for years: when I bought it I thought I had the keenest
blade in London, sharper than my rapier: when I carried
it I liked to give it a flick now and then, to catch the
eye of a woman: I kept it polished: it saved my life in a
street fracas: Hamnet liked it: he used to shoulder it
and parade about: I thought it would keep me young
forever: I thought it would cut across time, loosen
parchment and paper, let flood a bevy of immortal words
above a sea of faces...
...for Thomas Combe.
The Roebuck on the Atlantic, bucking water,
sailors topmast, Raleigh in his cabin,
one eye on the compass, another on a
manuscript:
Books line the walls; a monkey chitters:
the Roebuck pitches:
Raleigh’s jewels flash on his hands:
“Mermaid,” yells a bow sailor.
Henley Street
July 24, 1615
I
had thirty-five days at sea with Raleigh:
How he commands, respected by his seamen, each crewman
called by name. There is adequate leisure aboard his
frigate. I never saw anything done “on the double” as
aboard an Essex ship where the captaincy seemed insecure.
On board the Roebuck I kept at my writing, lolling and
writing on deck or passing hours in his cabin where I
gave up to his booked walls: volumes in French, English,
Italian, Greek, manuscripts in Latin and Hebrew, his
literary world broader than mine.
In his cabin, under his table lantern during bad
weather, during squalls, I wrote an act and then, at
Raleigh’s urging, read it aloud. Feet propped on a
mother-of-pearl chest, he listened gravely, smoking his
clay pipe, brandy in reach, his comments as mellow as his
drink, Oxford accent to my liking.
Ere we were ten days old at sea I had written several
scenes—writing in the sun and spray, sitting on coils of
rope, a gun lashed in front of me, gulls mewing.
“Mermaid...mermaid,” a sailor yelled aloft, and we
scuttled to the starboard rail, to see something break
water and then submerge, its pearly back toward us.
She swam and dove, flipping in and out of swells, the
bubbles foaming around her, making off at a 40 degree
angle from our stern, pearl or green grey, though I never
saw her distinctly.
The excited sailor who had spotted her claimed that he
had seen her face... “such a beautiful face!”
Raleigh appeared.
“They’re deep swimmers,” he said, as we leaned far
over, hoping she might reappear. “She’ll likely stay down
a long time. Must have powerful lungs, those mermaids.”
He told of other mermaids: he had heard one call
through fog and mist on the Orinoco river; he had seen
one off the Cape, near a small island; he said that
seeing a mermaid spells luck.
He went on talking of a trip upriver, jungle river,
heat, crocodiles, green birds, monkeys with beards,
butterflies, solid white butterflies, bigger than your
hands: his descriptions sent my brain going: I too was
the Queen’s favorite, Shepherd of the Ocean, sailing a
Golden Hind: I would find El Dorado in Manoa.
His accent sometimes thickened to a brogue and it was
difficult to follow. Talking of his travels, his eyes
grew nervous, searching, searching, seeing inside,
greying: his arms gestured.
We leaned against the taffrail, as the ship heeled
under a wind, white caps racing after.
His Roebuck is splendid, new, well-equipped, faster
than others of design. He and his navy draughtsmen spent
months on her, and she cost him a fortune.
On this run we fired new cannon, firing them to test
their recoil, trying a device designed by his chief
gunner: for Mr. Ames the firing took place after dawn,
when the ocean was smooth; I was wakened five or six
mornings; the great ship rolled in protest and rigging
and beams creaked. One morning I was on deck to witness
the testing.
Legs spread, soap on him, he rode the swells, while a
sailor threw water over him, a sexful man, proud, and
that same pride was at dinner in his cabin while being
served among his officers and it was there while he read
to me at the same table, eatables cleared, read me from
the Greek poets, Pindar’s ode on boxing, Simonides and
his Perseus imprisoned in a chest at sea, Anakreon:
reading the Greek and then translating as if it were his
tongues.
It seemed to me he might be fit to govern the new
world...a great, wise colonist...
On our trip we visited Madeira Island, disembarking at
noon, the cambers keeling us into warm, shallow water,
the weather perfect. I had a carcanet that I was
determined to give a girl, in exchange. The priest, in
the town, was very determined to detain me: to please
him, I had to see the hairs of the Virgin, treasured in a
box: the coil of hair kept the convent free of famine, he
insisted: with his gigantic paunch I felt he might cause
a famine of his own: he had a tree-filled, bird-filled
cage he wanted me to see, strung with brass wires, where
hundreds of birds lived. Negro girls, naked except for
the cloth pad underneath the calabash shells they carried
on their heads, wandered past the cage to see the birds,
and found me most amusing. Their smooth, dark features,
slick jet hair, round waists and small breasts were
delightful. The priest had to leave—called by the convent
bell. I gave the youngest my carcanet: the bushes slid
about us, our hands together, the leaves cool, the cool
stream cool beside us, giving us water in our hands:
birds in the aviary whistled and sang, while she fondled
the carcanet and lay with me: I had never had anyone so
young, accomplished, kindly, wooing, mouth tasting of
fruit: she peeled fruit taken from a bush and we ate
together: she filled her calabash at the stream and left
me, lying, dreaming of her smiles and stroking hands...
Stay illusion.
I liked sprawling in my bunk, the ocean light
illuminating the ceiling, a book or two beside me.
From above came the pad-pad of barefoot sailors, shift
of rigging and cordage, yaw of boom, sough of wind and
flap of canvas; from below came the gurgle of seas and
jab of crested rollers that sometimes held the ship
suspended for a moment and then permitted her to careen
as she drove down inclines steep enough to shake the
reaches of the sails.
When I dozed I felt the vastness, ringed vastness, and
I was monarch through nearly closed lids: I was ruler of
my inconsistencies: I dreamed an island, chained by surf
and reef, where life was incredibly carefree, a warmth of
flowers, fruit—women.
At night, in the bunk, oil lamp swinging, I imagined
the uncharted waters beneath us, porpoise and whale,
creatures that pursued us as we floated across a valley,
across a hill where coral studded the top: I saw monsters
pass and re-pass, dark blue, grey, orange, fins fluted
like fans close to our keel. Streamers of kelp and
seaweed tangled crab and shark and I fell asleep, my play
forgotten, the lamp burning, burning, burning...
Screaming, a seaman plunged from our topgallant, to die
on deck while we were outrunning a storm.
Raleigh had his body wrapped in canvas and tossed
overboard. No ceremony. Giant, wind-wracked combers.
“Do you know his name? Is there any record?” I asked.
“Timothy Parkes.”
“Where was he from?”
“Dover. He was wanted there for murdering two women.”
“Was he a good seaman?”
“No. And he was eaten up with scurvy.”
And Raleigh’s face said: “What kind of ship can an
officer command sailored by rogues?” But he was all man:
I saw him, in his canvas sack, as all men, fal-
ling...falling.
There was never another voyage for me after
Raleigh’s...nor was there ever another Sir Walter. I
should have been his champion. He needed me to fight for
him. I have often shut my eyes and seen his books and
sensed the cradling lull of his ship and felt the grace
and power of him standing beside me: books, beams, a
pointed beard, a swinging lamp, smell of oakum and ocean.
To think that I witnessed his trial and made no attempt
to defend him...to think that I saw him in prison...to
think...cold venison! Cry your mercy!
Henley Street
July 28, 1615
At the Mermaid Tavern, Raleigh laughed over his ale,
his lanky body screwed on a rickety chair, the wind and
rain howling, people coming and going, their clothes
soggy, the wind gusting inside with each arrival. Most
newcomers made for the fireplace, stamping and shaking
out their coats; boots and leggings steamed.
Grinning, Raleigh lit his pipe, a dozen men around our
table, elbowing Ben Jonson and me.
“Come on, Ben, smoke another, and you, too, Will.”
Raleigh’s coat was ripped, where a sword or cutlass had
slashed; he pushed a tobacco pouch and pipe toward me.
“I’ll drink with you—but not smoke,” I said.
“Try again. You’ll learn to like it.”
“You experiment,” I said. “Once was enough.”
“But I’m not experimenting. I’ve smoked on the long
watches. It settles the blood and calms the mind. The
Indians...”
“We know about the Indians,” Jonson said. “Just
remember, we’re not Indians!”
“You might better be! Here, lad, bring us more ale!
Let’s drink!”
“Here’s to your return! London’s London with you
around.”
“Have you seen my new play?”
“What play is it?”
“The Winter’s Tale,” I said.
“What—a chilly play on top of this miserable weather!
Why a month ago I was basking in the sun...you and your
plays! Is this Denmark and another Hamlet? Tell me, Will,
was Hamlet named for your son—are those lines in his
honor?”
Jonson interrupted and answered for me:
“When my boy died I wrote something for him. I was in
prison then and the jailer grabbed my manuscript and spat
on it. Bah, that’s the kind of crassness that shakes you.
I’ve forfeited goods in payment of my stupidities but I
haven’t forfeited my hatred of injustice! It’s another
kind of injustice when a boy, a stripling, dies. Will
made Hamnet into Hamlet, an outcry against this world.”
He drank his ale and I saw him examine his thumb, where
they had branded it when he was in prison; he nodded to
himself; I suppose his thoughts were of his boy, a victim
of the plague...
Jonson eats poorly. Prison treatment has hurt him. His
hair is greying, particularly on one side, sweeping down,
showing when he talks with gusto. Teeth are missing.
Today he wears a suit of black wool, his cuffs clean, his
collar clean. He hardly seems one of us.
Raleigh’s sword scrapes against the table as he leans
forward, talking of his voyages. His is a perpetual
struggle with storms and mutinies and his flashing eyes
convey a courage one has to take into account. He has
sent the idlers packing and smokes with his pipe in the
bowl of his palm, its brown the color of his hands, the
five or six rings on his fingers blazing: opals and
rubies, I am told.
I am also told that if he sold the jewels he wears he
could pay for the construction of a ship-of-the-line.
Henley Street
July 30, 1615
I came across several old letters this morning.
Raleigh’s is hard to decipher:
Portsmouth
March 9, 1608
Will Shakespear—
We have taken an old carrack, the Madre de
Dios, and spoils clutter her deck as we lie
at anchor in Portsmouth Bay, spoils, things
the Queen would grow sullen over, wanting
them. Some of them bloody and soaked with
spray, they have a cheapness about them, a
liar’s eye. You and Ben would know how to
laugh and knock them about. Here’s a green
gem in a brooch a negro queen must have worn,
its horse’s eye staring through a slash of
sail canvas. Here’s a rope of skulls carved
in brownish ivory; here’s a tiara ornamented
with pale yellow gems I can’t identify...a
pile of brass bracelets alongside a smashed
cutlass. As for me, I’ll take the wind in the
rigging and a clear landfall.
How are your plays going this season?
Sometimes, when a sea rages, Macbeth howls in
my ear, Othello lifts his hand as stars dive
below the washed horizon.
Shun the Queen’s condemnations. It is
usually her freedom—seldom ours. Stay clean!
But if I could write like you I would try
to destroy political chicanery, though
meddling with the Crown may spell my doom.
Well, I will make London late next month,
and see you at the Tavern.
Raleigh’s pen dug into the paper, and the signature has
almost disappeared for lack of ink.
The Tower
Will Shakespear—
When I scribbled verses on a window, our
Queen was pleased. I did not know—my crystal
would not divulge that I would become a
chemist in the Tower, alchemist of solitude.
I thought the compass mine, shrewdly boxed...
London
April 9, 1593
Will—
For years I have been planning an
expedition up the Orinoco, to locate a gold
mine. The fabled mine is near Spanish
settlements and these may present hazards to
any English force. A Spaniard, a Captain
Berrio, is entrenched there, along the River.
The expedition will tax my resources but I am
determined for the sake of the Crown: to
carry out my plans I will require several
shallow draft frigates and several small
boats; there are no accurate maps and the
mine is in fever jungle. Certes a month or
two will go into exploration, hacking this
way and that. The roguish crew of prison
perverts will contribute their share of com-
plications, no doubt of that, my friend. Con-
sole yourself that you will never know such
an experience as dealing with deckloads of
cutthroats. To be a voyageur you must condone
scapegoats, assassins, rapists, thieves...but
you know our maritime history. I have been
accused of bad voyages...who has not made bad
voyages who dared voyages? If this expedition
can be materialed the victualing will be a
matter of months. Wish me well...wish me
God’s speed.
I am contributing £3,000, and it seemeth to
me this Empire is reserved for Her Majesty
and the Nation. I can find the gold King of
Cundinamarca: el hombre dorado. Who knows, as
in Sergas de Esplandián, we may reach the
Island of California, inhabited by Amazon
women with passionate hearts and great
strength, where there is abundant gold.
There were other letters in this vein, about his
future. As explorer he was to the manner born. Thou canst
not be false to any man—his letters seemed to say.
The Tower
Like our ship Revenge I am surrounded by an
armada of enemies, all my pikes splintered.
In the beginning of the fight I had a hundred
for me; volleys, boardings, and enterings
have done their damage...this composition and
exile are the dullest and longest in the
history of our Tower; the book I am writing
is for Prince Frederick, a slow, slow tacking
about; yet you, who respect writing, realize
the salvation. Tell me, friend, that I will
fare well with my History of the World...
It is still my error that I never assisted him: it was
my error to have shut my mind: there are many I could
have helped as I went along. But to pass by someone
great—that is great misfortune.
I hear him telling about how he burned the town of San
José; I hear him telling about the treachery of the
Tarawa Indians; his terrible thirst when his ship ran out
of water at sea; he is boarding a Spanish frigate,
raiding for guns...
’Sblood, the Spanish are a cruel lot, chaining the
caciques, scorching their naked bodies with hot bacon,
beating them, starving them, decapitating them...
The Tower
Write to me, lad, before thought’s relicts
utterly obsess me and the ghouls remove me in
their stinking chains. I have seen and heard
them, ghouls and ghosts of this town and
tower, seen and heard them cringe and bully,
nightlong. Stones multiply their menace.
There’s an old seadog from Dublin crumpled in
a cell here, a grumbling bag: he claims he
used to sail with me; by his own confession
he is the murderer of his crippled father. He
is to be freed in the Spring. Freed? Free—are
we ever free, my lad? When I sniff the brined
air I am hard put not to cast myself off the
Tower—I still hope to see the sails double-
reefed and porpoises rising off the bow...
Later he wrote bread—bread—bread. “Time drives the
flocks,” he said: “I am reading the Amoretti... have you
read Spenser recently?
“None can call again the passed time,” he wrote. I
repeated those seven words. I repeat his
bread...bread...bread...it is not bread we want. I did
not care. Who cares now?
Henley Street
August 1, ’15
What times we had, Raleigh, Marlowe, Jonson, and I,
Marlowe and his wit, Raleigh and his tales of the sea,
Jonson and his satirical pomposities in Latin or Greek.
Then, then...Marlowe’s murder crept through our veins and
left us dumb or feverish, our very gatherings viewed with
disapproval.
Hail drubbed our windows, the chill of complicity and
duplicity spread over cobbles, the clatter of horses’
hooves meant torture on the spit of tomorrow: these were
hitched to our beads of sweat.
We had seen our share of slings and arrows. Was it
important who killed Marlowe? We weren’t sure. All
threads of evidence were thin threads! We praised
Marlowe, shuffled through our worn pockets to bury him—
Raleigh at sea now. We excused, blamed, made our exodus.
Ann said, with scorn:
“It’s the company you keep! London! Always London!”
As if our plays could be produced in Stratford!
“It’s men who blaspheme God who find the gutter! Listen
to what people say about Raleigh! He’ll have a bad end!”
So they prophesied over sour beer.
Chris Marlowe was squat, dark, tousle-headed, many-
freckled, with wretched teeth and poor eyes. He weighed
far too much for a small man—his clothes were sacks at
times—his body lost inside for all its bulk. He had
character and a voice that conveyed character—his speech
superior to many actors. He could memorize lines quickly,
and speak them sincerely, interpreting with sound
thinking behind them. When nervous he picked his teeth
and jogged his foot, when writing or talking, not on the
stage. He slumped in his chair habitually, as if he had
been on his feet for days. When he spoke, there was
Marlowe, bringing you to attention, his eyes serious, the
warmth of him coming to you, a piece of currency.
Stratford
Marlowe and I worked throughout the night, troubled by
reeky candles, rain and chill. He kept us grinding by
saying we’d soon see the sun cross the roof tops.
The sun...where was it?
Our playwriting went badly as we worked at rephrasing,
changing, cutting, adding. I would write a scene and he
would recompose it, or he would start out and then I
would revise. We had to have our three acts finished by
noon, for our players.
Red-eyed, Marlowe sipped ale, his quill chronicling,
squeaking, or head on his arms, he snatched a fragment of
sleep.
Rain over the house, over the mansard, clicking against
the glass, sounding colder and colder, dampening our
spirits and our paper, making my knees and ankles
ache...rain.
I wanted to toss myself on the cot and smother myself
with blankets and call it a day. Marlowe said we’d soon
see the dawn. God’s bodkins!
In that four-square room, cluttered with Greek and
Roman masks, posters, books, and dirt, we wrote Titus
over and over. When the manuscripts were ready for the
theatre even the rain sounded tired.
In those days, for economy’s sake, we often cut each
other’s hair, sitting in the doorway or on the steps,
when the weather was good. Draped in sheet or towel, I
sat on a chair while Marlowe snipped. Scissors and comb
usually put him in a whistling mood. Gently puffing a
tune, he scissored away—the slowest barber in London. He
liked to complain about the color of my hair, saying he
wished it was as black as Othello’s so he could see it
easily.
“I’ve cut so many bad lines from your plays this job
should be easy.”
Chris was better at barbering than I. He said I didn’t
keep my mind on my work.
“If I had the money, I’d certainly excuse you. Come on,
no more time out for jotting down lines. Let’s get
through this mess. Presently, it will be dark. I never
trust you by candlelight.”
In separate crimson frames:
Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Ben
Jonson, Shakespeare:
A mirage of Armada, sails rattling, guns
roaring...
At sea, Sir Francis tells yarn of brave
seamanship:
a man stabs another in the eye with a dagger.
Silence.
Stratford
August 5, 1615
S
pelling God backward gets dull after a while: at the
clandestine meetings where Raleigh, Greene, Marlowe,
Drake, Jonson and others crucified everyone’s beliefs,
they gradually dulled their arrows, for me: I thought:
Lucifer can smell too strongly of sulfur too often. “Am I
not a mighty man who bears a hundred souls on his back!”—
talk like this was to little purpose, to my way of
thinking. How much saner to keep convictions to one’s
self: Yet some, surly as a butcher’s dog, paraded their
beliefs. Gulled, I never went too often: the suite, in
the Duke’s Thames house, had about it an air of trouble
brewing, trickery, and the abrupt appearance of men-at-
arms. The talkers walked or sat about, under brilliant
chandeliers, shadowing their shadows on the polished
floors, starched cuffs thrown back over satin sofas.
Whiffs of cologne and perfume over-topped the whiff of
garret. Rapiers shimmered. The Queen, if she chose, could
do away with each of us: a nod of her wig. I seriously
suspected all their pattery, branding it half-hearted
conspiracy, mistrust and defamation. The passage of time
has confirmed, not denied my feelings: perspective has
brought out the folly of guffawings at creeds.
St. Grouse’s Day
1615
For weeks, after Marlowe’s murder, I avoided the
Mermaid Tavern. When a courtier from the Queen’s court
came to me at my apartment and suggested, with coughs
behind his perfumed handkerchief, that I leave London for
a while, I agreed... I was rather unaccustomed to such
visits!
Meeting Jonson, as I left the city, sensing evasion on
his part, I felt ill at ease, suspicion stepping in.
Later, he visited me at Stratford, brief visits, but he
was aware of my doubts; my reserve must have told him.
Jonson said:
“The Queen has been spying...last week your London
apartment was searched...if you’re smart, stay
away...she’s making up her mind...”
I turned that over.
What could I pin on the Queen? What could she pin on
me? Which play? A broadside? A pamphlet? With Jonson back
in London I sent out feelers. When I was convinced that
he was loyal I would remember that he had killed two men.
Queen? Pawn? Right? Wrong?
September first
1615
Months after Marlowe’s murder, I learned that the Queen
had had hirelings kill him. I confided in Raleigh as we
stood on a pier, near one of his frigates...the Thames
wind whipping our clothes.
How well I recall his expression when I told him. Mouth
tense, eyes afire, he grabbed at the hilt of his sword
and exclaimed:
“I command nine ships. How many cutthroats do you think
I have at my beck and call? In a fortnight, Marlowe’s
murderers will be dead. Our Queen will know that she has
been out-maneuvered, that there are plotters keener than
she. She killed Marlowe because he was too rabid an
atheist...”
Those were vain words on Raleigh’s part: he did
nothing: I did nothing. How gutter-cheap we are in times
of stress, how obliterative, given to expediency, wedded
to her and safety!
Next Day
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields
Woods or steepy mountain yields...
And I will make thee a bed of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies...
Chris never knew what it was to have a bed of roses,
not even for a fortnight.
He might have gone on to splendid heights. His verses
mean much to me. I liked him for his clowning, his
patience, his kind words, his persuasive pen. Glover’s
son and shoemaker’s boy—we had many a boisterous time. Of
his plays I think best of Tambourlaine and Faustus.
From jigging veins of riming mother wits
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay
We’ll lead you to the stately tent of war...
As we collaborated on our plays, he was constantly
fighting debts, his mistress riding him hard. Our
tankards full we worked in my place or his. I shied away
from his association with the School of Atheists, leaving
that to him and Raleigh.
No writer could have had a better guide for Titus,
Henry and Richard. M__ had learned to smoke and like R__
had to putter with tobacco, pipe and flint.
One afternoon he used a scrap of poetry to light his
pipe. Letting the paper burn and then char on the floor,
he said:
“That was a poem well used.”
Was it another “Shepherd’s Song”?
I should have collected his works and seen them
published. Now I could not track down his pieces. Ah, the
shoulds of life...
This is the anniversary of his death, another churlish
scruff of day with wretched rain...the rain it raineth
every day...true, boy, come bring us to this hovel...the
tyranny of the world is too rough at times...give me your
hand.
Jonson received a letter from Ellen, Ellen in
Edinburgh, writing at home, expressing her friendly
concern for me: