Frank Harris

“ As Master o’ Ceremonies, then, I make it known to all that Lady Rutland and Lady Jane Wroth, and Mistress Mary Fitton, the youngest and bravest of the Queen’s maids of honour, are new come to the Globe. Ladies, this is Master Burbage, who counterfeits kings with such nobility, and lovers with such reverence, that ladies lend him their lips in either part. And this is gentle Shakespeare, the wittiest of poets, whose sugared verses make all in love with sweets. And this is Master Chettle, playwright and Prince of Laughter. ”

“ And now little poet, what will you drink? Canary or sack. [Claps his hands.] Here, Drawer!
Shakespeare:
I’m ill with thirst, and for that disease there’s no medicine like small beer.
Jonson:
[To drawer.] Bring beer.
Chettle:
Have sack, Shakespeare, sack’s the drink: when sack goes in, wit comes out. Beer’s cold and thin, fit for young girls, who quake to think of lovers; but sack’s rich and generous, breeds courage and self-content; equals the poor man to kings, and kings to gods. ”

“ Shakespeare:
And so fair! Such courage, strength, wit, grace, gaiety. God! Had she been true one would have pawned the world for her. And now——
Herbert:
You take it too tragic.
Shakespeare:
Too tragic! I have lost all—joy, hope, trust—all gone; my pearl of life; my garden of delight!
Herbert:
Think, man: it’s not the first time she has slipped, she doesn’t pretend it is.
Shakespeare:
The pity of it; ah! the pity of it! The sky is all soiled: my lips, too—my hands—ah!
Herbert:
Why can’t you be a man, and take what’s light lightly! ”

“ Shakespeare:
Why did you give him my tablets?
Miss Fitton:
I gave him more—much more. And now I have to face——
Shakespeare:
“More?”
Miss Fitton:
More than men dare or dread; we women always lose more than men.
153Shakespeare:
So you know love’s penalty—you poor child!
Miss Fitton:
I suffer, if that’s what you mean; but the suffering will pass. My courage rises to the need: the world is wide; the roads run free. What will be, will be. One mistake never ruins a man’s life, and one mistake shall never ruin mine. Next summer the sun will shine again and the air be young and quick; I have no fear. ”

“ Miss Fitton:
[Scornfully.] They say! Men say that; but it is worse than false. No sooner is a man in love than he lies, wheedles, pretends, shows off—for all the world like the peacock in the garden yonder, that sidles round with tail outspread, in stately sweepings. But when we women fall to love, we are too honest to be vain—too fond for make-believe.
Shakespeare:
Those are the signs of love in man, as in woman. But who made you wise, so young?
Miss Fitton:
Mother Eve, I suppose. The greenest girl knows more about love than your graybeard. ”

“ Shakespeare:
No, no, Jonson: that is your nature, your violent nature. We all must suffer through the best in us: the mother through her child; the lover through his love; the wise through his wisdom—these are the growing pains of our humanity. ”

“ I was waiting there to-day; but you are very late, and one cannot play sentinel for ever. Have you heard the news? No! Lady Joan instead of curing Lacy, has caught his trick of speech, and her quaint words and demure air set everyone roaring.
Miss Fitton:
We women are all ape-like in our loves; I catch myself repeating your words like an echo: I wish I had been born a man—Heigh-ho! But there’s another piece of news—
Herbert:
What’s that?
Miss Fitton:
The Queen has heard that Lady Jane Wroth gives her lips too easily: she has locked her up for a month on bread and water. ”

“ Conscience and sack struggle in me for the mastery, and the conflict makes me thirsty and so sack wins. But no scorners or blasphemers, say I.
Shakespeare:
We’re all godly at heart; eh, Chettle? We all wish other men virtuous, so that there’ll be more frolic for us.
Chettle:
Ha! Ha! You’re right, lad! [To the drawer.] Another cup, you bodkin, you radish, you—Ah, we are all sinners, Will, villainous sinners! [He drinks.]
Selden:
I incline to the new faith. These puritans are much in earnest, though they go too far. ”

“ Chettle:
Ho! ho! my lad of the mountain. No prison needed by the godly. Without provocation or incitement I want women often, good company always, wine perpetually. It’s very strange: I’ve often had too much sack, often; but enough, never. Read me that riddle, Shakespeare!
Shakespeare:
That desire, Chettle, still outlives performance, is no riddle. [Turning to Jonson.] Your punishment punished all of us, Ben.
Dekker:
And all for killing an actor. ”

“ Lacy:
Let’s have a hanap, friends, to cool the embers of strife.
Chettle:
One cup of sack, Shakespeare, to chase your melancholy and start your wit.
Shakespeare:
Not one. Sweet wine on bitter beer would make me Chettle. [Turns to Jonson.] So you became a Catholic in prison, Ben. Was it the loneliness, or fasting?
Jonson:
Loneliness, perhaps: in solitude one listens to the heart.
Marston [Interrupting.]
That’s weak, Jonson, childish-weak. Solitude breeds religion as the dark breeds devils—out of fear. ”

“ Shakespeare:
No need for grief. Our life is but a breath— A rack of smoke that at the topmost height Dislimns and fades away.
Jonson:
Not so, dear friend: the work remains. And of all men you should be content, for your work has already put you among the immortals.
Shakespeare:
We are immortal only when we die ”

“ Jonson:
Everything, Will, shield and sword; back and front piece. [Shakespeare turns round listening.] You are love’s plaything, Will.
Shakespeare:
[Stopping in front of him.] Love lives on love, Ben; the less she gives me the less I crave. When I saw her every day it was too little, and now I see her twice a month, I’m no longer her slave. ’Tis not worth while to befool oneself for so little. ”

“ Why, my queen, why?
Miss Fitton:
[Smiling and seating herself.] “Affairs of state” would sound well for a queen; but I prefer the truth. [Solemnly.] A three-piled ruff, the newest thing in neckgear, made me forget your coming. You see your queen is very woman. [He kisses her hand and she pushes his head up gently.] One of Eve’s unnumbered daughters.
Shakespeare:
[Kneeling.] The wittiest of all, the most adored, the fairest! Your hand [lifting it in his] is warm ivory, so firm and smooth [looks up at her] —the eyes like wells o’erhung with shadow—and oh, the rubious lips. ”

“ Selden:
So the sportive blood of youth beflecks the dignity of manhood!
Dekker:
’Tis too pat to be true.
Fletcher:
We poets are all given to Venus.
Chapman:
How true that Venus story is, and how beautiful. 60We shall never equal the Greeks; never; they were our masters in everything.
Chettle:
Masters indeed! Here’s Shakespeare would put down any of them in anything.
Jonson:
I’m not sure of that, Chettle. The Agamemnon’s a great play.
Chettle:
Ay, but what say you to Henry IV.! That’s the play for me. I warrant the Greeks had nothing like Falstaff. What d’ye say, Shakespeare? ”

“ Lacy:
Our catechist in pious phrases, man, our doctor of divinity.
Dekker:
He knows more of tavern reckonings! He! He!
Chettle:
Why not, lad, why not? The animal man must keep a balance.
Selden:
Religion is like the fashion; one man wears his doublet slashed, another laced, another plain, but every man has a doublet and a religion.
58Chapman:
[Pompously.] ’Tis easy to mock at things sacred; but without religion there’d be no society. Be Protestant or Catholic, as you will; but without either we’d fall into anarchia.
Jonson:
Hum! I don’t know—What do you say, Shakespeare? ”

“ Lacy:
And let the wit play like lightning against the clouds. Or, better still, exhort him, my lord, to seek a new love; ’tis love that lifts to melody and song, and gives the birds their music.
Southampton:
You are often with Herbert, are you not?
13Shakespeare:
Yes.
Southampton:
Don’t build too much on him! You’ll be deceived.
Shakespeare:
To me he’s perfect. In beauty a paragon, in wit unfellow’d.
Southampton:
I would not trust him; he’s selfish.
Lacy:
Most insensitive-hard.
Shakespeare:
[Turns to Lacy.] Youth, youth, my lord! We do not blame the unripe fruit for hardness ”

“ Dekker:
’Tis as good a trade as bricklaying, and gives more time for thought.
Marston:
Was it a Toledo, Ben, or a long Fleming gave the mortal wound?
[Jonson rises, crying “You dog!” Lord Lacy on one side, and Shakespeare on the other, hold him back, and constrain him to sit.]
Lacy:
Amity, friends, amity!
Shakespeare:
Every man in his humour, Ben; who should know that better than you? ”

“ I care not. When we’re hurt, we strike. He was kind to you, you say, and so you speak for him; he cheated me——
Shakespeare:
And me of all I loved and left me desolate.
The Queen:
Ha! And you plead for him. Faugh! Even the cur snarls at those who beat him. Learn spirit from your dog!
164Shakespeare:
Ah! madam, we learn sympathy from suffering, pity from pain!
The Queen:
[Wearily leaning back in her throne.] Do we? I don’t. [Pause.] I’m weary! You can go now, man; go, I say! [Shakespeare bows and moves towards the body of the hall; after a pause the Queen rises and takes Lord Burghley’s arm.] ”

“ Conscience, boys, is a bogey to frighten the feeble from frolic. Ha ha!
Jonson:
But as a man, aren’t you ashamed to cheat a poor woman?
Chettle:
Have at ye again, lad! In this world we all 110cheat and are cheated. You cheat the groundlings and orange-girls out of their crosses with a bad play when they’ve paid to hear a good ’un, and I cheat by giving soft words instead of coins. And the conclusion! The girls are angry with you, while my hostess is in love with me. True virtue is good-humour, Ben: and a pleasant smile’s more than all the commandments. ”

“ You are to play at 149Court this afternoon, and Burbage says the Queen will make you Master of the Revels if you ask for it. I wish ’twere mine for the asking.
Shakespeare:
It irks me to ask favours of her: her hands are red with blood.
Jonson:
For your friends’ sake, Will, if not for your own: Burbage wants it, all of us; it would strengthen us, and we need it. The preachers grow louder against us every day, and the old cat is breaking fast; she won’t last long. Burleigh and all of them are in weekly letters with James. Ask boldly, man; once in the place you are there for life. ”

“ Miss Fitton:
[They dance: at the end of the bar, Herbert kneels on a cushion.] How easy it is to gull oneself when one wishes to. If the Queen entered now, my lord, you’d be at her feet in an instant. ”

“ If I had been a man I’d have kissed every woman that took my fancy, maid or matron. Even when they don’t love you, they’re proud of the tribute. [Hughes bends suddenly, and kisses her on the lips. Disengaging herself.] By my faith, an apt pupil. [Rising.] But I fear we must be going. 27 [To Southampton and Lacy.] We’ll come again, my lords, if we may.
Burbage:
Won’t you look at the other rooms, ladies, before you go? You should see everything!
Miss Fitton:
[Looking at the others.] We shall be late, I fear; but a few minutes—— [Ladies follow Burbage.]
Southampton:
Why so silent, Shakespeare? ”