Why, I have not been absent from these pages but a little space and already the welkin ringeth with news, right good news, I tell thee. While I was man living, I would never have dared dream such honours as the New World doth heap upon my works: nay, wouldst thou credit it? That same city of Washington DC, cradle of both great deeds and great foolery (the business of governing being ever thus), doth now announce a half-year's festival to honour me. And indeed I am much honour'd to hear of it. 'Tis overseen by mine honest friend Michael Kahn, one who knoweth me right well, and master of a most sublime theatre there. An if thou passest through that same city, go and pass a merry evening there: 'tis as brave a troop of players as ever drank deep at the Mermaid.
In mine own well-lov'd London, meanwhiles, master Mark Rylance of mine own new-made Globe doth make preparation to hang up his buskins (and his farthingale, forsooth) and bid farewell. For these ten years past, he hath done most nobly by his stage and his cry of players, that the shade of Burbage look'd pale with envy and call'd for more drink. And deep we drank to the continued health of this most amiable master, and success to master Dromgoole who comes after. For master Rylance, though he leave our Globe, yet is he under our eye, on whichever stage he may tread; may good fortune follow him.
Then came in two fools together: Will Kempe and good Robert Armin, and ask'd of myself and Burbage: had we ta'en note of the two parts of my Henry IV, now in play at the National Theatre by the banks of grey Thames? "Or art thou, Will," spoke Kempe "so deep in thy cups that thou mindest not when new marvels are wrought upon thy halting verse?" And so we mark'd well the play. And sooth to speak, gentles, I have much to say in behalf of that Falstaff. Master Gambon doth body forth my fat knight as feelingly as ever I saw man do, that even Kempe wept true tears. Nor is this great round jewel without a princely setting: 'tis a formidable company, i'faith. Masters David Bradley and Matthew Macfadyen, that play the King and the wild Prince, are most brave players, as is David Harewood, whose Hotspur seems verily a born leader of men. And John Wood posesseth a marvellously temper'd voice, that his Justice Shallow giveth joy of heart to hear and see. Nay, in the whole company there is not one player ill-fitted or tedious: masters all, that it doth my long-dead heart good to see, and we dead players did drink their health in many a cup of sack.
For now comes in the sweet o'the year, when my works are played far and wide, on stage, street and greensward: and fair befall all that speak my words, their masters of play, and all those who serve in the tiring-houses! Amen, amen, say I.
Posted by Shakespeare at June 2, 2005 12:57 PMThou art much mistaken in the treacherous Rylance, Will. This upstart crow threatens danger and disturbance to thy reputation and the furtherance of the glorious works that have raised the hearts and minds of men since the most worthy Heminge and Condell pressed scribes to encompass thy thoughts in leather-shielding leaves, so to protect them and fulfill their promise of immortality. Behold how, enriched by deliverance of words from the unrivalled canon these ten years past, and freed from the bonds of contract, the traitorous player hath turned on his undoubted master and cast his lot in furtherance of the cause espoused by followers of the would-be usurper, Bacon.
And witness, how, for so it is strewn in the common ear, that before Bacon, the villainous Rylance would have it that de Vere, the venerable Earl of Oxford, was himself the true and rightful author of the tales from the playhouse, this though it hath been verily proved that the said de Vere had been safely and lamentably despatched to his grave some four or five years before new writings were to appear for the amazement and delight of the multitudes.
But this not alone, the viperous Rylance hath taken thy great play The Tempest, thy valedictory masterpiece, and mangled and mocked it and made it a tale told by three, much to the bewilderment and dismay of the assembled onlookers, many leaving with furrowed and puzzled brows and vowing to return to the playhouse no more.
If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.