESPEARE. Ay, like wheels that shriek,
Carting the grain, their dragged unwilling way
Over the stones, uphill, at even, thus,
Shrieking, I learn--
ANNE’S VOICE. When harvest comes--
SHAKESPEARE. Is come!
Sown, sprouted, scythed and garnered--
ANNE’S VOICE. I alone
Can give you comfort, for you reap my pain,
As I your loss--loss--loss--
SHAKESPEARE. Anne, was it thus?
ANNE’S VOICE. No other way--
SHAKESPEARE. Such pain?
ANNE’S VOICE. Such pain, such pain!
SHAKESPEARE. I did not know. O tortured thing, remember,
I did not know--I did not know! Forgive--
ANNE’S VOICE. Forgiving is forgetting--no, come back!
I love you. Oh, come back to me, come back!
SHAKESPEARE. I cannot.
ANNE’S VOICE. Oh, come back! I love you so.
SHAKESPEARE. Be still, poor voice, be still!
ANNE’S VOICE. I love you so.
SHAKESPEARE. What is this love?
What is this awful spirit and unknown,
That mates the suns and gives a bird his tune?
What is this stirring at the roots of the world?
What is this secret child that leaps in the womb
Of life? What is this wind, whence does it blow,
And why? And falls upon us like the flame
Of Pentecost, haphazard. What is this dire
And holy ghost that will not let us two
For no prayers’ sake nor good deeds’ sake nor pain
Nor pity, have peace, and live at ease, and die
As the leaves die?
ANNE’S VOICE. I know not. All I know,
Is that I love you.
SHAKESPEARE. But I know, having learned--
This I believe because I know, I know,
Being in hell, paying the price, alone,
Licked in the flame unspeakable and torn
By devils, as in the old tales that are true--
All true, the fires, the red hot branding irons,
The thirst, the laughter, and the filth of shame,
All true, O fellow men! all true, all true--
Down through the circles, like a mangled rat
A hawk lets fall from the far towers of the sky,
Down through the wakeful æons of the night,
Into the Pit of misery they call
Bottomless, falling--I believe and know
That the Pit’s bottom is the lap of God,
And God is love.
ANNE’S VOICE. Is love, is love--
SHAKESPEARE. I know.
And knowing I will live my dark days out
And wait for His own evening to give light.
And though I may not fill the mouth I love,
Yet will I sow and reap and bind my sheaves,
Glean, garner, mill my corn, and bake, and cast
My bread upon the waters of the age.
This will I do for love’s sake, lest God’s eyes,
That are the Judgment, ask her man of her
One day, and she be shamed--as I am shamed
Ever, in my heart, by a voice witnessing
Against me that I knew not love.
PAGE [_entering with lights_]. The Queen, sir,
Has sent you candles, now the sun is down,
That you may see to work.
SHAKESPEARE. I thank the Queen.
Tell her the work goes well!
_He sits down at the table._
Act one, scene one,
Oliver’s house. It _shall_ go well. I have
A strength that comes I know not whence. It _shall_
Go well. And then I’ll give the Roman tale
I heard at school--a tale of men, not women:
That easies all. But Antony goes on
To Egypt and a gipsy: leaves his pale wife
At home to scald her eyes out. Mary--Mary--
Will you not let me be? It _shall_ go well.
And after Antony some Twelfth Night trick
To please our gods and give my pregnancy
Its needed peace. How many months for Denmark?
And then? A whole man laughs, and so will I.
Oh, Smile behind the thunder, teach me laughter,
And save my soul!--
The knock-about fat man, try him again!
He’ll take a month or less--candles are cheap,
Cheaper than sleep these dreaming nights. That done,
I’ll sink another shaft in Holinshed--
Marlowe, your diamonds! your diamonds!
The king and his three daughters--he’s been shaped
Already. True! But rough-cut only. Wait!
Give me that giant cluster in my hand
To cut anew, in its own midnight set,
It shall outshine Orion! Afterwards,
A fairy tale maybe, and after that--
And after that--and after--after? God!
The years before me! And no Mary! Mary--
ANNE’S VOICE. When her lost face--
SHAKESPEARE. It shall, it shall go well.
ANNE’S VOICE. --stares from the page you toil upon, thus, thus,
In a glass of tears--
SHAKESPEARE. They scald, they blind my view,
No comfort anywhere.
ANNE’S VOICE. I love you so.
SHAKESPEARE. The work, the work remains.
ANNE’S VOICE. But when you’re old,
For work too old, or pity, love or hate,
For anything but peace, and in your hand
Lies the crowned life victorious at last--
SHAKESPEARE. Like the crowned Indian fruit, the voyage home
Rots while it gilds, not worth the tasting--
ANNE’S VOICE. Then,
Remember me! Then, then, when all your need
Is hands to serve you and a breast to die on,
Come back to me!
SHAKESPEARE. God knows--some day?
ANNE’S VOICE. I wait.
_As he stoops over his work again_
THE CURTAIN FALLS.
_January, 1920--April, 1921._
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WOODS AND SONS, LTD., LONDON, N.1.