Today, gentles, I rejoice. And wit ye why? For that from this day henceforth, whomsoever will may write unto me.
For wit ye well, I came not back to this little O, the earth, only to hear myself speak as in an empty theatre. Sooth to tell, I am no more an actor on this same stage, but a groundling merely. Without your most sweet voices, this chronicle goes not forward, but remaineth as a dull play, remember'd of none.
So, trusty reader: hast seen aught of my works? Or read or played in them perchance? What think'st thou thereunto?
Wast thou forced to read them under the schoolmaster's rod, that all understanding was beaten out of thy poor head, and my words became as ashes to thee? If it be so, then thou art wronged as I am, and I sorrow for both our sakes. Would that I could make thee amends! My plays were never writ to be a prison for young aching heads: all mine intent was only to please those that pleased to hear.
Dost thou love? Hast a heart in thee, or a pickled herring? If thou art brought to bay by the blind bow-boy, I too have been so maz'd in my time. I writ much of love: now I would hear of thine.
And what of the deeds of princes, their subtle ministers, their fawning flatterers? I writ of nations wreck'd by deep-revolving courtiers, by weak or all-too-prideful sovereigns, by worldly churchmen: and saved, perchance, by the hand of one warrior, or by one esquire in his garden who knows not what he does. War was ever my theme: the sounding of alarums and the flash of swords to fright the groundlings from their sleep, and make them to cry God for Harry, England and Saint George! Yet ever in my thought, as in theirs, was the waste wrought by war, the mighty weariness, the slaying and wounding of boys and women, and all they who thought to die some day of a surfeit, or of overmuch drink, but never upon the sword.
Somewhat too much of this. It hath been said, gentles, that all men and women are merely players upon this great stage of fools. And a player, let me tell ye, is no mean thing to be. I would hear your speeches, your passions, your wit, your history. Now fair befall those that take up the pen!
Posted by Shakespeare at March 25, 2004 11:43 PMWe give thee good day, Master Shakespeare. We are two humble sisters of the order of the Interfaith Nunnery, come to peruse thine epistles from the green world.
Iris desireth to know whether it might please thee to enter the nunnery's broom closet, where thou two might disport thyselves. Andrea, who oft has thought Silvia most ill-used in not winning the hand of fair Rosalind, is not so inclined to share the broom closet with thee. She would, however, gladly converse with thee on plays and players.
Couldst tell us, good sir, about Isabella of Measure for Measure? We have been much disturbed by the Duke's o'erweening pride in assuming that the lady, having spent the course of the play protecting her maidenhead, would then desire the hand of a man only slightly greater in power than the man she so recently refused.
Posted by: Andrea and Iris at March 28, 2004 1:14 AMThou art wronged, Master Shakespeare, in that thy honey-tongued words have become beasts of commerce. Your belief may strain under the weight of my report, but by clever art the struttings and frettings of poor players are captured in a book known as film. By a flickering light, the players are released once more. Your wonderous play Othello was captured in this manner, and played once more under the title "O." Your most ingenious comedy of Petruccio and Katharine, The Taming of The Shrew, became what is now called a movie, "The 10 Things I Hate About You."
Posted by: Douglas at March 30, 2004 9:58 PM