librsnet@mail.ru
Will Shakespeare: An Invention in Four Acts. Clemence Dane
a good wife and true, that loves me; but— I tell you I could write of such a man, And make you laugh and weep at such a man, For your own manhood’s sake, so bound, so bound.
Henslowe. Laugh? Weep? No, I’d be a friend to such a man! Go to him now and tell him from me—or no! Go rather to this wife of his that loves him well, you say—?
Shakespeare. Too well!
Henslowe. Why, man, it’s common! Or too light, too low, Not once in a golden age love’s scale trims level.
Shakespeare. I read of lovers once in Italy—
Henslowe. You’ll write of lovers too, not once nor twice.
Shakespeare. Their scales were level ere they died of love, In Italy—
Henslowe. But if instead they had lived—in Stratford—there’d have been such a see-saw in six months as—
Shakespeare. As what?
Henslowe. As there has been, eh? “See-saw! Margery Daw! She sold her bed to lie upon straw.” And so—poor Margery! Though she counts me an enemy—poor Margery!
Shakespeare. What help for Margery—and her Jack?
Henslowe. None, friend, in Stratford.
Shakespeare. Do I not know it?
Henslowe. Then—tell Margery!
Shakespeare. Deaf, deaf!
Henslowe. Not if you tell her how all heels in London (And the Queen dances!) So trip to the Stratford tune that I hot-haste Am sent to fetch the fiddler—
Shakespeare. Man, is it true? True that the Queen—?
Henslowe. I say—tell Margery!
What! is she a woman, a wife, and will not further her man? I say to you—tell Margery, as I tell you—
Shakespeare. You do?
Henslowe. I do. I do tell you that if you can come away with us now with your ‘Dream’ in your pocket, and teach it to us and learn of us while you teach, and strike London in time for the Queen’s birthday—I tell you and I tell her, Jack’s a made man. See what Margery says to that, and give me the answer, stay or come, as I pass here to-night! And now let me go; for if I do not soon whip my company clear of apple-juice and apple-bloom, clear, that is to say, of Stratford wine and Stratford women, we shall not pass here to-night. [He goes out.]
Shakespeare. To-night! [Calling] Anne! Anne! [He walks up and down.] Oh, to be one of them to-night on the silver road—to smell the steaming frost and listen to men’s voices and the ring of iron on the London road! [Calling] Anne!
Anne [entering]. You called? He’s gone? You’re angry? Oh, not now, No anger now; for, Will, to-night in the sky, Our sky, a new star shines.
Shakespeare. What’s that? You know?
Anne. I know, and oh, my heart sings.
Shakespeare. Anne, dear Anne, You know? No frets? You wish it? Oh, dear Anne, How did you guess and know?
Anne. My mother told me.
Shakespeare. She heard us? Did she hear—they’ve read the play, And the Queen’s asked for me! London, Anne! London! I’ll send you London home, my lass, by the post— Such frocks and fancies! London! London, Anne! And you, you know? and speed me hence? By God, That’s my own wife at last, all gold to me And goodness! Anne, be better to me still And help me hence to-night!
Anne. It dips, it dies, A night-light, Mother, and no star. I grope Giddily in the dark.
Shakespeare. What did she tell you?
Anne. No matter. Oh, it earns not that black look. London? the Queen? I’ll help you, oh, be sure! Too glad to see you glad.
Shakespeare. Anne, it’s good-bye To Stratford till the game’s won.
Anne. What care I So you are satisfied? The farm must go— That’s little—
Shakespeare. Must it go?
Anne. Dreamer, how else Shall we two live in London?
Shakespeare. We, do you say? They’d have me travel with them—a rough life—
Anne. I care not!
Shakespeare.—and you’re ailing.
Anne. Better soon.
Shakespeare. You’ll miss your mother.
Anne. Mothers everywhere Will help a girl. I’m strong.
Shakespeare. It will not do! I have my world to learn, and learn alone. I will not dangle at your apron-strings.
Anne. I’ll be no tie. I’ll be your follower And scarce your wife; but let me go with you!
Shakespeare. If you could see but once, once, with my eyes!
Anne. Will! let me go with you!
Shakespeare. I tell you—no! Leave me to go my way and rule my life After my fashion! I’ll not lean on you Because you’re seven years wiser.
Anne. That too, O God!
Shakespeare. And if I hurt you—for I know I do, I’m not so rapt—think of me, if you can, As a man stifled that wildly throws his arms, Raking the air for room—for room to breathe, And so strikes unaware, unwillingly, His lover!
Anne. I could sooner think of you Asleep, and I beside you with the child, And all this passion ended, as it must, In quiet graves; for we have been such lovers As there’s no room for in the human air And daylight side of the grass. What shall I do? And how live on? Why did you marry me?
Shakespeare. You know the why of that.
Anne. Too well we know it, I and the child. You have well taught this fool That thought a heart of dreams, a loving heart, A soul, a self resigned, could better please Than the blind flesh of a woman; for God knows Your self drew me, the folded man in you, Not, not the boy-husk.
Shakespeare. Yet the same God knows When folly was, you willed it first, not I.
Anne. Old! Old as Adam! and untrue, untrue! Why did you come to me at Shottery, Out of your way, so often? laugh with me Apart, and answer for me as of right, As if you knew me better (ah, it was sweet!) Than my own brothers? And on Sunday eves You’d wait and walk with me the long way home From church, with me alone, the foot-path way, Across the fields where wild convolvulus Strangles the corn—
Shakespeare. Strangles the corn indeed!
Anne.—and still delay me talking at the stile, Long after curfew, under the risen moon. Why did you come? Why did you stay with me, To make me love, to make me think you loved me?
Shakespeare. Oh, you were easy, cheap, you flattered me.
Anne [crying out]. I did not.
Shakespeare. Why, did you not look at me As I were God? And for a while I liked it. It fed some weed in me that since has withered; For now I like it not, nor like you for it!
Anne. That is your fate, you change, you must ever be changing, You climb from a boy to a man, from a man to a god, And the god looks back on the man with a smile, and the man on the boy with wonder; But I, I am woman for ever: I change not at all. You hold out your hands to me—heaven: you turn from me—hell; But neither the hell nor the heaven can change me: I love you: I change not at all.
Shakespeare. All this leads not to London, and for London I am resolved: if not to-night—
Anne. To-night?
Shakespeare. As soon as maybe. When the child is born— When will the child be born?
Anne. Soon, soon—
Shakespeare. How soon?
Anne. I think—I do not know—
Shakespeare. In March?