Voices from the Past Part 128

January 20

I am too hard on friend Hall!

I've spent hours there, puttering, talking, laughing, entertained by his curious, Indian cow's tail, stones cut from men's bladders, uterine b.a.l.l.s of hair, paw of a bear, and skeleton of a pigmy.

This year, he is publis.h.i.+ng a treatise on the Wounds of the Abdomen. He's as clever with his scalpel as his concoctions of wormwood, rosarum and menthol. Around Stratford, he is best known for his treatment of dropsy.

Stratford

January 23, 1616

Logs burn in my fireplace and I have a book on my lap: I have a kingdom: a crown: crackling of wood becomes voices, stuff of dreams, friends, stages, plays, quarrels, hopes, changes, beginnings, endings, the pen scratching paper, pigeons chuckling, laughter, death, Hamnet's face, father's, the cloak, the whisper, the plague, the rain, fog, losses, waves against rocks: a log totters and the upended section spurts into a pennant...shake-scene!

I have no picture-no drawing-to help me remember Hamnet. Inago Jones could have done one. I should tear apart pieces of paper and fold them until they become his face, or, with scissors, cut out his silhouette. d.a.m.n the weak mind that makes such simple wishes impossible!

There was no artist in Stratford. Stratford had no skills to offer except death's skill...death for all of us along with that triumvirate, love, marriage, children; with fornication for pallbearer, adultery for s.e.xton, rape for choirmaster...

How weary and stale and flat are the uses of this world. Bring hebenon for O...

Youth's falcon on his glove, Hamnet stands with his friends around him, most of them young, their well- groomed horses held by pages.

On the distant sh.o.r.e of a lake, a castle breaks through a grove of beech.

Hamnet is laughing at his unhooded bird.

"Have you unseeled him?" someone asks.

"He can fly," Hamnet says. "Now."

"See...he's looking for game!"

"Hamnet, is it true your father writes plays for our Queen? London plays?"

"You should see his Macbeth! That's a play for you!

Duel and all! We'll go to London and see one of his plays. There's one at the Palace soon."

How I would like to rearrange life, bring happiness, bestow wealth, fix love, make well, foil crime, reverse ill luck. But only the stage can accomplish miracles and there custom stales the plot and disharmonies garble intention.

But, as evening galls, and candles go on, I hear Hamnet's footsteps...he wants new gloves, new hood, new leash...

What's past is prologue:

At Blackfriars, the chandeliers of candles are hugely lit and light streams upon Alleyn, who is speaking on stage; the boards are clean and s.h.i.+ne; all actors are in their places; the seats are almost filled; I see a woman, in dark green velvet; accompanied by her maid, she takes a seat; rows of faces beseech the stage: oh kingdom, place of tempest and calm, engulf us again!

Henley Street

Stratford

February 1

Suum-nun-nonny, the wind said, as my father and I worked in his glover's shop, quiet hours, among the many kinds of leather, sheepskin, goat, kid, lamb, pigskin, coltskin, doeskin, buckskin. In his tiers of drawers were the pontifical gloves, liturgical gloves, gloves for dignitaries, ladies' gloves, wedding gloves...

A bird sang in its cage by the door.

Between the opening and closing of the shop we talked pleasantly or waited on customers with consideration:

We talked of Rocco Bonetti, the great London fencing master, and his fencing school; we talked of the snail and how it shrinks in its house when hit, or sits in the shade of its sh.e.l.l; we chatted about spears and helmets and mottos like Non Sanz Droict, his favorite; we talked of great castles, like Kenilworth, and their ghosts; we talked of kings and how to catch larks with a mirror and sc.r.a.ps of red cloth...the buzz of our talk was a good buzz.

So, another memory!

Candlemas

I wrote The Tempest at Stratford, the only play I wrote at home. For the first time I had leisure to write, in my garden, the summer warm: this was an island for an island: time faded: I remembered scenari I had seen at the commedia dell'arte: I remembered the wreck of the Sea Adventure in Bermuda: a drunk sailor stopped me and described that grievous storm, described the bewitched island, and I began:

On s.h.i.+p at sea:

Captain: Boatswain!

Boatswain: Here, Master, what cheer?

Captain: Good fellow, talk to the sailors, warn them, fall to it quickly or we'll run aground!

Enter sailors:

Boatswain: Quickly, my fellows! Take in the topsail speedily! That's the captain's warning whistle!