Voices from the Past Part 133

March 18, 1616

Judith married early because I felt I could not last much longer... Judith, will a hundred and fifty pounds help you, with that husband who doesn't want to work? A fine son-in-law...but...ah, the trouble I have caused.

She could have waited...but, at that time...she thought... My will is insufficient...

Illness is such folly

I still remember names

Alleyn was here to see me...

Burbage won't come...the man you care most to see, cares less for thee.

March 19

My affection remains, blazes as it were: there were winnings: good things strive to help us: come unto the yellow sands for their beneficence: hark: a pox against pain: who has pain! No. Defy the monsters, prod the phoenix, bury pignuts, come forward magical, fecundate freedom, build, levy songs.

I need Raleigh's elixir! If men concoct an elixir of youth it is too late for me.

Then, that elixir of elixir of elixirs, hebenon!

Sprinkle it.

March 21, 1616

Now that I am sick, it seems so rare a thing I once climbed elms for rook's nest and slashed all afternoon, in the August sun, to scythe the timothy in rows. I was fifteen, I think it was. Larks flew and sang. I liked the click-a-click of my scythe as it bladed. Crickets chirped. Magpies and jackdaws took the air. There was a kingfisher diving.

I long to dive where I used to swim, at Gray's pool, alongside the burned mill; I used to strip and plunge off the sluice, after working in the field. Or we used to swim there-five or six of us-and test who could stay under longest, test-what was it I wanted to test?

Cowslips grew cap-a-pie on two sides of that pool and their cinque-spotted faces got trampled underfoot as we dashed nakedly about, lewdly knuckling each other's p.e.n.i.s. Banks of violets were thick on the shady side of the mill, thickest among heaps of smashed and rotting s.h.i.+ngles...her favorite flower! Hers!

Home

Suppertime

Getting ready to die is looking across a stage through semi-darkness; it is m.u.f.fing one's lines; it is listening to incomprehensible promptings; it is taking the wrong exit. It is tampering with the plot, eliminating the star from the best scenes, subst.i.tuting a beginner. Getting ready to die is watching the candle gutter, hearing the rooster before dawn, saying love's good-bye; it is the footstep on the stair, the reveled, sleeved and broken sword.

Getting ready to die is no man's business!

O, that this too, too solid flesh...

Home Evening

March 27, 1616

For several days my eyesight has failed and I have been unable to write. I have less pain but I can not eat. They talk to me and I lie here, restless, hearing, hearing...

I want to hear something like a promise, an echo of things hoped for.

That knocking at the door!

Rain over the house.

To sleep, to sleep...

March 28, 1616

When I was twenty, splendid, strong, I thought it would be n.o.ble to die in the Spring: ah, n.o.ble death I praised you childishly. This is springtime, and I see no signs of n.o.bility.

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry-

how like a poem those lines read, and lie! At that time, when I wrote that sonnet, I was never more in love with life.

For days the rain has been falling over the town, fine rain, grey rain that is determined to shatter the last of my courage...for days.

Ann stands by my bedside, a plate of food in her hands, urging me to eat: "Take something...it will help you, Will."

Susanna sits by my side and sighs, "Papa, Papa."

Alleyn visits me, his voice warming my room, in the beaten way of friends.h.i.+p.

March 30, '16

Again I am reminded I must complete my will-and so I must.

Tomorrow I'll dictate...how will it go?

In the name of G.o.d, I, William Shakespeare, gentleman, in perfect health and memory, make and ordain this last will and testament...

How can I say perfect health and memory?

I commend my soul into the hands of G.o.d, hoping and believing to be made a partaker of life everlasting, and my body to the earth thereof it is made... Custom...