No More Learning

He will love the better for a year's instruction
in the lessons of pain. "This side is Hiems, Winter, this Ver, the
Spring": the song of the cuckoo and the song of the owl are alike
songs of the earth; let us cheerfully attend to both.
Such was Shakespeare's starting-point. He was a scholar, in love
with the book of life, and in time he would understand its meaning.
But as he turned the pages he found obscure and awful things, and
it may be that for a while his vision grew perplexed. When 'Meas-
ure for Measure' was written, it seems as if he moved in some valley
of the shadow of sin and death, amid encompassing gloom, and could
sustain his courage only by the presence of strength, severe and vir-
ginal but not joyous, as seen in the person of Isabella. In Troilus
and Cressida,' - the comedy of disillusion,- he gazes on life with a
bitter irony, finding young love a fraud, and pretentious heroes
only vulgar egoists beneath their glittering armor: if there is virtue
anywhere, it must be sought in such worldly wisdom as that of Ulys-
ses; the penetration and insight of a Machiavelli is indeed a kind


## p. 13173 (#621) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13173
of virtue amid sham splendors, mercenary wiles, and the deceits of
sensual passion.
(
But Shakespeare could not remain content with the poor philoso-
phy of disenchantment. Vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valu-
ations, self-deceptive imaginations,- he had come to know them all;
but he could not accept as final the shrunken wisdom of such a dis-
covery. Nor would he retreat to the untenable refuge of a shallow
optimism. He went forward courageously to a deeper inquisition of
evil. He ceased for a time from comedy: one great tragedy-'Julius
Cæsar,' 'Hamlet,' 'Othello,' Lear,' 'Macbeth,' 'Antony and Cleo-
patra, Coriolanus,' Timon of Athens' - succeeded another. And
searching profoundly into the mystery of evil, he rediscovered, and in
a deeper way than ever before, the mystery of good. Cordelia suffers
a shameful death; but she has given her life as a free gift, to win a
victory of love. Othello, in the blinding simoon of passion, has struck
her whom he best loved, and Desdemona lies on the bed "pale as
her smock" but her spirit has conquered the malignant spirit of
Iago; and Othello enters into a great calm as he pronounces the
doom of a justiciary against himself, and falls where his lips can give
his wronged wife the last kiss of union.
Into such a calm, but serener and more bright, Shakespeare him-
self passed after he had completed his studies of terror and pity.
The serenity of the latest dramas, beautiful romances rather than
comedies, the plays of Prospero and Imogen and Hermione, - has
in it something of the pellucid atmosphere of early autumn days; the
air is bright and transparent, but below its calm there is a touch of
surrender and detachment: the harvest is well-nigh gathered; the
songs of spring and the vivifying midsummer ardors are withdrawn:
yet the peace that is present is a vivid peace; and Shakespeare in
these plays sees the spectacle of life-its joys of youth, its victories
of mature wisdom and the patience of hope with a sympathy deeper
and more pure than that of his earlier exultant years:-
-
―――
«Uranian clearness, come!
Give me to breathe in peace and in surprise
The light-thrilled ether of your rarest skies,
Till inmost absolution start
The welling in the grateful eyes,
The heaving in the heart. "
These are the dramas of reconcilement; like the masque of his great
enchanter, "harmonious charmingly. " It is as if Shakespeare had
solved the riddle at last, had found the secret; or not having found
it, but assured that its meaning is good, could be content to wait.
Edward Dowden.


## p. 13174 (#622) ##########################################

13174
SHAKESPEARE
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE MAN AND THE ACTOR
(1564-1616)
BY JOHN MALONE
THE life records of the actor-poet Shakespeare are not less ample
than those of his contemporaries not in public life. The place of
his birth and something of his family are known,-more than can
be said of Spenser, Chapman, or Ben Jonson. Though of the marvel-
ous industry of his pen there be only five signatures of his name to
witness, yet not that can be said of Sydenham, whose works are the
study of all who have a care for the health of men. It is a con-
vincing testimony to the gentle worth and modesty of the man that
the earliest notices of his life, except such as are of purely domestic
character, are the results of envy and detraction. Had not William
Shakespeare been early a victim to that hurt of all true and simple-
hearted great ones, the sting of venomed slander, the admirers of
his incomparable genius had not known how to fix with certainty the
first lights of his unfading day.
"He was not of an age but for all time. " Shrewd old Ben Jonson
never wrote a phrase which contributes more to his own immortality
than this, in which he describes Will Shakespeare's greatness, and
foretells his everlasting fame. It is one of the evidences of the con-
viction with which true personal character forces itself upon the mind,
that Jonson, who bore such a relation to Shakespeare in the affairs
of their every day that he could not help expressing his jealousy
during the time the latter lived, was yet willing, after Shakespeare's
death, to admit all the truth and greatness of the gentle-minded man
against whom, living, he had been willing to practice the art and
cunning of a court-favor-seeking rival.
This "mighty line" of rare old Ben is true both of the man and
of his work. Drama is not an invention: it is innate in the heart of
man; it began under the roof-tree of the first family, and its life will
last so long as there shall be prattling of children upon the earth.
Knowledge of Shakespeare as a man and an actor is the best
starting-point for earnest study of his work. From failure to begin
their survey from this point, most of those who have voluminously
written about him have floundered into the bogs and quicksand of
mistake and misrepresentation.
It is a plain and simple tale:-
Born in the year 1564 at or near Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwick-
shire, England, he was married in 1582 and had three children, born


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SHAKESPEARE
13175
within the early years of his wedded life. He left Stratford sud-
denly, and became an actor and writer of plays famous enough to be
noticed by detraction in 1589, and cited amongst the foremost men of
letters in England in 1592. He followed the calling of an actor in
honor and eminence from early youth until a period as late as three
years before his death. He made money and accumulated property
both in London and in Stratford; was the companion, associate, and
friend of the greatest and wisest men of his day, and was admired
and beloved by them. Finally, while yet in active life, he died in
the quiet of Stratford in his prime of years and fame, in the year
1616, and was buried there in the chancel of the parish church of
the Holy Trinity.
Beyond these facts all that we are told of the man Shakespeare is
inference, more or less valuable according to its logical method; yet
much do we know by invincible deduction from a strong array of
known and recorded facts. What is positively told of him by the liv-
ing witnesses of his own time may be written within the space of a
visiting-card. What may be warrantably offered as logical presump-
tions from the circumstances of his life and times extend that space
to volumes. As with all men, some of the most useful presumptions.
going to show his character and place in life spring from his family
relations.
The natural fortress or dune upon which stands the modern Castle
of Warwick was in the Roman time a præsidium or camp of guard, on
the wooded frontier beyond which the free Britons had taken refuge.
In the time of William of Normandy there was in the possession of
this stronghold a certain Turkhill of that free race, called Turkhill of
Warwick. He took no part in the contest between Harold and the
Norman, and believed, upon the accession of the Conqueror, that he
would be allowed to retain his possessions in peace. William, when
making his 'Domesday Boke,' set down the fact that nearly all of
the property in Warwickshire was held from Turkhill; but sent out
his own Earl of Warwick, William of Newburg, and Turkhill was dis-
possessed of all his holdings, except some inconsiderable properties in
what was known as Hemlingford Hundred, in the centre of the for-
est. To this small estate he retired, relinquishing the name of War-
wick; and was thereafter known, himself and his successors, by the
name of "Arden," or "of the wood Arden," signifying high or great
forest. "This is the forest of Arden;" and Mary Arden, of Turkhill's
- a woman of gentle and loving character,- was the mother
of our poet and a careful and devoted spouse to her husband John,
called by home people "Shaxper. " It was the officers of heraldry
who made invention of a punning meaning for this name; which like
its woodland neighbor "Shuckborough" came evidently from the old
race,
-


## p. 13176 (#624) ##########################################

13176
SHAKESPEARE
British combination of "Shacks". a word well known to woodmen
who use split timber for their shelter-with the term used for a set-
tlement or colony. The shortening of this termination has analogy in
the use of "Kesper" for Kexborough in Yorkshire. When John and
Mary Shakespeare were married in 1555 or 1556, the father of Mary
Shakespeare, Robert Arden of Wilmecot, was a substantial farmer,
owning several homesteads; of one of which the father of John
Shakespeare, Richard, was tenant.
Upon Robert Arden's death, Mary Shakespeare inherited two of
these farms,-one called Asbies, and a smaller one in the little town
of Snitterfield. John Shakespeare had given up the life of a husband-
man to which he was born; and having entered into business in the
market town of Stratford, was at the time of his marriage an active,
prudent, and money-making man.
When William, the first son, was born in 1564, the neighborhood of
Stratford was afflicted by the plague, and many of the inhabitants
were carried away; but that wise Providence which watches the fall
of a sparrow sheltered the life of the infant who was to become the
greatest poet of our tongue.
John Shakespeare, in addition to his business, which was that of a
glover and wool merchant, occupied an important position in the gov-
ernment of the borough. In the year 1558 he was appointed to one
of the minor offices of his town, and passed through several years of
service as an able alderman; until he became on September 4th, 1568,
the chief magistrate or High Bailiff of the borough. It was at this
period that he obtained from the Herald's Office the right to bear a
coat of arms,- a gold shield with a spear in bend impaled with the
arms of the family of Arden. The crest assigned him was a falcon
holding a spear erect. About the year 1578 he ceased to perform
any of the functions of his office of alderman; and finally, in the year
1584, after having been for nearly six years absent from the meetings
of the board, though frequently requested to appear, his name was
removed from the roll of alderman, and his friend John Sadler was
elected in his place. This removal of John Shakespeare from the
board of town governors of Stratford, which was in fact a resignation,
has been attributed by many writers to a sudden and inexplicable
condition of poverty. It was in 1578 that the Oath of Supremacy was
enforced upon all persons holding office, and the right to be sworn
according to the custom of the borough abrogated. As John Shake-
speare was and remained a recusant, it must be concluded that his
absence from the board of aldermen was a direct consequence of the
prohibition established by law.
That John Shakespeare was a member of that class of persons who
desired to practice the old religion, and that he lived in the respect
-


## p. 13177 (#625) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13177
of his neighbors, under the protection of some one powerful enough
to prevent the application of the penal law in its severity, is clearly
established by the Warwickshire Book of Recusants' made up by
Sir Thomas Lucy and others, the Queen's Commissioners, in 1592.
Traditions must be very carefully studied before being let into
the company of facts. About William Shakespeare's youth there are
several stories of a very misty kind. When we consider that there
were in and around Stratford three other William Shakespeares in
his time, but little faith is due to statements made half a century
after his death about deer-stealing, lying drunk under roadside trees,
and other tales of the simple country folk who but repeated hearsay.
Whatever the cause for that single but not ill-natured instance of
ridicule of his neighbor, indulged in by the gentle actor who made
Justice Shallow and Sir Thomas Lucy twin laughing-stocks, it cer-
tainly was not all the memory of a merited punishment for wild and
boyish pranks.
In October of the year 1583, John Somerville, a gentleman living
at the manor-house of Edston, within three miles of Stratford, was
arrested for some inflammatory words uttered by him against Queen
Elizabeth. As this was a time when plots were rife in England
for the release of Mary Queen of Scots, and the advocacy of her
claim to the throne of England, every individual who had any sym-
pathy for her was most jealously watched. Somerville had been
known to express himself strongly in favor of the claims of Mary; and
when he gave voice to strong language against Queen Elizabeth, he
was immediately arrested, sent up to London, and a commission was
appointed from the Privy Council to go into Warwickshire for the
arrest of all persons related to, or in any way connected with, the
Somerville family. Somerville's wife was the daughter of Edward
Arden of Park Hall, the head of the family of Shakespeare's mother.
This commission held its sittings in Sir Thomas Lucy's house of
Charlecote, and Sir Thomas was himself most active in securing the
arrest and prosecution of all persons connected with the accused.
Amongst others brought before him was a boy, companion or confiden-
tial page to Somerville, not mentioned by name in any of the records,
but who is referred to as having written down over his own hand an
account of the proceedings of the day upon which Somerville was
arrested. He must therefore have been a boy of more than common
education, and of a family in a condition of life above the common
sort. Somerville was about twenty years of age at this time, and
was most carefully watched by his family because of his tendency
to "midsummer madness. " His family preserved a tradition that
William Somerville, his brother, who after John's death in prison,
while under sentence for treason, became the head of the family,


## p. 13178 (#626) ##########################################

13178
SHAKESPEARE
and was High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1610,- had an exquisite
miniature of Shakespeare painted, which he transmitted to his de-
scendants as a precious heirloom of the affection which existed
between himself and our gentle Will. This miniature, the only
portrait of Shakespeare which has lawful evidence to support its
character, is now in the possession of a gentleman in London. The
family, which guarded it sacredly to the opening of this century, has
so far passed away that one of the most celebrated of the dormant
peerage cases has waited long to put one of the race in possession of
the title of Lord Somerville.
From Charlecote, Mrs. Somerville, her sister-in-law Elizabeth, Mary
Arden, daughter of Sir George Throckmorton and wife of Edward
Arden, with all their servants and dependents, were sent up to
London. Edward Arden had been previously taken there, and was
hanged at Tyburn on November 23d. Somerville died in Newgate, it
was said upon the rack. The others were kept in prison for weary
months. Of the household of Mrs. Somerville was one whom Thomas
Wilkes, the clerk of the council, writes down "Wm. Chacker. "
Our young poet,-at this time but nineteen years of age, newly
married to a neighbor, Anne Hathaway, and father of an infant daugh-
ter, Susanna,- a close kinsman of these Ardens, was liable to be sud-
denly and most unexpectedly obliged to answer the serious charge of
aiding and abetting an overt act of treason; and in consequence
of that charge to be sent, through the ministration of Sir Thomas
Lucy as committing magistrate of the county, to one of the many
prisons in London in which at that time all persons charged with
these political offenses were confined, and from which many of them
were from time to time taken out to execution. The natural disposi-
tion of all persons who were friendly to the family would impel the
neighbors and friends on such an occasion to endeavor to cover or
hide the real reason; and out of this, some boyish prank, which had
perhaps excited the temporary anger of Sir Thomas Lucy, was made
the traditionary cause of William Shakespeare leaving his home at
this time.
-
-
Evidences of the date of Shakespeare's marriage are entirely
inductive. The only fact positively known is, that in February 1582
he made an application to the Bishop of Worcester for a dispensation
from the usual publication of the banns, which, upon his giving bond
against impediments, was granted; but whether the marriage took
place before or after this dispensation, no one at present knows.
It
was common custom at this time, and for long before and after, to
marry privately without asking dispensation, and even without going
to the parish church or having the marriage registered. The presence
of "old priests," as they were called, who lived in Arden in hiding,


## p. 13179 (#627) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13179
or went from house to house as tutors of the young, made such mar-
riages easy. In the face of such patent facts, the notion that there
was anything irregular in Shakespeare's marriage is vicious.
The family of Shakespeare, at the time of his separation from his
native home, consisted of his wife Anne Hathaway; his daughter
Susanna, born in 1582; his twin son and daughter Hamnet (or as the
name was altered in Warwickshire speech, Hamlet) and Judith, born
in 1584; his father and mother; a brother Gilbert, born October 1566;
a sister Joan, born April 1569; and a brother Edmund, who, born in
May 1580, afterward became a player with him in London.
There are vague traditions which tend to explain the disposition
of the young stranger towards the theatre when he found himself in
London city. It is said that he began in a humble capacity by
holding horses at the door. He is said to have been expert in the
rudiments of acting, expressed in what was a common country sport
known as "killing the calf. " This was a homely exercise of dramatic
effort, which consisted in standing behind a screen and imitating the
talk of a farmer (who had brought a calf to market) with the butcher
to whom it was sold, and by whom it was killed, - interspersed with
the bleatings of the victim as it went through the various stages of
transport and transfer. That-
'Twas a brute part of him
To kill so capital a calf there,”
he had remembered as the best compliment of his fitness for the
actors' calling before he looked up his former companions, then
engaged in the fascinating work of the theatre under the patronage
of such powerful men as the Earl of Leicester, Lord Strange, the
Earl of Pembroke, and Philip, Earl of Arundel.
It is an important fact that Shakespeare's companions of the
theatre were Warwickshire men. Many of them had been boys, who,
before the monasteries at and about Coventry were secularized in
Henry VIII. 's time, learned the rudiments of dramatic art under
the guidance of the monks of those institutions. The Burbages, the
Fields, the Greenes, the Underhills, are mentioned frequently in the
records of the dramatic entertainments given in Coventry, in Ches-
ter, in Stratford, in Leicester, and in other neighboring towns, by
companies traveling under the protection and patronage of different
members of the county gentry. Most and the best of the companies
of players were made up of West of England men.
Their patrons,
with the exception of the Earl of Arundel, were all from that part of
the country. In 1574 James Burbage, joiner and actor, had builded
The Theatre in the fields between the city of London and Shore-
ditch; and had established a company there under the patronage of
Robert, Earl of Leicester, and the warrant of a royal license.


## p. 13180 (#628) ##########################################

13180
SHAKESPEARE
Shakespeare himself, ten years of age in 1574, could have been a
witness of the gorgeous pageants at Kenilworth, which were arranged
and conducted by the Earl of Leicester, with the assistance of musi-
cians and actors whom he was proud to protect, and who in their
association bore the name of his servants and wore his livery. There
might this wonderful boy have been himself an actor, and acquired
the impulse of that dramatic spirit which has given us the inestima-
ble privilege of enjoying in our generation the greatest of all human
works of the dramatic character. If not there, in the entertainments
given by the Leicester company, or by the company of the Earl of
Derby, or by the Lord Chamberlain's company in the Guildhall at
Stratford, under his father's patronage, he might well have taken
part, and formed acquaintance with the playfellows of his after life,
and established a reputation as a player which stood him in good
stead when he was subsequently obliged to take shelter in the busy
city of London from the danger of persecution in his own home.
The silence of contemporary record as to Shakespeare's educa-
tion is apt to mislead those who do not realize how easy it was, in
the unsettled social condition of the England of his y, to obtain
an education without attendance at the schools. The old Oxford and
Cambridge men- men who had studied at Padua and Rome and
Paris and Salamanca - were scattered all over England in the houses
of the great and low: in forest cells, in shops, in farm-houses, and
in fishing-cots, ostensibly following the work of the poor, but in
reality teaching the young in secret. The papers of the Record
Office are filled with accounts of the huntings of them. When the
history of the society and letters of England shall have been rewrit-
ten, as it must be, it will be known that the best of England's
schools were sometimes in the hidden recluse's cell. To conclude
that Shakespeare was an ignorant country lad, without the rudiments
of polite learning, is only possible to those who ignore this living
social power of his, and after, times. The very wood of Arden was
filled with men who had been dishoused in the general secularization
of religious establishments in Henry VIII. 's time, and who earnel
their bread by teaching the children of families connected with them
by blood or by old association. Shakespeare gives us an intimation
of this in the play of 'As You Like It. ' When Orlando and Rosa-
lind meet in Arden wood, and Orlando, finding the strange youth
quick of wit and sharp of tongue, says that his speech savors rather
of the city and the court than of the country, her answer is, "I have
been told so of many, but indeed an old religious uncle of mine here in
the forest taught me to speak. " Shakespeare himself was not with-
out an old religious uncle. Many of his name were connected with
the religious institutions of Warwickshire. Isabella Shakespeare, per-
haps namesake of the sweet nun of 'Measure for Measure,' had been


## p. 13181 (#629) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13181
prioress of Wraxhall Convent, to which a Shakespeare had been
bailiff. Roger Shakespeare, at the dissolution of the monastery of
Baddeley, in Gloucestershire, a neighbor county to Warwick, retired
upon a pension of forty shillings in the year 1553, eleven years
before the poet's birth.
Be it as it may for the means, it is sure that before 1589 William
Shakespeare had proved himself the foremost master of English
speech. It is to be noted here that but four of those who professed
play-making at this time were older than the Warwickshire boy.
George Peele was born in 1552, John Lilly in 1553, George Chapman
in 1559, and Robert Greene in 1561. Marlowe, who is most often
referred to as a predecessor of Shakespeare, was only two months
his elder, and did not leave his college at Cambridge until 1587.
Marlowe, who was affectionately remembered by Shakespeare in 'As
You Like It,' began in London as an actor, and if likelihoods are to
be considered, was rather a pupil than a master. Shakespeare, like
all simply great men, was the maker of the school of his time. He
struck at once and unaided into the perfectest way of expression,—
that sublime mastery of drama which was no man's before, and will
be no man's again. He knew intuitively the purpose of playing. He
became at once what he will always be, and what his actor ought to
be,- champion of English speech.
It was then considered the duty of every scholar who could obtain
the means, to travel in Italy for the purpose of finishing his educa-
tion in that language, which it was believed would displace all other
languages of Continental Europe, and rival Latin in the struggle to
restore a universal tongue. English was the language of the common
people. Many of the best writers of Elizabeth's time had no faith in
the perpetuity of English as a literary language. The common
speech was left to the actor, and his drudge the play-poet. But
Sackville the courtier, by grafting the blank verse-and the poet
Spenser the sonnet of Italy to the sturdy English stock, had shown
a way which Shakespeare the actor made safe and sure for the gen-
erations coming after, to keep all exotics from the garden of their
thoughts.
The power of the drama of Elizabeth's day is never fully under-
stood by the student of mere literature or history. Drama is a dis-
tinct thing, bearing such a relation to literature as the moving and
speaking man does to an outline sketch of him. The trained actor
is the only maker of drama. This Will Shakespeare well understood,
as he understood most things; and so he went on with patience in
his chosen work, while Greene, Marlowe, and Nash made faces at
him, and called him rude and unlettered because he was nearer the
great heart of nature than they were.
―


## p. 13182 (#630) ##########################################

13182
SHAKESPEARE
Drama had, in 1492, been established under royal patronage in
Spain by Isabella of Castile; and one of the earliest English com-
panies of players (1530), not tradesmen or minstrels, was that of the
Lady Princess, her granddaughter, afterwards Queen Mary. The
method of establishing a distinct guild of players came from Spanish
example. It was the custom of the actors to divide their gains
according to certain interests which were called shares. Thus James
Burbage, the owner of the first established theatre, and his rival
Philip Henslowe, - who set up at The Curtain,' so called because
built in that part of the ruin of the old monastery of Holywell which
was called the Curtain, just across the field from Burbage's Theatre,
-paid the actors in their companies by giving certain of them a
lease for a term of years of a share of the receipts. Burbage's house,
a spacious playing-place, was built of wood in octagonal form, with a
stage projecting from one of the sides into the middle of the yard, as
the inclosed space was called. There were two galleries or stories
which were roofed over. The stage was also partly roofed, and the
yard was open to the sky for air and light; for performances were
given only in the afternoon from one to three o'clock. There were
but two doors to the structure: one at which the public entered, and
the other to the actors' tiring or dressing room. There being no
women actors, the common dressing-room of the theatre was a very
exclusive sort of club. The stairs to the galleries or rooms were on
the inside; and a fee of twopence was paid for the privilege of going
above the place of the groundlings, and sixpence for a seat. To the
boxes or lords' rooms, which were next the stage on either side, en-
trance was obtained from the stage itself or through the tiring-room.
At first the actors had only a moiety of the money that was paid at
the doors. As the fees were only twopence for entrance at the pub-
lic door, and a shilling for the more exclusive privilege of passing
through the actors' private way, it will readily be seen that the man-
ager or owner had quite the best of the count. Yet out of their
store the actors paid all costs of running the house, including the
price of poets, - the least considerable of expenses, for no play was
worth more than five pounds. The wages of the minor actors, called
the hirelings, as well as those of the minstrels and mechanicians, were
also paid by the actors. Perspectives, as scenes were then called,
-painted cloths, curtains, tombs, houses, mounds, and rocks, as well
as the flies or cloths which hung from the roof of the stage, to imi-
tate sky and conceal the ropes by which the various machines used
for the descent of gods or goblins were lowered from the property
man's quarters in a little house on the roof of the stage, — belonged
to the owner of the house and were provided by him. Yet a share
in a company of players was highly valued, and was often divided


## p. 13183 (#631) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13183
into many fractions, and made the subject of profitable barter. This
kind of share must be kept in mind apart from another sharing first
introduced by the sons of James Burbage, when they built the Globe
Theatre in 1599, at which time they divided the leasehold into six-
teen shares, eight of which they disposed of to Shakespeare, Heminge,
Condell, and Philips.
To enter such a company in any capacity except as a hireling was
impossible except by purchase of some part of a share; and shares
could only be obtained by him who could show merit and experience.
Even with such influence as would flow from boyhood acquaintance,
and a known ability to "pen a part," the boy Shakespeare must have
spent some years in the condition of apprenticeship before he could
seriously be considered a person important enough to be a sharer.
When therefore, in 1589, it is found by Nash's petulan preface to
Greene's 'Menaphon' that some skilled and formidable actor-poet had
incurred the writer's sarcasm by putting forth a play called 'Hamlet,'
instead of sticking to the trade of noverint or scrivener to which he
was born, we have to remember that there was but one Hamlet,'
Shakespeare's; and that Arden Waferer
a lawyer of London and
counsel to Edward Arden in 1584- was in the same degree of kin-
dred to Walter Arden, their common ancestor, as William Shake-
speare. 'Hamlet' was sold by Shakespeare to the players before he
became a member of the company of the Lord Chamberlain, with
which he had been some time identified when 'Romeo and Juliet'
was published in 1597. The Lord Admiral's Company, which was
under the management of Philip Henslow in 1589, owned Hamlet'
in 1603, when they became the Prince's (his Highness's) players.
This then old play was no longer of sufficient value as dramatic
property to prevent its being published as a History "diverse times
acted" in the city of London, at Cambridge and Oxford Universities,
and elsewhere. New plays were plentiful, and public appetite for
novelty as keen as now. There was no copyright; and a play once
printed, the actors no longer held exclusive right over it.
This con-
sideration is of the first importance, and too often ignored in dealing
with the history of Shakespeare's work.
The long continuance of the plague in 1593-4 gave occasion for
the publication of 'Venus and Adonis' and 'Lucrece. ' Shakespeare's
days were days of a very busy life, wherein the study and playing
of a multitude of new parts was blithely done, while he was forming
the strange and bodiless creatures of imagination which sing to the
ages the glory of his name. The habit of such days gave way in
1593 to an idle seclusion. In that time Shakespeare busied himself
by getting out his version of old Ovid's wildwood song of 'Adonis,
a thing done in his own boyhood, "the first heir of his invention,"
―
1


## p. 13184 (#632) ##########################################

13184
SHAKESPEARE
and to it he wrote a companion poem on the story of the Roman
matron.
Francis Meres tells us the "Sugard Sonnets" were known as
early as 1598 amongst Shakespeare's private friends. They were the
whimsical recreations of a busy brain, done in the fashionable spirit
of the time, to amuse himself and to please and assist his compan-
ions. That they were gathered up for a publisher eleven years
after Meres first praised them, gives no reason to think they were
addressed to any one person. The printer applied the sentiment of
one of the sonnets to Master W. H. , who had helped him to obtain
them. William Hewes, a popular singer, had been the favorite min-
strel of the old Earl of Essex; and to a man of his name Sonnet 20
seems to have been addressed.
Looking then from 1589 and 1592, when we get the first glimpses
of his work, we must find the personal history of Shakespeare in the
practice of the actor's calling. That he was of the company which
went with Lord Leicester to the Low Countries in 1585, and traveled
to Denmark, Germany, and it may be to Italy, are fascinating con-
jectures, but valueless at present for want of evidence. That he was
one of the young players who went to various patrons during the
first decade of his career is certain. 'Titus Andronicus,' one of the
first of his plays to be printed (1594), and consequently old in public
favor, was written for the company which had been Lord Derby's.
'Henry VI. ' and 'The Taming of the Shrew' were written for the
Earl of Pembroke's, - the company to which James Burbage belonged
before 1585.
To 'Henry VI. ' we owe the best evidence of Shakespeare's early
industry and reputation as an actor.
In 1592 Robert Greene, who, on
account of dissipated habits and disregard for his obligations, had
failed in his efforts to obtain recognition as a writer of plays, uttered
his disappointment in the most rancorous terms, designating the play-
ers as "burrs, puppets, antic crows, apes, rude grooms, buckram gen-
tlemen, peasants, and painted monsters. " Following these extravagant
terms, and urging his companions, scholars of the university like
himself, to cease writing for the stage, he says:-
"For unto none of you like me sought those burrs to cleave, those
puppets (I mean) that speak from our mouths, those antics garnished
in our colors. Yes, trust them not, for there is an upstart crow beau-
tified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a play-
er's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse
as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his
own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. "
The expression "his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide" is
an unequivocal reference to a play written by Shakespeare, in which


## p. 13185 (#633) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13185
a similar line occurs: the
History of Henry VI. ,' in the third part
of which occurs the line spoken by the Duke of York to Queen Mar-
garet:-
"O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide. »
The scene in which this line occurs is one of the most dramatic
in the scope of Shakespearean work. It is the description of the
humiliation of the Duke of York after his capture by Queen Marga-
ret, in one of the latest battles of the long series of bloody contests
of the Wars of the Roses. This history, as arranged to suit the
situations of the stage, was already old enough in 1594-5 to go into
print as the 'Contention' (2 Henry VI. ) and 'The True Tragedy'
(3 Henry VI. ).
That Jonson spoke truly when he said of Shakespeare that it was
necessary to suppress much that he wrote is true in fact, but not in
the inference spitefully left by him. A clear-headed study of the early
prints of Shakespeare's plays shows that these greatly misunderstood.
works were acting copies made by Shakespeare himself from the
longer and therefore unplayable originals. Hamlet,' 'Henry VI. ,'
'Richard III. ,' cannot even to-day,- when a patient public will give
three instead of two hours to the theatre,- be played in their en-
tirety. The use of unnecessary speech, a fault of the young Shake-
speare, was avoided, as experience of his calling gave the actor
mastery of every element of his art.
In the study of his plays for actual performance, it will be found
that they show abundant corroboration of this fact. A few show
plainly the marks of the author's own cutting, merciless to mere
making of speeches, but always enhancing dramatic force. In the
present condition of evidences it is useless to apply to them any
other test of chronological order.
The slander uttered by poor Greene produced an evidence of the
integrity of Shakespeare's life, as well as a further record of the fact
that he was at this early period of his career known and recognized
as an actor. Chettle, who had published Greene's 'Groatsworth of
Wit' in 1594, very soon afterward published a pamphlet called
'Kind Heart's Dream,' in the preface to which he took occasion to
apologize for the harshness of Greene's attack upon Shakespeare. He
spoke of Shakespeare in these words: -
"The other, whom at that time I did not so much spare as since I wish
I had: for that as I have moderated the heat of living writers, and might have
used my own discretion,- especially in such a case, the author being dead,-
that I did not I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault;
because myself have seen his demeanor no less civil than he excellent in the
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## p. 13186 (#634) ##########################################

13186
SHAKESPEARE
quality he professes.
ness of dealing which
that approves his art. "
Besides divers of worship have reported his upright.
argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing
Four important statements: That Shakespeare was an excellent
actor ("the quality he professes "), that he was befriended by "divers
of worship," — that is, by influential nobles, - that he was upright in
his dealings, and that he wrote with grace and wit. These are not
three-hundred-year-after theories: they are the spontaneous declara-
tions of his contemporaries.
It is not important to discuss Spenser's reference in 1591, in the
'Tears of the Muses,' where Thalia laments to her sisters of the sacred
choir the intrusion of distasteful plays into the "painted theatres,"
and the enforced silence of -
"the man whom Nature self had made
To mock herself, and Truth to imitate
With kindly counter under mimick shade,
Our pleasant Willy. "
Shakespeare's fellow actors called him "a happy imitator of Nature. »
Camden, who knew him well, spoke of him in 1619 as the "late emi-
nent tragedian. " The royal license for the establishment of the
King's players in 1603 names him second in the list. Cuthbert and
Winifred Burbage in 1635 testify that Shakespeare was an active
player in 1613. A most convincing evidence of Shakespeare's excel-
lence as an actor is given by Sir John Davies, who declared himself a
lover of players and their quality. Writing about 1607, "To our Eng-
lish Terence, Mr. Wm. Shakespeare," he said:-
:-
"Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing,
Hadst thou not played some kingly parts in sport,
Thou hadst beene a companion for a king,
And beene a king among the meaner sort.
Some others raile: but raile as they thinke fit,
Thou hast no rayling, but a raigning wit;
And honesty thou sow'st which they do reape,
So to increase their stocke which they do keepe. »
In all Shakespearean or contemporaneous literature, the parts of
Prince Hal and Henry V. are the only ones which can be called
"kingly parts in sport. " The conclusion from Davies's lines must be
that Shakespeare was their original actor. The reference to being a
king among the meaner sort, alludes to an effort to obtain the place
of court poet finally conferred upon Jonson. The storm of opposition
which followed the production of Shakespeare's 'Henry IV. ,' upon
the part of the Puritans, who took great offense at the character of


## p. 13187 (#635) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13187
Sir John Falstaff, supposed by them to be conceived in ridicule of
the Protestant martyr Sir John Oldcastle, fell upon Shakespeare, and
undoubtedly interfered with any good-will evinced toward him by
King James; who, besides taking the company to which Shakespeare
belonged into the royal household as the King's Players, never would,
even when the Puritan influence became strongest at court, consent
to give up his attachment for these actors, however he might be pre-
vented from advancing one of them from his humble station.
It would have been worth all the inconvenience of living in that
time, to have seen and heard Will Shakespeare making merry with
the fair Catherine of France, or provoking the drolleries of Falstaff!
In a play, author unknown, but produced by the students of St.
John's College, Cambridge, in 1601 or 1602, the then general estima-
tion of Shakespeare is voiced through the mouth of Will Kempe,
who speaks thus of university-bred poets:-
"Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all downe, ay and
Ben Jonson too! "
Of Shakespeare's domestic life we know only that his wife was
eight years his elder, and gave him but the three children already
named. That he was attached to his home and family is plainly
shown by the fact that he bought for them in Stratford in 1597 the
"great house," which was regarded as the most respectable residence
in the town. His son Hamnet died in 1596, and he must then have
been without expectation of a male heir. Yet there is absolutely
no reason to believe that he was estranged from his wife. His will,
made but a short time before his death, shows him to have been
prudent and careful of the interests of his family to the last.
In worldly property he was, according to the chances of his time,
- though not to be compared in wealth to Edward Alleyn, the Bur-
bages, or his fellow player John Heminge,- fairly fortunate. He accu-
mulated an estate of about £2,000 value, most of which was in lands
and leaseholds in the vicinity of Stratford. His great popularity as
a play-writer brought him little money until 1599; when, upon the re-
moval of The Theatre from the fields on the north of the city to the
bankside, Southwark, where it was re-edified and called The Globe,
he was admitted by Richard and Cuthbert Burbage (who had suc-
ceeded their father James upon his death in 1596) to an interest in
the larger profits of his work, as one of the actors holding a share in
the ownership of the house. The importance of this increase in his
resources is shown by the fact that in 1602 he invested £380 in lands
near Stratford, and in 1605 £440 more in a moiety of a thirty-one
years' remainder of a lease of certain tithes, an investment which
gave him an income of £120 per year. On March 12th, 1613, he
bought land in the Blackfriars in London, for which he paid £120;


## p. 13188 (#636) ##########################################

13188
SHAKESPEARE
and in the same year had been admitted by the Burbages to a share
in the Blackfriars Theatre, which they owned in fee, and which they
then took up from Evans, the manager of the company of Paul's
Boys who had leased it in 1596-7. These shares in the Globe and
Blackfriars were disposed of by Shakespeare at some time between
1613 and the date of his death, April 1616. There is a hint in the
purchase of the Blackfriars estate; for £80 only was paid down, and
a mortgage was executed for £60 by Shakespeare and two of his
fellow players,-John Heminge and Henry Condell. These two, as
appears by subsequent dealings with the Globe and Blackfriars stock,
became the owners of all the shares in both theatres not accounted
for by the Burbages and Augustine Philips.
Shakespeare had never been a manager, although an important
actor in the company. He was in the prime of life, and his invest-
ment in London property might well have set him at the head of a
theatre of his own had not his death been sudden.
It is a mistake to suppose that Shakespeare retired to a life of in-
action in Stratford, as some say, early in the first years of the seven-
teenth century, although he was buried there in April 1616. The
modest, gentle player-man, known to his friends as "Sweet Master
Shakespeare," simply and justly complied with the obligations of a
humble and contented life,-neither the companion of kings nor an
envier of their greatness. He bore the same cares which beset the
lowly, with unfailing constancy; and though death took from him one
by one the men-children of his own and his father's house, he uttered
no vain or querulous cry against the dispensation which caused
the extinction of his name. For a brief space, undoubtedly, his soul
quivered at the untimely loss of his only son, when in the year 1597
he followed his little ten-year-old Hamlet, as he was fondly called,
to the church-yard of Holy Trinity; but when in the early spring of
1616 the last call came to him, he was still an active player of that
sublime part for which great Mother Nature had cast him,- a teacher
of men by the simplest yet subtlest of arts, the drama.
знавайте
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## p. 13189 (#637) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13189
A
RIEL
Ariel -
-
Prospero-
Ariel-
All hail, great master; grave sir, hail.
To answer thy best pleasure; be 't to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curled clouds: to thy strong bidding task
Ariel, and all his quality.
Prospero-
Hast thou, spirit,
Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?
Ariel To every article.
I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement: sometimes I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not; the fire, and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,—
Yea, his dread trident shake.
-
Prospero-
Ariel-
Prospero-
ARIEL
My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
From The Tempest'
Present: Prospero. Enter Ariel
-
Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and played
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,
Then all a-fire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair),
Was the first man that leaped; cried, "Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here. "
Why, that's my spirit!
Close by, my master.
-
I come
But was not this nigh shore?
But are they, Ariel, safe?
Not a hair perished;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,


## p. 13190 (#638) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13190
Ariel-
But fresher than before: and as thou bad'st me,
In troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle.
The king's son have I landed by himself,
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs
In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.
Prospero-
Of the king's ship,
The mariners say how thou hast disposed,
And all the rest o' the fleet?
Safely in harbor
Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vexed Bermoothes, there she's hid:
The mariners all under hatches stow'd;
Whom, with a charm joined to their suffered labor,
I have left asleep; and for the rest o' the fleet,
Which I dispersed, they all have met again,
And all upon the Mediterranean float,
Bound sadly home for Naples,
Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked,
And his great person perish.
ARIEL'S SONGS
Ariel enters, invisible, playing and singing; Prince Ferdinand following
him
COM
Ariel sings
OME unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd
The wild waves whist,
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
Hark, hark!
Burden Bow, wow [dispersedly].
The watch-dogs bark:
Burden Bow, wow.
Hark. hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticlere
Cry Cock-a-doodle-doo.


## p. 13191 (#639) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13191
Ferdinand -
Ferdinand-
Prospero-
Ariel-
――――
Where should this music be? i' th' air, or th' earth? —
It sounds no more; - and sure, it waits upon
Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion,
With its sweet air; thence I have followed it,
Or it hath drawn me rather; - but 'tis gone. —
No, it begins again.
Ariel sings
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Burden-Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,- ding-dong, bell.
The ditty does remember my drowned father. -
This is no mortal business, nor no sound
That the earth owes-I hear it now above me.
Ariel, singing, helps to attire Prospero
Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie:
There I couch. When owls do cry,
On the bat's back I do fly,
After summer, merrily:
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee;
But yet thou shalt have freedom; - so, so, so. —
To the king's ship, invisible as thou art:
There shalt thou find the mariners asleep
Under the hatches; the master, and the boatswain,
Being awake, enforce them to this place,
And presently, I pr'ythee.
I drink the air before me, and return
Or e'er your pulse twice beat.
[Exit Ariel.


## p. 13192 (#640) ##########################################

13192
SHAKESPEARE
MARRIAGE SONG
From The Tempest'
UNO- Honor, riches, marriage, blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessings on you.
Earth's increase, foison plenty,
Barns, and garners never empty;
Vines, with clustering bunches growing;
Plants, with goodly burden bowing;
Rain come to you, at the farthest,
In the very end of harvest!
Scarcity and want shall shun you;
Ceres's blessing so is on you.
SILVIA
From Two Gentlemen of Verona'
HO is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise as free:
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.
WHO
Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness. –
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness;
And being helped, inhabits there.
Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.


## p. 13193 (#641) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13193
Ε
FALSTAFF TORMENTED BY THE SUPPOSED FAIRIES
From the Merry Wives of Windsor >
VANS-
Lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;
And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But stay! I smell a man of middle earth.
Falstaff [to himself] — Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest
he transform me to a piece of cheese!
Pistol Vile worm, thou wast o'erlooked even in thy birth.
Queen
With trial-fire touch me his finger-end:
If he be chaste, the flame will back descend,
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
Pistol A trial! come.
Evans-
Come, will this wood take fire?
[They burn Falstaff with their tapers. ]
--
Falstaff-
Queen-
Oh, oh, oh!
Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme;
And as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
SONG BY ONE
Fie on sinful fantasy!
Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart; whose flames aspire,
As thoughts do blow them higher and higher.
CHORUS
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
Pinch him for his villainy;
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles, and starlight, and moonshine be out!


## p. 13194 (#642) ##########################################

13194
SHAKESPEARE
SONG: TAKE, OH! TAKE
From 'Measure for Measure >
MAKE, oh! take those lips away,
Τ
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again,—
Seals of love, but sealed in vain.
Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears;
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in icy chains by thee.
BALTHAZAR'S SONG
From Much Ado About Nothing'
SIGH
IGH no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one on shore;
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into, Hey nonny, nonny.
Sing no more ditties, sing no mo,
Or dumps so dull and heavy;
The frauds of men were ever so,
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into, Hey nonny, nonny.


## p. 13195 (#643) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13195
LADY HERO'S EPITAPH
From Much Ado About Nothing'
C
Scene: The Inside of a Church. Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, and Attend-
ants, with music and tapers.
LAUDIO-Is this the monument of Leonato?
Attendants-It is, my lord.
Claudio [reads]-
----
EPITAPH
Done to death by slanderous tongues
Was the Hero that here lies:
Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,
Gives her fame which never dies.
So the life that died with shame
Lives in death with glorious fame.
Hang thou there upon the tomb,
Praising her when I am dumb. -
Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.
SONG
Pardon, goddess of the night,
Those that slew thy virgin bright;
For the which, with songs of woe,
Round about her tomb we go.
Midnight, assist our moan;
Help us to sigh and groan,
Heavily, heavily:
Graves, yawn, and yield your dead,
Till death be uttered,
Heavily, heavily.
WHITE AND RED
From 'Love's Labour's Lost'
Μ
OTH - If she be made of white and red,
Her faults will ne'er be known;
For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
And fears by pale white shown:
Then, if she fear, or be to blame,
By this you shall not know;
For still her cheeks possess the same,
Which native she doth owe.


## p. 13196 (#644) ##########################################

13196
SHAKESPEARE
LOVE'S RHAPSODY
From Love's Labour's Lost'
O SWEET a kiss the golden sun gives not
S
To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
As thine eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The dew of night that on my cheeks down flows.
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
As doth thy face through tears of mine give light:
Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep,—
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,
And they thy glory through my grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens, how far thou dost excel,
No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.
SONG: SPRING AND WINTER
From 'Love's Labour's Lost'
WH
SPRING
HEN daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight,-
The cuckoo then on every tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
Cuckoo,
Cuckoo, cuckoo,- oh, word of fear!
Unpleasing to a married ear.
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are plowmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,—
The cuckoo then on every tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
Cuckoo,
Cuckoo, cuckoo,- oh, word of fear!
Unpleasing to a married ear.


## p. 13197 (#645) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
P⁹
UCK-
WINTER
When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick, the shepherd, blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,-
Then nightly sings the staring owl:
To-who,
Tu-whit, to-who,- a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl:
To-who,
Tu-whit, to-who,- a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
Fairy-
From Midsummer Night's Dream'
Scene: A Wood near Athens. Enter a Fairy and Puck at opposite doors.
How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moonè's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips all her pensioners be:
In their gold cups spots you see:
Those be rubies, fairy favors,
In those freckles live their savors.
PUCK
13197
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits: I'll be gone.
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.


## p. 13198 (#646) ##########################################

13198
SHAKESPEARE
Puck-
The king doth keep his revels here to-night.
Take heed the queen come not within his sight:
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling:
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy:
And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square; that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.
Fairy Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Called Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he
That frights the maidens of the villagery;
Skims milk, and sometimes labors in the quern,
And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn;
And sometimes makes the drink to bear no barm;
Misleads night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck :
Are not you he?
Puck-
Fairy, thou speak'st aright:
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal.
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me:
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And "tailor" cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there. -
But room, Fairy: here comes Oberon.
Oberon - My gentle Puck, come hither: thou remember'st
Since once I sat upon a promontory,


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SHAKESPEARE
―
Puck-
I remember.