How Shakespeare Wrote His Plays
:
The Panchronicon
As Francis Bacon returned to London from the Peacock, Phoebe had stood
at the foot of the steps leading into the courtyard and watched him
depart. She little foresaw the strange adventure into which he was
destined to lead her sister. Indeed, her thoughts were too fully
occupied with another to give admittance to Rebecca's image.
Her lover was in danger--danger to his life and honor. She knew he was
to be
saved, yet was not free from anxiety, for she felt that it was to
be her task to save him. To this end she had sent Bacon with his message
to Copernicus. She believed now that a retreat was ready for young
Fenton. How would her confidence have been shaken could she have known
that Copernicus had already left the Panchronicon and that Bacon had
been sent in vain!
In ignorance of this, she stood now at the foot of the stairs and let
her thoughts wander back to the day before, dwelling with tenderness
upon the memory of her lover's patient attendance upon her in that group
of rustic groundlings. With a self-reproachful ache at the heart she
pictured herself as she had sat far up in the gallery gazing downward
with every faculty centred upon the stage, while he, thinking only of
her----
She started and looked quickly to right and left. Why, it was here,
almost upon these very stones, that he had stood. Here she had seen him
for one moment at the last as she was leaving her seat. He was leaning
upon a rude wooden post. She sought it with her eyes and soon caught
sight of it not ten feet away.
Then she noticed for the first time that she was not alone. A young
fellow in the garb of a hostler stood almost where Guy had been the day
before. He paid no attention to Phoebe, for he was apparently deeply
preoccupied in carving some device upon the very post against which Guy
had leaned.
Already occupied with her own tenderness, she was quick to conclude that
here, too, was a lover, busy with some emblem of affection. Had not
Orlando cut Rosalind's name into the bark of many a helpless tree?
Clasping her hands behind her, she smiled at the lad with head thrown
back.
"A wager, lad!" she cried. "Two shillings to a groat thou art cutting a
love-token!"
The fellow looked up and tried to hide his knife. Then, grinning, he
replied:
"I'll no take your challenge, mistress. Yet, i' good faith, 'tis but to
crown another's work."
Then, pointing with his blade:
"See where he hath carved letters four," he continued. "Wi' love-links,
too. A watched un yestre'en, whiles the play was forward. A do but carve
a heart wi' an arrow in't."
She blushed suddenly, wondering if it were Guy who had done this.
Stepping to the side of the stable-boy, she examined the post.
The letters were in pairs. They were M. B. and G. F.
Her feeling bubbled over in a little half-stifled laugh.
"Silly!" she exclaimed. Then to the boy: "Know you him who cut the
letters?" she asked, with affected indifference.
"Nay, mistress," he replied, falling again to his work, "but he be a
rare un wi' the bottle."
"The bottle!" Phoebe exclaimed, in amazement. Then quite sternly:
"Thou beliest him, knave! No more sober--" She checked herself, suddenly
conscious of her indiscretion.
"Why, how knowest his habits?" she asked, more quietly.
"A saw un, mistress, sitting in the kitchen wi' two bottles o' Spanish
wine. Ask the player else."
"The player! What player?"
"Him as was drinking wi' him. Each cracked his bottle, and 'twas nip and
tuck which should call first for the second."
So Guy had spent the evening--those hours when she was tenderly
dreaming of him with love renewed--drinking and carousing with some
dissolute actor!
Within her Phoebe Wise and Mary Burton struggled for mastery of her
opinion.
What more natural than that a poor lad, tired with waiting on his feet
for hours for one look from the mistress who disdained him, should seek
to forget his troubles quaffing good wine in the company of some witty
player? This was Mary's view.
What! To leave the presence of his sweetheart--the girl to whom he had
just written that penitent letter--to go fresh from the inspiration of
all that should uplift a lover, and befuddle his brains with "rum,"
gossiping with some coarse-grained barn-stormer! So Phoebe railed.
"Who was the player?" she asked, sharply.
"Him as wore the long white beard," said the boy. "The Jew, to wit. Eh,
but a got his cess, the runnion!"
"Shylock!" she cried, in spite of herself.
So this was the gossiping barn-stormer, the dissolute actor. Will
Shakespeare it was with whom her Guy had spent the evening! Phoebe
Wise could but capitulate, and Mary Burton took for a time triumphant
possession of the heart that was Guy Fenton's.
"Have the players left the Peacock?" she asked, eagerly.
"Nay, mistress, know you not that they play to-night at the home of Sir
William Percy?"
"Then they are here, at the inn, boy?"
"A saw him that played the Jew i' the garden not a half hour since. He's
wont to wander there and mutter the words of the play. I'll warrant him
there now, mistress."
Here, indeed, was good fortune! Shakespeare was in the garden. He should
tell her where to find Guy that she might warn him. Quickly she turned
away and hurried out of the yard and around the north L, beyond which
was the garden, laid out with ancient hedges and long beds of
old-fashioned flowers.
Now this same garden was the chief pride of the neighborhood, the more
especially that gardens were but seldom found attached to inns in those
days. Here there had been a partly successful attempt to imitate Italian
landscape gardening; but the elaborately arranged paths, beds, and
parterres, with their white statues and fountains, lost their
effectiveness closed in as they were by high walls of vine-covered
brick. It was rumored that once a stately peacock had here once flaunted
his gorgeous plumage, giving his name to the inn itself--but this legend
rested upon little real evidence.
When Phoebe reached the entrance to the main walk she stopped and
looked anxiously about her. Nowhere could she see or hear anyone. Sadly
disappointed, she moved slowly forward, glancing quickly to right and
left, still hoping that he whom she sought had not utterly departed.
She reached a small stone basin surmounted by a statue of Plenty, whose
inverted horn suggested a copious stream long since choked up. Behind
the fountain there was a stone bench with a high back. Peeping behind
this, Phoebe found that a second seat was placed beyond the back,
inviting a seclusion whose expected purpose was distinctly suggested by
a sly little Cupid on a pedestal, holding one forefinger to his smiling
lips.
At this moment Phoebe was conscious of a distant mumbling to her left,
and, glancing quickly in that direction, she saw a plainly dressed,
bareheaded man of medium height just turning into the main walk out of a
by-path, where he had been hidden from view by a thick hedge of privet.
His eyes were turned upon some slips of paper which he held in one hand.
Could this be he? Shakespeare! The immortal Prince of Poets!
To Mary Burton, the approach of a mere player would have given little
concern. But Phoebe Wise, better knowing his unrivalled rank, was
seized with a violent attack of diffidence, and in an instant she dodged
behind the stone seat and sat in hiding with a beating heart.
The steps of the new-comer slowly approached. Phoebe knew not whether
pleasure or a painful fear were stronger within her. Here was indeed the
culmination of her strange adventure! There, beyond the stone which
mercifully concealed her, He was approaching--the wondrous Master Mind
of literature.
Would he go by unheeding? Could she let him pass on without one
glance--one word? And yet, how address him? How dare to show her face?
The slow steps ceased and at the same time he fell silent. She could
picture him gazing with unconscious eyes at the fountain while within he
listened to the Genius that prompted his majestic works. Again the
gravel creaked, and then she knew that he had seated himself on the
other bench. The two were sitting back to back with only a stone
partition between them.
To her own surprise, the diffidence which had oppressed her seemed now
to be gradually passing off. She still realized the privilege she
enjoyed in thus sharing his seat, but perhaps Mary Burton was gaining
her head as well as her heart, for she positively began to think of
leaving her concealment, contemplating almost unmoved a meeting with her
demi-god.
Then he spoke.
"The infant first--then the school-boy," he muttered. "So far good! The
third age--m--m--m--" There was a pause before he proceeded, slowly and
distinctly:
"Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing his heart out in a woful ballad--
m--m--m--Ah!--
Made to his mistress' eyebrow."
He chuckled audibly a moment, and then, speaking a little louder:
"Fenton to the life, poor lad!" he said.
Phoebe sat up very straight with a startled movement. Oh, to think of
it! That she should have forgotten Sir Guy! To have sought Will
Shakespeare for the sole purpose of tracing her threatened lover--and
then to forget him for a simple name--a mere celebrity!
Unconscious of the small inward drama so near at hand, the playwright
proceeded with his composition.
"'Sighing his heart out,'" he mused. "Nay, that were too strong a touch
for Jacques. Lighter--lighter." Then, after a moment of thought:
"Ay--ay!" he chuckled. "'Sighing like furnace'--poor Fenton! How like a
very furnace in his dolor! Yet did he justice to the Canary. So--so! To
go back now:
"Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow."
'Twill pass, in sooth, 'twill pass!"
Lightly Phoebe climbed onto the bench and peeped over the back. She
looked down sidewise upon the author, who was writing rapidly in an
illegible hand upon one of his paper slips.
There was the head so familiar to us all--the domelike brow, the long
hair hanging over the ears. This she could see, but of his face only
the outline of his left cheek was visible. Strange and unexpected to
herself was the light-hearted calm with which, now that she really saw
him, she could contemplate the great poet.
He ceased writing and leaned against the back, gazing straight ahead.
"The third age past, what then? Why the soldier, i' faith--the
soldier----"
"Full of strange oaths"
came a mischievous whisper from an invisible source--
"and bearded like the pard.
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth."
For a moment the poet sat as though paralyzed with astonishment. Then
rising, he turned and faced the daring girl.
Now she saw the face so well remembered and yet how little known before.
Round it was and smooth, save for the small, well-trimmed mustache above
the beautifully moulded mouth and chin--sensitive yet firm. But above
all, the splendid eyes! Eyes of uncertain color that seemed to Phoebe
mirrors of universal life, yet just now full of a perplexed admiration.
For she was herself the centre of a picture well fitted to arrest a
poet's attention. Her merry face was peering over the smooth white
stone, with four pink finger-tips on each side clinging for greater
security. Behind her a cherry-tree was dropping its snowy blossoms, and
two or three had fallen unheeded upon her wavy brown hair, making a
charming frame for the young eyes and tender lips whose smiling harmony
seemed to sing with arrant roguishness.
With a trilling laugh, half-suppressed, she spoke at last.
"A penny for your thoughts, Master Shakespeare!" she said.
The mood of the astonished player had quickly yielded to the girl's
compelling smile, and his fine lips opened upon a firm line of teeth.
"'Show me first your penny,'" he quoted.
"I'll owe you it."
He laughed and shook his head.
"That would I not my thoughts, damsel."
"Pay them, then. Pay straightway!" she pouted, "and see the account be
fair."
"Nay, then," he replied, bowing half-mockingly, "an the accountant be so
passing fair, must not the account suffer in the comparison?"
The face disappeared for a moment, and then Phoebe emerged from behind
the stone rampart, dusting her hands off daintily one against the other.
"Did not your wit exceed your gallantry, sir," she said, courtesying
slightly, "I had had my answer sooner."
Shakespeare was somewhat taken aback to see a developed young woman,
evidently of gentle birth, where he had thought to find the mere
prank-loving child of some neighboring cottager. Instantly his manner
changed. Bowing courteously, he stepped forward and began in a
deferential voice:
"Nay, then, fair mistress, an I had known----"
"Tut--tut!" she interrupted, astonished at her own boldness. "You
thought me a chit, sir. Let it pass. Pray what think you of my lines?"
"They seemed the whisper of a present muse," he said, gayly, but with
conviction in his voice. "'Twas in the very mood of Jacques, my lady--a
melancholy fellow by profession----"
"Holding that light which another might presently approve"--she broke
in--"and praise bestowing on ill deserts in the mere wantonness of a
cynic wit! What!--doth the cap fit?"
The amazement in her companion's face was irresistible, and Phoebe
burst forth into a spontaneous laugh of purest merriment.
"'A hit--a hit--a very palpable hit!'" she quoted, clapping her hands in
her glee.
"Were not witches an eldritch race," said Shakespeare, "you, mistress,
might well lie under grave suspicion."
"What--what! Do I not fit the wizened stamp of Macbeth's sisters
three?"
Shakespeare flung out his arms with a gesture of despair.
"Yet more and deeper mystery!" he cried. "My half-formed
plots--half-finished scraps--the clear analysis of souls whose only life
is here!" he tapped his forehead. "Say, good lady, has Will Shakespeare
spoken, perchance, in sleep--yet e'en so, how could----"
He broke off and coming to her side, spoke earnestly in lowered tones.
"Tell me. Have you the fabled power to read the soul? Naught else
explains your speech."
"Tell me, sir, first the truth," said Phoebe. "In all sadness, Master
Shakespeare, have you had aught from Francis Bacon? I mean by way of aid
in writing--or e'en of mere suggestion?"
"Bacon--Francis Bacon," said he, evidently at a loss. "There was one
Nicholas Bacon----"
"Nay, 'tis of his son I speak."
"Then, in good sooth, I can but answer 'No,' mistress; since that I knew
not even that this Nicholas had a son."
Phoebe heaved a sigh of relief and then went on with a partial return
of her former spirit.
"Then all's well!" she exclaimed. "I am a muse well pleased; and now, an
you will, I'll teach you straight more verses for your play."
"As you like it," said Shakespeare, bowing, half-amused and wholly
mystified.
"Good!" she retorted, brightly. "'As You Like It' shall you name the
piece, that henceforth this our conversation you may bear in mind."
Smiling, he took up his papers and wrote across the top of one of them
"As You Like It" in large characters.
"Now write as I shall bid you," Phoebe said. "Pray be seated, good my
pupil, come."
Then, seated there by Phoebe's side, the poet committed to paper the
whole of Jacques's speech on "The Seven Ages," just as Phoebe spoke it
from her memory of the Shakespeare club at home.
When he ceased scribbling, he leaned forward with elbows on his knees
and ran his eyes slowly and wonderingly over each line in turn,
whispering the words destined to become so famous. Phoebe leaned a
little away from her companion, resting one hand on the bench, while she
watched his face with a smile that slowly melted to the mood of dreamy
meditation. They sat thus alone in silence for some time, so still that
a wren, alighting on the path, hopped pecking among the stones at their
very feet.
At length the poet, without other change in position, turned his head
and looked searchingly and seriously into the young girl's eyes. What
amazing quality was it that stamped its impress upon the maiden's
face--a something he had never seen or dreamed of? Even a Shakespeare
could give no name to that spirit of the future out of which she had
come.
"Is it then true?" he said, in an undertone. "Doth the muse live? Not a
mere prompting inward sense, but in bodily semblance visiting the poet's
eye? Or art thou a creature of Fancy's colors blended, feigning
reality?"
Never before had the glamour of her situation so penetrated her to whom
these words were addressed. She was choked by an irrepressible sob that
was half a laugh, and a film of moisture obscured her vision. With a
sudden movement, she seized the poet's hand and pressed it to her lips.
Then, half-ashamed, she rose and turned away to toy with the foliage of
a shrub that stood beside the path.
"Nay, then!" Shakespeare cried, with something like relief in his voice,
"you are no insubstantial spirit, damsel. Yet would I fain more clearly
comprehend thee!"
There was a minute's pause ere Phoebe turned toward the speaker, that
spirit of mischief dancing again in her eyes and on her lips.
"I am Mary Burton, of Burton Hall," she said.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. And then again: "Oh!" with much of understanding and
something of disappointment.
"Is all clear now?" she asked, roguishly.
Shakespeare rose, and, shaking one finger playfully at her, he said:
"Most clear is this--that Sir Guy knows well to choose in love;
although, an I read you aright, my Mistress Mockery, his wife is like to
prove passing mettlesome. For the rest, your lover knows poor Will
Shakespeare's secrets--his Macbeth and half-written Hamlet. 'Tis with
these you have made so bold to-day! My muse, in sooth! Oh, fie--fie!"
And he shook his head, laughing.
"Indeed! In very sooth!" said Phoebe, with merry sarcasm. "And was it,
then, Guy who brought me these same lines of Jacques the melancholy?"
And she pointed to the papers in his hand.
"Nay, there I grant you," said the poet, shaking his head, while the
puzzled expression crept once more into his face.
"Ay, there, and in more than this!" Phoebe exclaimed. "You have spoken
of Hamlet, Master Shakespeare. Guy hath told me something of that
tragedy. This Prince of Denmark is a most unhappy wight, if I mistake
not. Doth he not once turn to thought of self-murder?"
"Ay, mistress. I have given Sir Guy my thoughts on the theme of Hamlet,
and have told him I planned a speech wherein should be made patent
Hamlet's desperate weariness of life, sickened by brooding on his
mother's infamy."
"'To be or not to be, that is the question,'" quoted Phoebe. "Runs it
not so?"
"This passes!" cried Shakespeare, once more all amazement. "I told not
this to your friend!"
"Nor did I from Guy receive it," said Phoebe. "Tell me, Master
Shakespeare, have you yet brought that speech to its term?"
"No," he replied, "nor have I found the task an easy one. Much have I
written, but 'tis all too slight. Can you complete these lines, think
you?"
"My life upon it!" she cried, eagerly.
He shook his head, smiling incredulously.
"You scarce know what you promise," he said. "Can one so young--a
damsel, too--sound to its bitter deeps the soul of Hamlet!"
"Think you so?" Phoebe replied, her eyes sparkling. "Then what say you
to a bargain, Master Shakespeare? You know where Sir Guy Fenton may be
found?"
"Ay, right well! 'Tis a matter of one hour's ride."
"So I thought," she said. "Hear, then, mine offer. I must perforce
convey a message straight that touches the life and honor of Sir Guy. To
send my servant were over-dangerous, for there may be watchers on my
going and coming. Will you go, sir, without delay, if that I speak for
you the missing lines completing young Hamlet's soliloquy?"
Shakespeare looked into her face for a few moments in silence.
"Why, truly," he said at last, "I have here present business with my
fellow-player Burbidge." He paused, and then, yielding to the pleading
in her eyes: "Yet call it a bargain, mistress," he said. "Speak me the
lines I lack and straightway will I take your word to Sir Guy."
"Now blessings on thee!" cried Phoebe. "Give me straight the line you
last have written."
At once the poet began:
"When he himself might his quietus make----"
"With a bare bodkin"--broke in the excited girl. "Who would fardels
bear, to grunt and sweat beneath a weary life, but that the thought of
something after death--the undiscovered country from whose bourne no
traveller returns--puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear the ills
we have than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does
make cowards of us all, and so the native hue of resolution is sicklied
o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and
moment by this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of
action."
"No more--no more!" cried Shakespeare, in an ecstasy. "More than
completely hast thou made thy bargain good, damsel unmatchable! What!
Can it be! Why here have we the very impress of young Hamlet's soul--'To
grunt and sweat beneath a weary life'--feel you not there compunction
and disgust, seeing in life no cleanly burden, but a 'fardel' truly,
borne on the greasy shoulders of filthy slaves!"
He turned and paced back and forth upon the gravel, repeating without
mistake and with gestures and accents inimitable the lines which
Phoebe had dictated. She watched him, listening attentively, conscious
that what she saw and heard, though given in a moment, were to be
carried with her forever; convinced as well that she was for something
in this, and thankful while half afraid.
Reaching the end of the soliloquy, Shakespeare turned to the maiden, who
was still standing, backed by the warm color of a group of peonies.
"Nay, but tell me, damsel," he cried, appealingly. "Explain this power!
Art thou, indeed, no other than Mary Burton?"
How refuse this request? And yet--what explanation would be believed?
Perhaps, if she had time, she thought, some intelligible account of the
truth would occur to her.
"And have you forgot your bargain so soon?" she said, reproachfully
shaking her head. "Away, friend, away! Indeed, the matter is urgent and
grave. If, when you return, you will ask for Mary Burton, knowing your
task fulfilled, she may make clear for you what now must rest in
mystery."
"You say well," he replied. "Give me your message, and count fully on
Will Shakespeare to carry it with all despatch and secrecy."
Phoebe's face grew grave as she thought of all that depended on her
messenger. She stepped closer to her companion and glanced to right and
left to make sure they were still alone. Then, drawing from her finger a
plain gold ring, she offered it to her companion, who took it as she
spoke.
"If you will show this to Sir Guy," she said, "he will know that the
case is serious. It beareth writing within the circle--'Sois fidele'--do
you see?"
"Be faithful--ay."
"'Twill be an admonition for you both," said Phoebe, with a faint
smile. "Tell him to be in the lane behind the Peacock garden at sunset
to-morrow even with two good horses, one for himself and one for me.
Tell him to come alone and to travel by back ways. Bid him in my
name--in God's name--close till then, trusting in me that there is need.
Tell him to obey now, that later he may have the right to command."
"Good!" said Shakespeare. "And now good-by until we meet again."
A parting pressure of the hand, and he turned to go to the stables. She
stood by the fountain musing, her eyes fixed on the entrance gate of the
garden until at length a horseman galloped past. He rose in his stirrups
and waved his hand. She ran forward, swept by a sudden dread of his
loss, waving her hands in a passionate adieu.
When she reached the gate no one was in sight.