Voices from the Past Part 106

For years I kept her letters in my desk at Blackfriar's house, to lose them when the place burned: waxed, ribboned and perfumed letters, from France, Italy, and Scotland. I could rewrite some of them from memory-some.

At the time I received her letters I thought that a number of them had been detained much too long and I thought several of them had been tampered with. I put this aside as fancy for I was willing to be blind. As I think back it's odd I never suspected censorship. And why was it I never knew till later that she and her family opposed the Queen?

The knife of one's own stupidity cuts deepest!

A year or two after the attack on her, when she was back in Scotland, she wrote that Hugh was a.s.sa.s.sinated in Glasgow-an Elizabethan courtesy, someone said. The shock was more of a shock coming from her: Hugh dead, big Hugh, with his cleft beard, bushy eyebrows, and mop of greying hair: the bigness of his Dunira castle comes to me, along with his hospitality.

For years I was driven half insane by a dream of an enveloping cloak: the cloak swallowed my house, trees, sun, and stars: I heard a woman scream inside this luminous thing. Behind the folds was a bearded face, coming closer and closer.

Henley Street

I was headed for home when I met Ellen and the autumn sun favored us, potentates meeting by a river, our kingdom the leaves along the sh.o.r.e, the ash red, our introduction friends, our hopes instantaneous. I saw beneath her gloves to her veined hands; I saw her veined b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath her dress; I saw beneath her smiles the invitation, rebuffs, wiles...

Yet who dares to know royalty outside the theatre!

Home, I reminded myself, is Stratford; but, who among us remembers home and fidelity?

I loved home once, my Ann, my children, and the sharing of the things a man wants to share. I loved these in my groin and the raves of sweetness summoned me, over and over, till I was worn out and imperious insomnia stalked and kept me at my desk or sent me.

How can it be, in the midst of aged foolishness, Ellen appears, to convince, to distract-those devil eyes of hers and that black hair and her white, white skin begging love. When she speaks, I listen: I turn and listen: I turn and listen again for she is theatre, its hush, its compa.s.sion, its folly.

Jonson was right to introduce us; he thought to kill my pen and wit. It was his plot to make me plotless-great jest! He was right, for sleepless nights swept around and the pulsing indirection of s.e.x carried me to her for yet another rendezvous.

Did I ever come to my senses: was it a week, month, or year? Was it she who nailed the fog over my soul? Ah, crucifix between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, so soft, so impaled! What graciousness!

London was too small for us for everyone perceived the unperceivable, impaired our pairing and yet...but all this is past and the last seat empty.

We thought to escape to Rome, that eternal place for eternal mouths. She offered me money and I refused. At the theatre she begged me to accept, for us, for time, for love...and I accepted. On stage I swore to testify but I hugged my testament and my lines faltered.

We have played our parts too often, our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with honey; we bring it to the hive; and, like the bees, are murdered for our pains.

Henley Street

June 18, 1615

For months I kept at the writing of Antony and Cleopatra-Ellen seldom out of my mind. Yet the writing was an abatement of anguish, scenes lifting me out of maelstroms, Antony's turbulence alleviating mine.

Apartment and theatre were all I allowed myself, sharing time with Jonson, dividing mutual crusts.

Rain-rain-when has it rained more! It was well I had the Egyptian sun to keep my bones warm.

Some scenes evolved easily; others fought me, full of sound and fury. I could not visualize certain scenes on the stage and sometimes strange actors walked the boards and stole my lines, fixing them with their own personalities. Alleyn stalked as Caesar, and I had to re- write again and again.

Baxter affronted me with his buffoonery and I had to cross out his lines. Phips-our cheerful h.o.m.os.e.xual-had Cleopatra in his perfumed arms, jeering at me. Kempe jigged.

On top of all this, insomnia set in and never left me for weeks. March April May, it was the warmth of May that unlocked its crossbow and shot me outdoors, to sit and sit for hours.

There, in the sun, my shirt open, shoes off, gra.s.s alive, lilacs alive, birds twirping, I knew I could make Antony and Cleopatra successful. There in the sun people and river came alive. The sun's gnomon wrote. I bowed my head and waited. At my desk, I hurled my sentiency...

alive, it must come alive, to hurl aside life's muddle: alive: these people from the past must speak: nothing is more remote than yesterday: speak to them: make them chroniclers: break their sleep.

The Thames with anch.o.r.ed and sailing ships:

Ellen and Shakespeare on board a coaster,

leaning on the taffrail:

She settles her tam and quotes from Two Gentlemen of Verona.

They talk of Naples as sailors leer at them

from on top a stack of boxes.