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Will Shakespeare: An Invention in Four Acts

Chapter 5: Scene II.
By Clemence Dane
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About This Book

A dramatized four-act portrayal follows a young dramatist torn between domestic life and artistic ambition, tracing his tensions with his wife, collaborations with players and impresarios, and encounters at court and with contemporary writers. Scenes shift from a Stratford cottage to London stages and palace rooms, depicting the rehearsal and first performance of Romeo and Juliet, the mechanics of staging, and the theatre's social world. Themes include the costs of creative obsession, the clash between private intimacy and public success, and the interplay of imagination and performance. The structure mixes household scenes, backstage rehearsal, and courtly spectacle to examine how art reshapes personal relationships and public identity.

ACT II.

Scene II.

The first performance of Romeo and Juliet: the end of the fourth act. The curtain rises on a small bare dusty office, littered with stage properties and dresses. When the door at the back of the stage is open there is a glimpse of passage and curtains, and moving figures, with now and then a flare of torchlight. There is a continuous far-away murmur of voices and, once in a while, applause. As the curtain goes up Mary Fitton is opening the door to go out. Shakespeare holds her back.

Mary. Let go! Let me go! I must be in front at the end of that act. I must hear what the Queen will say to it.

Shakespeare. But you’ll come back?

Mary. That depends on what the Queen says. I’ve promised you nothing if she damns it.

The applause breaks out again.

Shakespeare. Listen! Is it damned?

Mary. Sugar-sweet, isn’t it? But that’s nothing. That’s the mob. That’s your friends. They’ll clap you. But the Queen, if she claps, claps your play.

Shakespeare. Your play!

Mary. Is it mine? Earnest?

Shakespeare. My earnest, but your play.

Mary. Well, good luck to my play!

Shakespeare. Give me—

Mary. Oh, so it’s not a free gift?

Shakespeare. Give me a finger-tip of thanks!

Mary. In advance? Not I! But if the Queen likes it—I’m her obedient servant. If the Queen opens her hand I shan’t shut mine. Where she claps once I’ll clap twice. Where she gives you a hand to kiss, I’ll give you—There! Curtain’s down! I must go.

Shakespeare. Mary!

Mary. Listen to it! Listen! Listen! This is better than any poor Mary.

She goes out. The door is left open. The applause breaks out again.

Shakespeare. Is this the golden apple in my hand At last? How tastes it, heart, and is it sweet, is it sweet? Sweeter than common apples? So many years Of days I watched it grow and propped and pruned, Besought the sun and watered. O my tree When the green broke! That was a morning hour. Fool, so to long for fruit! Now the fruit’s ripe. The tree in spring was fairest, when it flowered, And every petal held a drink of dew. The bloom went long ago. Well, the fruit’s here! Hark! The applause breaks out again. It goes well. Eat up your apple, man! This is the hour, the hour! I’m the same man— No better for it. When Marlowe praised me so He meant it—meant it. I thought he laughed at me In his sleeve. Will Shakespeare! Romeo and Juliet! I made it—I! Indeed, indeed, at heart— (I would not for the world they read my heart: I’d scarce tell Mary) but indeed, at heart, I know no song was ever sung before Like this my lovely song. I made it—I! It has not changed me. I’m the same small man, And yet I made it! Strange! [A knock.]

Stage Hand [putting in his head at the door]. You’ll not see anyone, sir, will you?

Shakespeare. I told you already I’ll come to the green-room when the show’s over. I can see no stranger before.

Stage Hand.  So I’ve told her, sir, many times. But she says you will know her when you see her and she can’t wait.

Shakespeare. A lady?

Stage Hand.  No, no, sir, just a woman. I’ll tell her to go away again.

Shakespeare. Wait! Did she give no name?

Stage Hand.  Name of Hathaway, sir, from Stratford.

Shakespeare. Anne! Bring her here! Bring her here quickly, privately! You should have told me sooner. Where does she wait? Did any see her? Did any speak with her? If anyone asks for me save Henslowe or Mr. Marlowe, I am gone, I am not in the theatre. What are you staring at? What are you waiting for? Bring her here!

Stage Hand.  Glad to be rid of her, sir! She has sat in the passage this hour to be tripped over, and nothing budges her. [Calling] Will you come this way—this way! [He disappears.]

Shakespeare. Anne? Anne in London? What does Anne in London?

Stage Hand [returning]. This way, this way! It’s a dark passage. This way!

Mrs. Hathaway comes in.

Shakespeare.   Not Anne!

Mrs. Hathaway. Is Mr. Shakespeare—? Will! Is it Will? Oh, how you’re changed!

Shakespeare.   Ten years change a young man.

Mrs. Hathaway. But not an old woman. I’m Anne’s mother still.

Shakespeare.   I’m not so changed that I forget it. What do you want of me, Mrs. Hathaway?

Mrs. Hathaway. I bring you news.

Shakespeare.   Good news?

Mrs. Hathaway. It’s as you take it.

Shakespeare.   Dead?

Mrs. Hathaway. Is that good news, my half son? She is not so blessed.

Shakespeare.   I did not say it so. Is she with you?

Mrs. Hathaway. No.

Shakespeare.   Did she send you? Oh, so she has heard of this business! It’s like her to send you now. She is to take her toll of it, is she?

Mrs. Hathaway. You are bitter, you are bitter! You are the east wind of your own spring sunshine. She has heard nothing of this business or of that—dark lady.

Shakespeare.   Take care!

Mrs. Hathaway. I saw her come from this room—off her guard. I know how a woman looks when a man has pleased her. Oh, please her if you must! I am old. I do not judge. And I think you will not always. But that’s not my news.

Shakespeare.   I can’t hear it now. I am pressed. This is not every night. I’ll see you to-morrow, not now.

Mrs. Hathaway. My news may be dead to-morrow.

Shakespeare.   So much the better. I needn’t hear it.

Mrs. Hathaway. Son, son, son! You don’t know what you say.

Shakespeare.   That is not my name. And I know well what I say. You are my wife’s mother and I’ll not share anything of hers. But if she needs money, I’ll send it. To-night makes me a rich man.

Mrs. Hathaway. Richer than you think—and to-morrow poorer, if you do not listen to me.

There is a roar of applause.

Shakespeare.   Listen to you? Why should I listen to you? Can you give me anything to better that?

Mrs. Hathaway. But if she can? Sixty years I have learned lessons in the world; but I never learned that a city was better than green fields, friends better than a house-mate, or the works of a man’s hand more to him than the child of his own flesh.

Shakespeare.   And have I learned it, I? Do I not know That when I left her I left all behind That was my right? See how I live my life— Married nor single, neither bond nor free, My future mortgaged for a roofless home! For though I love I must not say “I love you, Come to my hearth!” A child? I have no child: I hear no voice crying to me o’ nights Out of the frost-bound dark. How can it cry Or smile at me until I give it lips? How can it clutch me till I give it hands? How can it be, until I give it leave? Small sparrow at the window-pane, a’cold, Begging your crumb of life from me, indeed I cannot let you in. Small love, small sweet, Look not so trustfully! You are not mine, Not mine, not anyone’s. Away, unborn! Back to the womb of dreams, and never stir, Never again! How meek the small ghost fades, Reject and fatherless, that might have been My son!
Mrs. Hathaway. Is it possible? Anne knew you best. She said you did not know. Dear son, too soon By two last months, yet by these months too late. After you left her, Hamnet, the boy, was born.
Shakespeare.   It is not true!
Mrs. Hathaway. Ah, ah, she knew you best. She said always, weeping she said always You would not listen, though she sent you word; But when the boy was grown she’d send the boy, Then you would listen and come home, come home. But now that web is tattered in its turn By a cold wind, an out-of-season wind, Tearing the silver webs, blacking the leaves And shaking the first blossoms down too soon, Too soon, too soon. He shivered and lay down Among pinched violets and the wrack of spring; But when the sky drew breath and April came, And summer with tanned fingers, beckoning up New flowers from the ground, still our flower drooped: The sunlight hurt his eyes, his bed’s too hot, He drinks and will not eat: since Saturday There’s but one end.
Shakespeare.   What end?
Mrs. Hathaway. You’re stubborn as she. She will not bow to it. Yet she sent me hither To bring you home.
Shakespeare.   New witch-work!
Mrs. Hathaway. Will you not come?
Shakespeare.   I will not.
Mrs. Hathaway. Will you not come? She bade me say That the boy cries for you—
Shakespeare.   A lie! A gross lie! He never called me father.
Mrs. Hathaway. That he does! You are his Merlin and his Arthur too, And God-Almighty Sundays. Thus it goes— “My Father says—” and “When my Father comes—” “I’ll tell my Father!” To his mother’s hand He clings and whispers in his fever now, With bright eyes wide—your eyes, son, your quick eyes— That she shall fetch you (she? she cannot speak) To bring him wonders home like Whittington, (And where’s your cat?) and tell the tales you know Of Puck and witches, and the English kings, To whistle down the birds as Orpheus did, And for a silver penny pick the moon From the sky’s pocket, and buy him gingerbread— And so he rambles on, breaking her heart A second time, God help her!
Shakespeare.   I will come.
A Man’s Voice [off the stage]. Shakespeare!  Will Shakespeare!  Call Will Shakespeare!
Shakespeare [to Mrs. Hathaway].   Here! When do we start?
Mrs. Hathaway. The horses wait at the inn.
Voice.   Will Shakespeare!
Shakespeare.   Give me an hour. The bridge is nearer. On London Bridge at midnight! I’ll be there!

Mrs. Hathaway. Not later, I warn you, if you’d see the child alive.

Shakespeare.   Fear not, I’ll be there. D’you think so ill of me? I could have been a good father to my own son—if I had known. If I had known! This is a woman’s way of enduring a wrong. Oh, dumb beast! Could she not send for me—send to me? Am I a monster that she could not come to me? “Buy him gingerbread”! To send me no word till he’s dying! Would any she-devil in hell do so to a man? Dying? I tell you he shall live and not die. There was a man once fought death for a friend and held him. Can I not fight death for my own son? Can I not beat death off for an hour, for a little hour, till I have kissed my only son?

Marlowe’s Voice.   Shakespeare! The Queen—the Queen has asked for you, And sent her woman twice. Will Shakespeare! Will!
Shakespeare. At midnight then.
Mrs. Hathaway goes out.
Voice. Will Shakespeare!
Shakespeare. Coming! Coming!
Mary [in the doorway, followed by Marlowe]. Is Shakespeare—?
Shakespeare. Oh, not now, not now, not now!

Mary. Are you mad to keep her waiting? She has favours up her sleeve. You are to write her a play for the summer revels. Quick now, ere the last act begins! Off with you! [Shakespeare goes out.] Look how he drags away! What’s come to the man to fling aside his luck?

Marlowe. He has left it behind him.

Mary.    Here’s a proxy silver-tongue! Are you Mr. Marlowe?

Marlowe. Are you Mistress Fitton?

Mary.    So we’ve heard of each other!

Marlowe. What have you heard of me?

Mary.    That you were somebody’s brother-in-art! What have you heard of me?

Marlowe. That you were his sister-in-art.

Mary.    A man’s sister! I’d as soon be a cold pudding! What did he say of his sister, brother?

Marlowe. That you brought him luck.

Mary.    That he leaves behind him!

Marlowe. Like the blind man’s lucky sixpence that the Jew stole when he put a penny in his plate.

Mary.    A Jew of Malta?

Marlowe. What, do you read me? You?

A Stage Hand [in the passage].    Last act, please! Last act! Last act!

Mary.    I must go watch it.

Marlowe. Don’t you know it?

Mary.    Oh, by heart! Yet I must sisterly watch it.

Marlowe. Stay a little.

Mary.    Till he comes? Then I shall miss all, for he’ll keep me.

Marlowe. Against your will?

Mary.    No, with my Will.

Marlowe. Is it he or his plays?

Mary.    Not sure.

Marlowe. If I were he I’d make you sure.

Mary.    I wonder if you could! I wonder—how?

Marlowe. Too long to tell you here, and—curtain’s up!

Mary.    Come to my house one lazy day and tell me!

Marlowe. Hark! That’s more noise than curtain!

Henslowe’s Voice.    Shakespeare! Shakespeare! [Entering.] Here’s a calamity! Where’s Shakespeare? He should be in the green-room! Why does he tuck away in this rat-hole when he’s wanted? And what’s to be done? Where in God’s name is Shakespeare?

Mary.    With the Queen.

Marlowe. The curtain’s up; he’ll be here in a minute.

Mary.    What’s wrong?

Henslowe.  Everything! Juliet! The clumsy beasts! They let him fall from the bier: they let him fall on his arm! Now he’s moaning and wincing and swears he can’t go on, though he has but to speak his death scene. I’ve bid them cut the afterwards.

Marlowe. Broken?

Henslowe. I fear so.

Mary.    Let it be broken! Say he must go on! What? Spoil the play? These baby-men!
Henslowe. He will not.

Marlowe. The understudy?

Henslowe. Playing Paris. Where’s Shakespeare? What’s to be done? The play’s spoiled.

Marlowe. He’ll break his heart.

Mary.    He shall not break his heart! This is our play! Back to your Juliet-boy, Strip off his wear and never heed his arm! Bid them play on and bring me Juliet’s robes! I’ll put them on and put on Juliet too. Quick, Henslowe!
Henslowe. What! a woman play on the stage?
Mary.    Ay, when the men fail! Quick! I say I’ll do it!
Shakespeare [entering]. Here still? You’ve heard?
Mary [on the threshold]. And heeded. Never stop me! You shall have Juliet. You shall have your play.
She and Henslowe hurry out.
Marlowe.   There goes a man’s master! But does she know the part?
Shakespeare. She knows each line, she knows each word, she breathed them Into my heart long ere I wrote them down.

Marlowe.   But to act! Can you trust her?

Shakespeare. She? Go and watch! I need not.

Marlowe.   But is it in her? She’s Julia not Juliet, not your young Juliet, not your June morning—or is she?

Shakespeare. You talk! You talk! You talk! What do you know of her?

Marlowe.   Or you, old Will?

Shakespeare. I dream her.

Marlowe.   Well, pleasant dreams!

Shakespeare. No more. I’m black awake.

Marlowe.   What’s wrong? Ill news?

Shakespeare. From Stratford. Yes, yes, yes, Kit! And it must come now, just now, after ten dumb years!

Marlowe.   Stratford? Whew! I’d forgotten your nettle-bed. What does she want of you?

Shakespeare. Hark! Mary’s on.

Marlowe.   It’s a voice like the drip of a honey-comb.

Shakespeare. Can she play Juliet, man? Can she play Juliet? I think she can. Kit?
Marlowe.   Ay?
Shakespeare. Oh, is there peace Anywhere, Kit, in any, any world?
Marlowe.   What is it, peace?
Shakespeare. It passeth understanding. They round the sermon off on Sunday with it, Laugh in their sleeves and send us parching home. This is a dew that dries ere Monday comes, And oh, the heat of the seven days!
Marlowe.   I like it! The smell of dust, the shouting, and the glare Of crowded noon in cities, and such nights As this night, crowning labour. What is—peace?

Stage Hand [entering].  Sir, sir, sir, will you come down, sir, says Mr. Henslowe. The end’s near and the house half mad. We’ve not seen a night like this since—since your night, sir! Your first night, sir, your roaring Tamburlaine night! Never anything like it and I’ve seen many. Will you come, sirs?

Shakespeare. You go, Marlowe!

Stage Hand. There’s nothing to fear, sir! It runs like clockwork. The lady died well, sir! Lord, who’d think she was a woman! There, there, it breaks out. Listen to ’em! Come, sir, come, come!

Marlowe.   We’ll come! We’ll come!

The man goes out.

Shakespeare. Not I! Oh, if you love me, Marlowe, swear I’m ill, gone away, dead, what you please, but keep them away! I can stand no more.

Marlowe.   It’s as she said—mad—mad—to fling your luck away.

Shakespeare. A frost has touched me, Marlowe, my fruit’s black. Help me now! Go, go! Say I’m gone, as I shall be when I’ve seen Mary—

Marlowe.   A back stairs? Now I understand.

Shakespeare. Oh, stop your laughter! I’m to leave London in half an hour.

Marlowe.   Earnest? For long?

Shakespeare. Little or long, what matter? I’ve missed the moment. Who has his moment twice?

Marlowe.   Shall you tell her why you go?

Shakespeare. Mary? God forbid!

Voices. Shakespeare! Call Shakespeare!

Shakespeare. D’you hear them? Help me! Say I am gone! Oh, go, go!

Marlowe.   Well, if you wish it!

He goes out leaving the door ajar. As Shakespeare goes on speaking the murmurs and claps die away and the noises of the stage are heard, the shouts of the scene-shifters, directions being given, and so on. Finally there is silence.

Shakespeare. Wish it? I wish it? Have you no more for me Of comfort, Marlowe? Oh, what a dumb and measureless gulf divides Star from twin star, and friend from closest friend! Women, they say, can bridge it when they will: As seamen rope a ship with grappling irons These spinners of strong cords invisible Make fast and draw the drifting glory home In the name of love. I know not. Better go! I am not for this harbour—

There is a sound of hasty footsteps and Mary Fitton enters in Juliet’s robes. She stands in the doorway, panting, exalted, with arms outstretched. The door swings to behind her, shutting out all sound.

Mary. Oh, I faced The peacock of the world, the arch of eyes That watched me love a god, the eyes, eyes, eyes, That watched me die of love. Wake me again, O soul that did inhabit me, O husband Whose mind I uttered, to whose will I swayed, Whose self of love I was! Wake me again To die of love in earnest!
Shakespeare. Mary! Mary!
Mary. I cannot ride this hurricane. I spin Like a leaf in the air. Die down and let me lie Close to the earth I am! O stir me not With rosy breathings from the south, the south Of sun and wine and peaks that flame to God Suddenly in the dark! O wind, let be And drive me not; for speech lies on my lips Like a strange finger hushing back my soul With words not mine, and thoughts not mine arise Like marsh-flame dancing! As a leaf to a tree Upblown, O wind that whirls me, I return. Master and quickener, give me love indeed!
Shakespeare. These are the hands I never held till now: These are the lips I never felt on mine: This is the hour I dreamed of, many an hour: This is the spirit awake. God in your sky, Did your heart beat so on the seventh dawn?
Mary. ’Ware thunder!
Shakespeare. Sweet, He envies and is dumb, Dumb as His dark. He was our audience. Now to His blinding centrum home He hies, Omnipotent drudge, to wind the clocks of Time And tend His ’plaining universes all— To us, to us, His empty theatre of night Abandoning. But we too steal away; For the play’s done, Lights out—all over—and here we stand alone, Holding each other in a little room, Like two souls in one grave. We are such lovers—
Anne’s Voice. As there’s no room for in the human air And green side of the grass—
Shakespeare. A voice! A voice!
Mary. No voice here!
Shakespeare. In my heart I heard it cry Like a sick child waked suddenly at night.
[Crying out]
A child—a sick child! Unlink your arms that hold me!
Mary. Never till I choose!
Shakespeare. Put back your hair! I am lost Unless I lose all gain. O moonless night, In your hot darkness I have lost my way! But kiss me, summer, once! On London Bridge At midnight—I’ll be there! Has the clock struck?
Mary. Midnight long since.
Shakespeare. Oh, I am damned and lost In hell for ever!
Mary. Fool, dear fool, what harm? If this be hell indeed, is not hell kind? Is not hell lovely, if this love be hell? Is not damnation sweet?
Shakespeare. God does not know How sweet, how sweet!
Mary. Were they not wise, those two Whose same blood beats again in you and me, That chose the desert and the fall and went Exultant from their garden and their God? Long shall the sworded angels stand at ease And idly guard the undesired delight: Long shall the grasses grow and tall the briars, And bent the branches of the ancient trees: And many a year the wilding flowers shall blaze Under a lonely sun, and fruited sweets Shall drop and rot, and feed the roots that feed, And bud again and ripen: long and long Silent the watchman-lark in heaven shall hang High over Eden, e’er they come again Those two, whose blood is our blood, and their love Our love, our own, that no god gave us, ours, The venture ours, the glory ours, the shame A price worth paying, then, now, ever—
Shakespeare. Eve, Eve, Eve, the snake has been with you! You draw, You drink my soul as I your body—
Mary. Kiss!
THE CURTAIN FALLS.