 Chapter 13 of Shakespeare Personal Recollections This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Shakespeare Personal Recollections by John A. Joyce Chapter 13. Two Tramps by Land and Sea Travelers must be content. Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower safety. The translation of Petrarch, Plutarch, Tacitus, Terence, and particularly Homer by Chapman gave a great impulse to dramatic writers and inspired a feverish desire to travel through classic lands where classic authors lived and died. Shakespeare was a natural bohemian, and while he could conform to the conventionalities of society, he was never more pleased than when mixing with the variegated mass of mankind, where vice and virtue predominated without the guilt of hypocrisy to blur and blast the principles of sincerity. Art, fashion, and human laws he knew to be often only blinds for the concealment of plastic iniquity, and were secretly purchased by the few who had the gold to buy. By sinking the grappling iron of independent investigation into every form and phase of human life, he plucked from the deepest ocean of adversity the rarest shells, weeds, and flowers of thought, and spread them before the world as a new revelation. By mingling with and knowing the good and bad, he solved the riddle of human passions, and with mind, tongue, and pen unpurchased, he flashed his matchless philosophy on an admiring world, lifting the curtain of deceit and obscurity from the stage of falsehood, giving to the beholder a sight of nature in her unexpurgated nakedness. On the 1st of May 1598, William and myself determined to travel into and around continental and oriental lands, and view some of the noted monuments, cities, seas, plains, and mountains where ancient warriors and philosophers had left their imperishable records. Sailing through the Strait of Dover into the English Channel, our good ship Albion landed us in three days at heart, the port town at the mouth of the river Seine, leading on to Rowan and to the ancient city of Paris. Our good ship Albion was to remain a week trading between Harve and Cherbourg, when we were to be again on board for a lengthy trip to the various ports of the Mediterranean. Our first night in Paris was spent at the hotel Reims, a jolly headquarters for students, painters, authors, and actors. LaMoure was the blooming host, with his daughter Nanette as the coquettish roperin. Father and daughter spoke English about as well as William and myself spoke French, and what was not understood by our mutual words and phrases was explained by our gesticulation of hand, shoulder, foot, eye, and clicking franks and sovereigns. Cash speaks all languages, and it is a very ignorant mortal who can't understand the voice of gold and silver. Franks, pounds, and dollars are the real monarchs of mankind. William in a prophetic mood recited these few lines to the boys at the bar. With circumspect steps as we pick our way through this intricate world, as all prudent folks do, may we still on our journey be able to view the benevolent face of a dollar or two. For an excellent thing is a dollar or two, no friend is so true as a dollar or two. In country or town, as we pass up and down, we are cock of the wok with a dollar or two. Do you wish that the press should the decent thing do and give your reception a gushing review, describing the dresses by stuff, style, and hue, on the quiet hand Jenkins a dollar or two. For the pen sells its praise for a dollar or two, and flings its abuse for a dollar or two. You'll find that it's easy to manage the crew when you put up the shape of a dollar or two. Do you wish your existence with faith to imbue, and so become one of the sanctified few, who enjoy a good name and a well-cushioned pew, you must freely come down with a dollar or two. For the gospel is preached for a dollar or two, salvation is reached for a dollar or two. Sins are pardoned sometimes, but the worst of all crimes is to find yourself short of a dollar or two. Although the bard delivered this truthful poem off hand, so to speak, in broken French, the cosmopolitan polyglot audience caught on and shipped the Stratford poacher a wave of tumultuous cheers. That very night at the theater Saint-Germain, the new play of Garnier, duvet, was to be enacted before Henry IV and a brilliant audience. William and myself were invited by a band of rollicking students to join them in a front bench clapping committee, as Garnier himself was to take the part of Old King Nebuchadnezzar in the great play, illustrating the siege and capture of Jerusalem. The curtain went up at eight o'clock, and the French actors began their mimic contortions of face, lips, legs and shoulders for three mortal hours, and while there was a constant shifting of scenes, citizens, soldiers, Jews and battering rams, yells, groans and cheers, it looked as if the audience, including King Henry, was doing the most of the acting and all the cheering. A maniac would be thoroughly at home in a French theater. The play had neither head, tail nor body, but it was sufficient for the excitable, revolutionary Frenchman to see that the Jews were being robbed, banished and slaughtered in the interest of Christianity and the late Jesus, who was reported as having taught the lessons of love, charity and mercy. The Son of God, it seems, had been crucified more than fifteen hundred years before the audience had been created, and although Old Neb of Babylon had destroyed a million of Hebrews several hundred years previous to the birth of the Bethlehem, Saviour of Mankind, the frog and snail-eaters of France were still breaking their lungs and throats in cheering for the destruction of anybody. It was one o'clock in the morning when we got back to the hotel, and with the bacchanalian racket made by the students and fantastic grissettes, it must have been nearly daylight before William and myself fell into the arms of sleep. Sliding into the realm of dreams, I heard the mammoth man murmur, sleep that knits up the raviled sleeve of care, the death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast. Rodel, Léreny, Cornier, Mollier, Racine, La Fontaine, Rousseau, Voltaire, Baljack, or even Hugo never uttered such masterly philosophy. After partaking of a French breakfast smothered with herbs and mystery, we hired a fancy phaton and valuable driver to whir us around the principal streets, parks and buildings of the rushing, brilliant city, everything moving as if the devil were out with a search warrant for some of the stray citizens of his imperial dominions. The driver spoke English very well, and with a telephone voice surcharged with monkey gestures, we listened to and saw the history of Paris from the advent of Caesar, Clovis, Charlemagne, to Louis and Henry. A city directorie would have been a surplusage, and we flattered the garçon by seeming to believe everything he said, exclaiming, oh my, do tell, gee whiz, did you ever wonderful, and never saw the like. As our mentor and Nestor pulled up at noted wine cafes to water his horse, we contributed to his own irrigation and our champagne thirst. Be good to yourself. It was sundown when we nestled in the hotel reams, but had been richly repaid in our visit to the King's Palace, the Great Louvre, Saint Denis, Notre Dame and the great cathedrals, picture galleries, cemeteries and monuments that decorated imperial Paris. The evening before we left Paris, we accepted the invitation of Garnier to visit the Latin Quarter. The playwright did not know William or myself except as young English lords, Buckingham and Bacon, traveling for information and pleasure, sowing wild financial oaths with the liberality of princes. A well-dressed, polite man with lots of money and a spender from way back is a welcome guest in home, church and state, and when it comes to the ladies, he is of course a jewel, a trump and darling. They know a soft snap when they see it. Some of us have been there. While basking under the light of flashing eyes and sparkling wine at the Royal Café, surrounded by a dozen of the artistic friends of the toast of the town, Garnier said he noticed us in the front bench the night before, and knowing us to be Englishmen was desirous to know how his play, depicting the Siege of Jerusalem, compared with the new man Shakespeare, who had recently loomed up into the dramatic sky. William winked at me in a kind of soto voce way, and with that natural exuberance or intellectual gall that never fails to strike the bullseye, I bluntly said that Garnier's philosophy and composition were as different from Shakespeare's as the earth from the heaven. The Frenchman arose and made an extended bow when his girlfriends yelled like the rebels at Shiloh, and kicked off the tall hat of the noted French dramatist, Great Sport. Extra wine was ordered, and then an improvised ballet girl jumped into the middle of the wine-room with circus antics, champagne glasses in hand, singing the praises of the great and only Garnier. Poor devil, he did not know that my criticism was a double-ender, just as well. I cannot exactly remember how I got to the hotel, but when William aroused my latent energies the next morning, I felt as if I had been put through a Kentucky corn-sheller or caught up in a Texas blizzard and blown into the middle of Kansas. William was, as usual, calm, polite, sober, and dignified, and while he touched the wine cup for sociability in search of human hearts, I never saw him intoxicated. He had a marvelous capacity of body and brain, and like an earthly Jupiter, he shone over the variegated satellites around him with the force and brilliancy of the morning sun. He was so far above other thinkers and writers that no one who knew him felt a pang of jealousy, for they sighed it was impossible to even twinkle in the heaven of his philosophy. The day before leaving Paris, we visited Versailles and wandered through its pictured palaces, drinking in the historical milestones of the past. Here, lords, kings, queens, farmers, mechanics, shopkeepers, sailors, soldiers, robbers, murderers, and beggars had appropriated in turn these royal halls and stately gardens. Riot and revolution swept over these memorials like a winter storm, and the thunder and lightning strokes of civil and foreign troops had desolated the works of art, genius, and royalty. Nations rise and fall like individuals, and a thousand or ten thousand years of time are only a tick in the clock of destiny. Early on the morning of the seventh of May 1598, we went on board a light double-oared galley, swung into the sparkling waters of the Seine, and proceeded on our way to Rowan and Harve. The morning sun sparkling on the tall spires and towers, the songs of the watermen and gardeners, whirring ropes, flashing flags, blooming flowers, green parks, forest vistas, shining cottages, grand mansions and lofty castles, in the shimmering distance gave the suburbs of Paris a phase of enchantment that lifted the soul of the beholder into the fairy realm of dreamland. And as our jolly crew rode away with rhythmic sweep, we lay under a purple awning, sheltered from the midday sun, gazing out on the works of dame nature with entranced amazement. William, in one of his periodical bursts of impromptu poetry, uttered these lines on, Creation. The smallest grain of ocean sand, or continent of mountain land, with all the stars and suns we see, are emblems of eternity. God reigns in everything he made, in man, in beast, in hill and glade, in some and substance of all birth, component parts of heaven and earth. The moving, ceaseless vital air is managed by almighty care, and from the center to the rim, all creatures live and die in him. We know not why we come and go into this world of joy and woe, but this we know that every hour is clipping off our pride and power. The links of life that make our pain of golden joy and passing pain are broken rudely day by day and like the mists we melt away. The voice of nature never lies, presents to all her varied skies and wraps within her vernal breast the dust of man in pulseless rest. A billion years of life and death are but a moment or a breath to one unknown immortal force who guides the planets in their course. As the stars began to peep through the gathering curtains of night, and the young moon like a broken circle of silver split the evening sky, we came in sight of the busy town of Rowan, with its embattled walls and iron gates still bidding defiance to British invasion. After a night slumber and a speedy passage, our galley drew up against the side of our stout ship Albion, where gallant Captain Jack O'Neill greeted us on board and refreshed our manhood with a fine breakfast interspersed with brandy and champagne. The next morning, with all sails filled, we wafted away into the open waters of the rolling Atlantic Ocean, touching at the town of Breast, lands and Port of France, and then away to Caruna in Spain and on to Lisbon, Portugal, where we remained three days viewing the architectural and natural sites of the great commercial and shipping city of the Tagus. About the middle of May, we swung out again into the breakers of Old Ocean and held our course to the wonderful Strait of Gibraltar, separating Europe from Africa, whose inland classic shores are bathed by the emerald waters of the romantic Mediterranean Sea. We remained for a day at the rocky, stormy town of Gibraltar, meeting variegated men of all lands, who spoke all dialects and preached and practiced all religions. The pagan, the Muslim, the Buddhist, the Jew and the Christian, dressed in the garb of their respective nationalities, were wrangling, trading, praying and swearing in all languages, everyone grasping for the almighty dollar. As the sun went down over the shining shoulders of the western Atlantic, flashing its golden rays over the moving liquid floor of the heaving ocean and Mediterranean Sea, William and myself stood on the topmost crag of giant Gibraltar, and the bard sent forth this impulsive sigh from his romantic soul. How I long to roam o'er the bounding sea, where the waters and winds are fierce and free, where the wild bird sails in his tireless flight, as the sunrise scatters the shades of night, where the porpoise and dolphin sport at play in their liquid realm of green and gray. Ah, me, it is there I would love to be engulfed in the tomb of eternity. In the midnight hour when the moon hangs low and the stars beam forth with a mystic glow, when the mermaids float on the rolling tide, and Neptune entangles his beaming bride. It is there in that phosphorescent wave I would gladly sink in an ocean grave, to rise and fall with the songs of the sea, and live in the chant of its memory. Around the world my form should sweep, part of the glorious limitless deep, enmeshed by fate in some coral cave, and rising again to the topmost wave, that curls in beauty its snowy spray, and kisses the light of the garish day. Ah, there let me drift when this life is o'er, to be tossed and tumbled from shore to shore. I clapped my hands intensely at the rendition of the poem, and echo from her rocky caves sent back the applause, while the seagulls in their circling flight screamed in chorus to the voice of echo and the eternal roar of old ocean. At sunrise we sailed away into the landlocked waters of the Mediterranean Sea, where man for a million years has loved, lived, fought and died among beautiful blooming islands, that nestle on its bosom like emeralds in the crown of immortality. We passed along the coast of Spain to Cape now, inside of the Balearic Islands, onto Barcelona, to the mouth of the river Rhone, and up to the ancient city of Avignon. In and around this city, popes, princes, and imperial warriors lived in royal style, but they are virtually forgotten, while Petrarch, the poetic saint and laureate of Italy, is as fresh in the memory of man as the day he died, July 18th, 1374, at the age of 70. William and myself remained all night at the lodge house of the gardens of Vaclus, the hermit home of the sighing, soaring poet who pined his family in platonic love for Laura, who married Hugh de Sade, when she was only 17 years of age, and presented the noblemen ten children as pledges of her home-spun affection. And this is the married lady who Petrarch, the poet, wasted his sonnets upon, and was treated, in fact, as we were told by the oldest inhabitant of Avignon, with superlicious contempt. Boccaccio and Petrarch were intimate friends, and both of these passionate poets lavished their love on married flirts, who gave promise to the ear and disappointment to the heart. I could see that while Shakespeare reveled deep in the mental philosophy of Petrarch, and even plucked a flower from his rustic bower, he had no sympathy with love's sick swains, and as we signed our names in the lodge house-book, he wrote this, Petrarch, grand immortal in thy sonnets, sugared by the eloquence of philosophy, destined to shine through the rolling ages, emulating, competing with the stars. Thy love for Laura, pure, unreciprocated, yet thou foolish man, passion dazed and sad, like many of the greatest of mankind, lie dashed in the veil of disappointment, and flowers of hope given by women have crowned thy vows with nettles of despair. Next day the Albion sailed into the Mediterranean, passed by the island of Corsica, cradle of one of the greatest soldiers of the world, through the Strait of Bonifacio and in due course kept on to the flourishing city of Naples. It was dark twilight when we came to peer into the surrounding hills and mountains of classic Italy. To the wonder and amazement of every passenger on board, Mount Vesuvius was in brilliant action, and the flash of sparks and blazing lights from this huge chimney top of nature dazzled the beholder, and produced a fearful sensation in the soul. As the great jaws of the mountain opened its fiery lips and belched forth molten streams of lava, shooting a million red hot meteors into the caves of night, the earth and ocean seemed to tremble with the sound, and birds and beasts of prey rushed screaming and howling to their nightly homes. Shakespeare and Trance stood on the bow of the ship and soliloquized. Great God, almighty in thy temple realm, and mysterious in thy matchless might, suns, moons, planets, stars, ocean, earth and air move in harmony at thy supreme will, and yonder torch light of eternity blazing into heaven, candle of omnipotence, lights thy poor wandering human midgets, and hundred miles at sea with lofty hope that nothing exists or dies in vain, but changed into another form lives on through countless boundless blazing brilliant worlds beyond this transient seething, suffering sod. At this moment the vessel struck the dock and lurched William out of his reverie, coming within an ace of gold, reaching the poet into the harbor of Naples. Captain O'Neill informed us that he would be engaged on loading and loading his ship for a week or ten days at Naples before he started for Sicily, Greece and Egypt. William and myself concluded to hire a guide and ride in tramp by land to Rome and view the ancient capital and test the hospitality of the Italians. Early the next morning we set out for the trip, perched on her seven hills and enlightening the world with the radiance of her classic memorials. Our guide, Petro, was a villainous looking fellow, yet the landlord of the hotel Colombo told us he was well acquainted with the mountain bypass and open roads, and could in the event of meeting robbers be of great service to us. Petro wanted ten florins in advance and wine and bread on the road, and as we could not do any better, the bargain was made, and off we tramped through the great city of Milan, scaling the surrounding hills and pulling up as the sun went down at the town of Teresino. After a good night's rest and hot breakfast, we started on horseback through a mountain trail for the banks of the Tiber, but when within three miles of the Capitoline Hills, Petro seemed to lose his way and rode off into the underbrush to find it. We stopped in the trail and in less than five minutes after the disappearance of our faithful guide, we were captured by a gang of bandits, whose garb and countenance convinced us that robbery or murder or both would be our fate. We were dragged off our horses, hustled into the forest gloom, through briars, over streams and rocks, until finally pitched into the tip-top mountain layer of Roderick the Terrible. The evening campfire was lit, and Tamora, the queen of the robbers, with a couple of robber cooks, was preparing supper for the whole band when they returned from their daily avocations. They seemed to be a jolly set, and with joke, laughter and song, these chivalric sons of sunny Italy were relating their various exploits and laughing at the trepidation and futile resistance of their former victims. Just before the band sat around on the ferny, pine-clad rocks for supper, Roderick addressed William and asked him if he had anything to say why he should not be robbed and murdered. William said he was perfectly indifferent for, being only a writer of plays and an actor, working for the amusement of mankind, he let a kind of dog's life anyhow, and didn't give a damn what they did with him. The robber chief gave a yell to the roar that could be heard for three miles along the columned pines and oaks of the Apennines and yelled, bully for you, shake. Roderick then turned to me and said who are you? I replied at once I am a fool and a poet. He grasped my hand intensely and yelled I am another that sealed our friendship. Then these gay and festive robbers invited us to partake of the best in the mountain wilds with the request that after the evening feast was over we should give samples of our trade. With the blazing light of a mountain fire hemmed in by inaccessible rocks and gulches from a table rock overhanging a roaring dashing stream five thousand feet below William stood and was requested to give a sample of his dramatic poetry for the edification of the beautiful cutthroat audience, and this, as I well remember, was his encomium in Latin to the gentlemen and queen of independent gold-getting, robbing, murdering, fantastic Italian society. When first I beheld your noble band, pounce from rock and lairs vernal, my soul and hair were lifted with admiration and amazement. Free as air, ye sons of immortal sires, hold these craigs defiant still as eagles in their onward sweep. Citizens of destiny, entertainment awaits your advent, even beneath yon-columned capital. The emperors, pampered in power, were subject to some human laws, but you, great wonderful chief, Roderick the terrible and fierce, so superior over all bloody villain, force with gold and silver alone dictating thy generous onslaughts. Caesar, Pompey, and Scipio could not compete with thy valor, only Nero, Paragon of Infamy could match the renown of Roderick, thy fame, great chief, boundless as the globe. Italy, Spain, France, and England pay constant tribute to thy purse, travelers and pilgrims, seeking glory by kissing the pope's big toe, drop their golden coin and jewels into its capaceous. Hear me, ye sprites of Apennine, and the ghouls of murdered travelers, let the circumambient air ring with universal cheers for Roderick, the glory of robbers, and the terror of mankind, whirlwind of cheers. At the conclusion of William's apostrophe to the Prince of Robbers, Tamora the Fair Queen jabbed me with a pondyard and ordered me to sing. I mounted the platform rock overlooking the horrible veil below and sang in my sweetest strain Black-eyed Susan gesticulating at the conclusion of each verse in the direction of the Queen who seemed to be charmed with my voice and audacity. An encore was demanded with a yell of delight and I forthwith sang the new song America which was cheered to the echo, and as they still insisted that I go on, I rendered in my best voice the recent composition of Hiawatha. The robber band yelled like wild Indians, and the Fair Queen took me to her pine bower and fondled me into the realm of dreams, although I could see that Roderick was disposed to throw me on the rocks below, but the madame was boss of that mountain ranch and gave orders with her pondyard. As the earliest beams of mourning lit up the crests of the Apennines, we fed on a roast of robe buck and quail and barley bread washed down by goblets of Felnerian wine that had been captured the day before from a pleasure party from Bryndisi. The goblets we drank from were skulls of former citizens of the world who attempted to dally with the dictates of Roderick. The noble chief Roderick and his imperial queen, Timora, who seemed to rule her terrible husband, with rid of the most villainous cutthroats it had ever been my misfortune to behold, gave us a great send-off from their inaccessible mountain lair. Roderick gave William a talismanic ring that shown to any of his brother robbers on the globe would at once secure safety and hospitality. Timora, in her sweetest mountain manner, gave me a diamond-hilted pondyard, and then with a fraud diavolo chorus we were waved off down the precipitous crags with a special guide on the main road leading to Imperial Rome. William and myself drew long breaths after we had passed the Horatio Bridge and planted our feet firmly on the Apian Way, leading direct to the precincts of St. Peter's with its lofty dome shining in the morning sun. Gentle reader, if you have never been in battle or captured by robbers, you needn't hanker for the experience, but take it as you would your clothing second hand. At the Hotel Caesar we brushed the dust from our anatomy and ordered dinner, which was served in fine style by a lineal descendant of the great Julius who wore a spreading mustache, a purple smile, and an abbreviated white apron. In the afternoon we called on Pope Clement, who had heard of our experience with the robbers and seemed very much interested in the narration of the details of our capture and entertainment. Clement seemed to be a nice, smooth man, setting on a purple chair with a purple skullcap on his head and a purple robe on his fat form. His big toe was presented to us for adoration, but as we did not seem to add, he withdrew his pedal attachment and talked about the relics and the weather. We did not purchase any relics from Rome in weather, no mortal who tries it in summer desires a second dose. There seemed to be a continuous smell of something dead in the atmosphere of Rome, while the droves of virgins, monks, priests, bishops, and cardinals seemed to be pressing through the streets night and day, begging, singing, riding, and like ants coming and going out of the churches continually. Selling relics, Psalm singing was about all the business we could see in the imperial city. It is very funny how a full habit will cling to the century pismires of humanity and actually blind the elements of common sense and patient truth. We were offered a job lot of relics for five florins which included a piece of the true cross, a bit of the rope that hung Judas, a couple of hairs from the head of the Virgin Mary, from the apple of Mother Eve, a part of the toenail of St. Thomas, a finger of St. John, a thigh bone of St. Paul, a tooth of St. Antony, and a feather of the cock of St. Peter. But we persistently declined the proffered honors and true relics of antiquity, spending the five florins for a night liner to wheel us about the grand architectural sites of the city of the Caesars. The night before leaving Rome, William and myself climbed upon the topmost rim of the crumbling Colosseum and gazed down upon the sleeping moonlit capital with entranced admiration. The night was almost as bright as day, and the mystic rays of the realm of Luna shining on gate, arch, column, spire, tower, temple and dome revealed to us the ghosts of vanished centuries and from the depths of the Colosseum there seemed to rise the shouts of a hundred thousand voices cheering the gladiator from Gaul who had just slain a Numidian lion in the arena when, with thumbs up, he was proclaimed the victor decorated with a crown of laurel and given his freedom forever. Shakespeare could not resist his natural gift of exuberant poetry to sound these chunks of eloquence to the midnight air while I listened with enraptured enthusiasm to the elocution of the bard. Hark! Saint Peter with his brazen tongue voices the hour of twelve. The wizard tones of timeless time thrills the silvery air. The multitudinous world sleeps Pope and beggar alike in the land of lingering dreams oblivious of glory, poverty or war destructive. Sleep, the daily death of all, throws her mesmeric mantle over Prince and Popper and care, vulture of fleeting life folds her bedraggled wings to rest a space till first cock-crow hails the glimmering dawn with piercing tones triumphant. Father Tiber roaring moves along under rude stony arches and chafes the wrinkled rocky shores as when Romulus and Remus suckled wolf of Apennines. Vane are all the triumphs of man, these temples reaching up to the brilliant stars in soaring grandeur vast shall pass away like morning mist leaving a wilderness of ruins. And where now sits pride, wealth and fraud pampered in purple power, the lizard, the bat and the wolf shall hold their habitation and the vine and the ragweed swaying in the whistling winds shall sing their mournful requiem. The silence of dark Babylon shall brood where millions struggled and not shall be heard in cruel Rome but the wail of the midnight storm echoing among the broken columns of its lofty vanished glory where vain presumptive midget man promised himself immortality. After five days of sight-seeing we took the public stage for Milan guarded by soldiers and arrived safely on board the Albion which sailed away through the Strait of Messina around classic Greece to Nagropont and on to Alexandria Egypt where we anchored for a load of dates, figs and Persian spices. William and myself took a boat up the Nile to Cairo and hired a guide to steer us over the desert to the far-famed pyramids. There in the wild waste of desert sands these monuments to forgotten kings and queens lift their giant peaks appealing to the centuries for recognition but although the great granite stone memorials still remain as a wonder to mankind the dark silent mummies that sleep within and around these funereal emblems give back no sure voice as to when and where they lived grows and fell in the long night of Egyptian darkness. Remains of vast buried cities are occasionally exposed by the shifting searching storm winds of the desert and many a modern Arab has cooked his frugal breakfast by splinters picked up from the bones of his ancestors. It was night when we got to the pyramids and we concluded to camp with an Arab and his family at the base of the great Cheops until next morning and then before sunrise scale its steep steps and lofty crest. A few silver coins ensured us a warm greeting from the Arab family who seemed to vie with each other in preparing a hot supper and clean couches. They sang their desert songs until nearly midnight the daughter Cleo playing on the harp with dexterous fingers and throwing a soft soprano voice upon the air like the tones of an angel echoing over a bank of wild flowers. Standing on the pinnacle of the pyramid William again struck one of his theatrical attitudes and without stretched hands exclaimed immortal soul image of omnipotence to the I lift my soul in pure devotion out of desert wilds in golden splendor rise and flash thy crimson face eternal across the wastes of shifting sentry sands again is mirrored in my sighing soul the lofty temples and bastioned walls of Memphis fallback Nineveh Babylon gone from the earth like vapor from old Nile when thy noon day beams lick up its waters Hark! I hear again the vanished voices of lofty memnon where proud pagan priests syllable the matin hour uttering prophecies from Jupiter and Apollo to devotees deluded then as now by astronomical selfish fakers who pretend claim to heavenly agency and power over human souls divine poor bamboozled man no god never yet empowered any one of his truant tribe to ride with a creed rod image of himself and thou oh soul giver of light and heat speed the hour when man out of superstition shall leap into the light of pure reason only believing in everlasting truth in a short time we crossed the sands of the desert and interviewed the sphinx but with that battered incontinence wrinkled by the winds and sands of ages those granite lips still refused to give up the secrets of its stony heart or tell us the mysteries of buried antiquity we were soon again in the cabin of the Albion sailing away to Athens where we anchored for two days William and myself ran hourly risk of breaking our legs and necks among the classic ruins of Athenian genius Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripides, Pericles, Elciabades, Demosthenes, Zeno, Solon, Domesticles, Leonidas, Philip and Alexander had lived and loved in their glorious imperishable careers. We went on top of Mars Hill and climbed to the top of the ruined acropolis disturbing a few lizards, spiders, bats, brooks and pigeons that made a consequence of Greece once ruled the world. William made a move to strike one of his accustomed dramatic attitudes but I pulled him off remarking that he could not, in an impromptu way, do justice to the occasion and intimated that when he arrived at the red lion in London he could write up Cleopatra and Antony and the ten-years siege of Troy with Helen, Agamemnon, Paris, Troilus, Cressida and Hector as star performers in the plays. It was not very often that I interfered with William in his personal movements and aspirations but as he had given so much of his poetry in illustration of our recent travels and knowing that I was in honor bound to report to posterity all he said and did as his mental stenographer I begged him to give us a rest and let it go that. The next day the Albion bore away for the Strait of Gibraltar rounding Portugal, Spain and France sailing into the Strait of Dover past Gravesend until we anchored in safety under the shadow of the Black Friars Theatre where a jolly crowd of Bohemians greeted our rapid and successful tour of continental and classic lands. This accident and flood of fortune so far exceed the importance all discourse that I am ready to distrust mine eyes and wrangle with my reason that persuades me to any other trust. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of Shakespeare Personal Recollections This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Shakespeare Personal Recollections by John A. Joyce Chapter 14 Windsor Park Midsummer Night's Dream This is the Fairyland. O spite of Spites we talk with goblins, owls and elfish sprites. To still a dream or else such stuff as madmen, tongue and brain. If music be the food of love play on, give me excess of it. Shakespeare had blocked out the play of Midsummer Night's Dream in the year 1593 and completed it in the summer of 1599. The story of Palamon and Arsite by Chaucer and the love of Athenian Thesias for the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta as told by Plutarch gave William his first idea of composing a play where the acts of fairies and human beings would wait in their loves and jealousies. One evening while seated at the Falcon Tavern in company with the Earl of Southampton, Essex, Florio, Bacon, Cecil, Warwick, Burbage, Drayton, and Johnson, William read the main points of the play, which was lauded to the skies by all present. Burbage, the manager of the Globe, suggested to Essex and Southampton that it would be a grand idea enacted in the Park and Woods of Windsor. It was a novel idea and one sure to catch the romantic sentiments of Queen Elizabeth as Old Duke Thesias, the cross-purposed lovers, Bottom and his rude theatrical troop, and the fairies led by Oberon, Titania, and Puck could have full swing in the forest sporting their natural elements. In reading or viewing the play the mind wanders in a mystic groove by moonlight and breathes at every step odors of sweet flowers while listening to the musical murmurings of fantastic fairies and echoing hounds in forest glens. Thesias was the first and greatest Grecian in strength of body, second only to his cousin Hercules, each reveling in the godlike antics of seduction, incest, rape, robbery, and murder. The Persian, Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman gods co-mingled with the heroes and heroines of mankind and committed unheard of crimes with impunity, the most outrageous villain seeming to be honored as the greatest god. The amphitheater grove in front of Windsor Castle overlooking the Thames was the play selected for the exhibition of the dream. Natural circular terraces for the spectators. The Virgin Queen had sent out 5,000 invitations to her wealthy and intellectual subjects to attend the new and romantic play of Shakespeare Midsummer Night's Dream on the 4th of July, 1599. Everything had been prepared in the way of natural and artificial scenery by the decoration of William while the Queen sat on a silver throne and bowered in vines and roses surrounded by all her courtiers, ladies, and lords in grand golden array. The night was calm, bright, and warm while the young moon and twinkling stars shining over Windsor lent a celestial radiance to the scene where lovers and fairies mingled in the meshes of affection. Candles, torches, chimes, lanterns, and stationary fire balloons were interspersed through the royal domain in brilliant profusion. Essex and Southampton were, unfortunately absent in Ireland putting down a rebellion. William took the part of Theseus. Field played Hippolyta. Burbage played Puck. Hemengy represented Lysanter and Condell Demetrius while Phillips and Cook played, respectively, Hermia and Helen. Joe Taylor played Oberon and Robert Benfield acted Titania, the Fairy Queen. The characters Pyramus and Thisby were played by Peele and Cross. The play opens with a grand scene and the place of Theseus who thus addresses the Amazonian queen Hippolyta. Now, fair Hippolyta, our mutual hour draws on a pace. Four happy days bring in another moon. But, oh, me thinks, how slow this old moon wanes. She lingers my desires like to a step-dame or a dowager long withering out a young man's revenue. Hippolyta Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights and then the moon shall behold the night of our solemnities. Theseus, a wealthy Athenian, complains to Duke Theseus that his daughter Hermia will not consent to marry Demetrius, but disobedient insists on wedding with Lysanter. Theseus decides that she must obey her father or suffer death or enter a convent in the world forever. Theseus reasons with Hermia thus. If you yield not to your father's choice, whether you can endure the livery of a nun, for I to be in shady cloister-mude to live a barren sister all your life, chanting fair hymns to the cold, fruitless moon. Thrice blessed they that masters sow their blood to undergo such a maiden pilgrimage. But earthly are happy as the rose distilled than that which withering on the virgin thorn grows, lives, and dies in a single blessedness. This sentiment was cheered heartily by the great forest audience and Queen Bess led the applause. Lysander pleaded his own case for the heart of Hermia and, sighing, says, Ah, me, for ought that I ever could read could ever hear by tale or history the course of true love never did run smooth. Hermia and Helena compare notes and wonder at the perversity of their respective lovers. Hermia says, The more I hate Demetrius, the more he follows me. And Helena says, The more I love him, the more he hateeth me. Hermia still sighing for Lysander says, Before the time I did Lysander see seemed Athens a paradise to me. Oh, then, what graces in my love do dwell that he hath turned heaven unto hell? Helena soliloquizes regarding the inconsistency of Demetrius since he saw Hermia. Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind, and therefore is winged cupid painted blind. I will go tell him a fair Hermia's flight, then to the wood will he go night pursue her, and for this intelligence if I have thanks it is a dear expense. But herein mean I to enrich my pain to give his sight thither and back again. A number of rude working men of Athens propose to give an impromptu play in the Duke's palace in honor of his wedding. It is a burlesque on all plays, and being so very crude and bad is good by contrast. Pyramus and Thisby are the prince and princess who die for love. Bottom is to play the big blower in the improvised drama and the jackass among the fairies. He says, I could play a part to tear a cad in to make all split. Though raging rocks with shivering shocks shall break the locks of prison gates, and Phoebus's car shall shine from far and make in mar the foolish fates. Puck, the mischievous Robin Goodfellow, who is ever playing pranks among his fairy tribe and human lovers, enters the forest scene and addresses one of the fairies thus. How now, spirit, whither wander you? Fairy says, over hill, over dale, through brush, through briar, over park, over pale, through flood, through fire, farewell thou wit of spirits, I'll be gone. All her elves come here anon. Puck, the funny tattler, tells of the jealousy of King Oberon, because Titania has adopted a lovely boy. For Oberon is passing fell and wrath because that she as her attendant hath a lovely boy stolen from an Indian king she never had so sweet a changeling. This sly cut at Queen Elizabeth who had recently adopted a young American Indian as her parlor-page elicited applause among the courtiers, yet Lizzie did not seem to join the cheers. Oberon and Titania meet and quarrel, just as natural as if they belong to earthly-passion people. I'll met by moonlight proud Titania, what jealous Oberon! Fairy, skip hence, I have foresworn his bed and company. Oberon, fairy, rash woman, am I not thy lord? Titania. Then I must be thy lady? Oberon accuses Titania with being in love with Theseus and assisting him in the ravishment of antique beauties. She replies, These are the forgeries of jealousy, never met we on hill, dale, forest, or mead, or on the beached margin of the sea to dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, but with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport. After the departure of Queen Titania and her fairy train King Oberon calls in Puck to aid in punishing her imagined infidelity. My gentle Puck, come hither! Thou rememberest, since once I sat upon a promontory and heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, the rude sea grew civil at her song and certain stars shot madly from their spheres to hear the sea-maid's music. Puck replies, I remember. Oberon continues, That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, flying between the cold moon and the earth, cupid all armed, a certain aim he took at a fair vestal thrown by the west and loosed his shaft smartly from his bow as it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts. But I might see young cupid's fiery shaft quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon and the imperial votrus passed on in maiden meditation, fancy free. Yet marked I where the bolt of cupid fell it fell upon a little western flower before milk-white, now purple with love's wound and maidens call it love and idleness. Fetch me that flower, the herb I showed thee once, the juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid will make, or man or woman, madly dote upon the next live creature that it sees. Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again ere the Leviathan can swim a league. Puck replies, I'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes. The audience saw by this time that vestal and imperial votrus, and maiden meditation, fancy free, was none other than Queen Elizabeth, and therefore three cheers and a roaring lion were given for the delicate and eloquent compliment of Shakespeare to her virgin majesty. Tributes to the powerful, though undeserved, are received with spontaneous applause, while just praise for the poor receive no echo from the jealous throng. Poor troding humanity. The infatuated Helena follows Demetrius into the dark forest, although he tells her that he does not and cannot love her, she says, And even for that do I love you the more I am your spaniel and Demetrius the more you beat me I will fawn on you, and to be used as you use your dog. I have seen full women and full men act just that way, and the more they were spurned the more they clung to their infatuation. Puck returns with the flower containing the juice and will make wanton women and licentious men return to their just lovers. Oberon grasping the herb says, I know a bank where on the wild time blows where ox lips and the knotting violet grows quite overcanopied with blooming woodbine with sweet musk roses and with elegant tine their sleeps to tanya some time of the night lulled in the flowers with dances and delight with this juice I'll streak her eyes to make her full of hateful fantasies and take thou some of it and seek through this grove a sweet Athenian lady is in love with a disdainful youth anoint his eyes, but do it when the next thing he aspires may be the lady. Tanya enters with her fairy train and orders them to sing her to sleep and be gone. Oberon finds his queen sleeping and squeezes some of the love juice on her eyelids saying, What thou seest when thou dost wake do it for thy true love take Love and languish for his sake when thou makest it is thy dear wake when some vile thing is near. Lysander and Hermia wonder into the woods lost and tired and sink down to rest. He says, One turf shall serve as pillow for us both, one heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth. Puck finds the lovers asleep and says to Lysander, Cheryl, upon thy eyes I throw all the power that this charm doth owe when thou wakeest let love forbid sleep his seat on thy eyelid. Puck finds bottom in the woods rehearsing the play for the marriage of Theseus and translates the weaver into an ass with a desire for love. He wanders near to the flowery bed where Queen Tanya sleeps. She hears him sing and opening her eyes says, What angel wakes me from my flowery bed Thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me on the first view to say to swear I love thee. Bottom says, Me thinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that. Reason and love keep little company nowadays. Oberon relents and releases his fairy queen in the name of infatuation with bottom, disguised as an ass, and says, But first I will release the fairy queen, be as thou must want to be, touching her eyes with the herb. See as thou must want to see, deans bud over Cupid's flower, hath such force and blessed power, now my Titania wake you, my sweet queen. Titania awakes and exclaims, My Oberon, what visions I have seen! Me thought I was enamored of an ass! Titania is not the only woman who is enamored by an ass. In fact, the mismatched, cross-purposed, twisted, infatuated affection of the sordid, deceitful earth are as thick as blackberries in July, while pretense and pampered power greatly prevail around the globe. Theseus and his train wander through the woods in preparation for the grand hunt and find Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena still asleep under the magic influence of Puck. Theseus wonders how the lovers came to the wood and says to the father of Hermia, But speak, Egeus! Is this not the day that Helena should give answer of her choice? Egeus. It is, my lord. Theseus. Go bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns. Express a surprise at their situation. How comes this gentle concord in the world that hatred is so far from jealousy to sleep by hate and fear no enmity? The lovers are reconciled to their natural choice, and Theseus decides against the father. Egeus, I will overbear your will, for in the temple by and by with us these couples shall eternity be knit. Bottom wakes and tells his theatrical partners. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass, a patched fool. Eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen. Man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was. The vast audience laughed heartily and the befuddled language of bottom, the weaver, and imagine themselves under the like spell of fantastic fairies. The fifth and last act opens up with Theseus and his Amazonian queen in the palace, prepared for the nuptial rites, and also the marriage of Lysander and Demetrius to their choice. Theseus, speaking of the strange conduct of lovers, delivers this great bit of philosophy. More strange than true, one never may believe these antique fables nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact. One sees more devils than vast hell can hold. That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic, dwellens beauty in a brow of Egypt, the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, and as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name. The play of Pyramus and Thisbe is then introduced to the palace audience, when Bottom and his Athenian mechanics Pyrrhus and Hippolyta with their crude, rustic conception of love-making. As the play proceeds, Hippolyta remarks, This is the silliest stuff that I have ever heard. Anthesius says, The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse if imagination amend them. Pyramus appeals to the moon thus, Sweet moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams, I thank thee moon for shining now so bright I trust to taste of truest Thisbe's sight. Pyramus and Thisbe commit suicide for disappointment in love in the climax scene, and waking again Bottom wishes to know if the Duke wants any more of the burlesque play. Athesius replies, Your play needs no excuse, for when the players are all dead there need none to be blamed. The iron tongue of midnight Hath told twelve, Lovers to bed, it is almost fairy-time, I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn, as much as we this night have overwatched. This palpable, gross play Hath well beguiled the heavy gate of night, sweet friends to bed. A fortnight hold we this solemnity, and nightly revels a new jollity. The forest scene is filled with fairies, led by Puck, Oberon, and Titania, all fantastically dressed, rehearsing and singing in their mystic revels. Puck, leading, says, Now the hungry lion roars, and the wolf beholds the moon, whilst the heavy plowman snores all with weary task foredone, and we fairies that do run by the triple of heck-eight's team from the presence of the sun following darkness like a dream. Oberon orders. Through this house give glimmering light, by the dead and drowsy fire every elf and fairy sprite hop as light as bird from briar, and his diddy after me sing and dance it trippingly. Titania speaks. First rehearse this song by rote, to each word a warbling note, hand in hand with fairy grace, will we sing and bless this place. Then all the fairies joining hands at the command of Oberon dance and sing. Every fairy take his gate, and each several chamber bless, through this palace with sweet peace all shall hear in safety rest, and the owner of it blessed trip away make no stay, meet me all by break of day. Then mischievous little Puck flies to the front, makes his final bow and speech concluding the play of Midsummer Night's Dream. If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended, that you have but slumbered here whilst these visions did appear, and this weekend idle theme no more yielding but a dream, Gentles do not reprehend, if you pardon we will mend, and as I am honest Puck, if we have unearned luck how to escape the serpent's tongue we will make amends ere long. Else the Puck a liar call, so good night unto you all. Give me your hands if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends. Unanimous cheers rang through Windsor Forest at the conclusion of this mystic play, and Queen Elizabeth called up Theseus, William, Hippolyta, Oberon, Titania and Puck, presenting to each a five-carat solitaire diamond, a slight token of Her Majesty's appreciation of dramatic genius. It was after two o'clock in the morning when a thousand skyrockets filled the heavens with variegated colors, indicating for fifty miles around that Midsummer Night's Dream had been successfully launched on the ocean of dramatic imagination. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Colinda. Shakespeare Personal Recollections by John A. Joyce Chapter 15 The Jew Shylock, Merchant of Venice Oh, it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant. Had I power I should pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, uproar the universal peace, confound all unity on earth. In my peregrinations and bohemian investigations I have met on several occasions and in strange lands Mr. Ahasuerus, the Jerusalem Shoemaker who was reported to have jeered and scoffed at Christ as he passed his shop, bearing the heavy cross up the rugged heights of Calvary. That was a terrible day for Jesus of Nazareth, who was praying for the sins of others, but worse for his foolish brother, the Jew Shoemaker. For his punishment to the scoffing and heartless Ishmaelite, the Son of God, bending under the weight of the cross, exclaimed to the Son of St. Crispin, Terry thou till I come, move on. And from that hour to this, the wandering Jew has been travelling and seeking for peace and death, but has never found surcease from everlasting sorrow and misery. His partners, Solomon Isaacs and David Levy, and while these gentlemen are compelled by nations to move on, they have the great gift of loading up their pack with the rarest jewels, silver, gold and diamonds being their specialty, with ready-made clothing, pawn shops and banks as convenient adjuncts. There are three golden balls worn in front of their establishments, they say, represent energy, economy and wealth, while their victims insist they represent passion, poverty and suicide. And yet these wandering Jews of all lands and climes, having no home or country anywhere, have the best of homes, churches, banks and temples everywhere. War and peace they often hold in their financial power, and therefore become the arbitrators and umpires of national fate. When my friend William was working on the rough sketch of the Merchant of Venice in the years 1598 and 1599, there was a great hate manifested against the London Jews. Dr. Lopez, the physician of Queen Elizabeth, having been recently tried and hung for the design of poisoning Her Majesty. The Jews were accused of clipping the coins of the realm, demanding 100% usury, bewitching the people, sacrificing Christian boys on the altar of religious fanaticism and setting fire to the warehouses and shipping along the Thames. These outrageous stories were believed by many people, and Shakespeare, being infected by the hate of the multitude for the first time in his intellectual career, fashioned the repulsive character of Shylock, who walks the world as a synonym of greed, hate and vengeance. Several Jew plays had been put on the London boards, like the Venetian comedy and the Jew of Malta, but none had the lofty pitch of Shakespeare's, who derived his main idea of the play from the Italian story of Pecorone by Florentina and Sylvain's Orator. Yet with William's imagination a hint was sufficient, the rose and acorn giving him scope enough to create flower gardens and forest ranges. The Jew has always been a great subject for the world's contention and condemnation, particularly since the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. If Christ, the Jew, suffered for others, his own race for nearly 2,000 years have been scapegoats for private and public villains. From the days of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Louis XIV of France, Henry VIII and Elizabeth of England, Emperor William of Germany and the Czar's Nicholas and Alexander of Russia, the Jews have been robbed, exiled and murdered by Christian rulers, presumptively for their rebellion against the State, but really as an excuse to rob them of their jewels and gold. The Caucasian Christian has never hesitated to rob and murder anybody, anywhere for cash and country. Look over the world today and you behold nothing but diplomatic cheating, domestic and foreign robbery and international murder for individual ambition and national territorial expansion. The official hypocrite is the greatest liar of the century. England, Germany, France, Russia and the United States are this very day competing with each other in the race for universal empire. Considering that Uncle Sam has had only 126 years of national life, he has forged to the front amazingly and has become the grandest general on the globe. He does things. The Gentle Reader, confidentially speaking, may think this a slight digression from the merchant of Venice, which was enacted at the Globe Theatre London on the first Saturday in December 1599. The Gentle Reader may also have found out by this time that the subscriber pays little attention to the unities of time and place as a thousand years are but short milestones in the life of the Strelberg family. What the Gentle Reader needs more than anything else is knowledge and truth, and he observes, if he observes at all, that I give bits of the most eloquent and philosophic speeches in all the plays of Shakespeare, besides the true personal transactions and escapades of the Bard of Avon. The enactment of the various scenes of the merchant of Venice takes place in the great water city, Venice, Queen of the Adriatic, and the commercial world 2,000 years ago. Antonio, the Christian merchant, and Shylock, the usurious Jew, are the principal characters of the play, while Portia, the wealthy heiress, and Jessica, the daughter of Shylock, with Bassanio and Lorenzo, carry the thread of Shakespeare's argument, trying to prove that it is Christian justice to steal an old man's money and daughter and punish him for demanding his legal rights. In speaking privately to William, I tried to have him change the logic and morals of the play, but his curt answer was, Jack, the dramatic demand and tyrant public must be satisfied. Burbage took the part of Antonio, Joe Taylor played Shylock, William played Portia, Condell acted Bassanio, Hemming represented Lorenzo, and Field played Jessica, Poole played Graziano, Sly played the Duke. The Globe Theatre was packed from pit to loft by the greatest variety audience I had ever seen. Lords, ladies, lawyers, doctors, merchants, mechanics, soldiers, sailors, and street riffraff all assembled to see and hear how the Jew Shylock was to be roasted by the greatest dramatist of the ages. Antonio, in a street scene in Venice, opens up the play thus, Insooth, I know not why I am so sad that I am much adieu to know myself. Salarino replies to the ship merchant, Your mind is tossing on the ocean, there, where your Argo sees with portly sail, like seniors and rich burgers of the flood, or as it were the pageants of the sea as they fly to traffickers with their woven wings. Antonio says to his friend Graziano, I hold the world but as the world, Graziano, a stage where every man must play a part and mine a sad one. But the light and airy Graziano utters this philosophic speech which the gentle reader should cut out and paste in his hat. Let me play the fool. With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come, and let my liver rather heat with wine than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man whose blood is warm within sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster, sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice by being peevish? See what, Antonio, I love thee, and it is my love that speaks. There are a sort of men whose visages do cream and mantle like a standing pond, and do a willful stillness entertain with purpose to be dressed in an opinion of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit. As who should say, I am Sir Oracle, and when I open my lips let no dog bark. Oh, my Antonio, I do know of these, that therefore only are reputed wise for saying nothing. Who, I am very sure, if they should speak, would almost damn those ears which hearing them would call their brothers fools. Bassanio, in love with the rich heiress Portia, tries to borrow three thousand ducats from Shylock, and Antonio, his friend, is willing to give bond for the loan. The Jew and the Christian hate each other, and Shylock vents his opinion. How like a fawning publican he looks! I hate him, for he is a Christian. Antonio lends out money gratis and brings down the rate of usury here with us in Venice. If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. He hates our sacred nation, and he rails even there where merchants most do congregate on me, my bargains, and my well-worn thrift, which he calls interest. Curse it be my tribe, if I forgive him. Antonio finally asks for the three thousand ducats and says, well, Shylock, shall we be beholden to you? Then, in a speech of brave defiance, Shylock humiliates the gentile merchant in this manner. Señor Antonio, many a time and oft in the realta you have rated me about my monies and my usury. Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, for sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. You call me misbeliever, cutthroat, dog, and spit upon my Jewish gabardine, and all for use of that which is my own. Well, then, it now appears you need my help. Go to, then, you come to me and you say, Shylock, we would have monies. You say so. You that did void your room upon my beard and foot me as you spurn a stranger cur over your threshold. Monies is your suit. What should I say to you? Should I not say, hath a dog money? Is it possible a cur can lend three thousand ducats? Or shall I bend low and in a bondsman's key with baited breath and whispering humbleness say this? Fare, sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last. You spurned me such a day. Another time you called me dog, and for these courtesies I'll lend you thus much monies. Antonio, not any way abashed at the scolding of the moneylender, says, I am as like to call thee dog again and spit on thee again to spurn thee, too. Shylock then agrees to lend the three thousand ducats if Antonio will give bond and penalty to pay the money back with interest in three months. Shylock says, let the forfeit of the bond be nominated for an equal pound of your fair flesh to be cut off and taken in what part of your body pleases me. The second act opens with Portia in her grand-home at Belmont, awaiting suitors for her wealth, beauty, and brains. Her father dying left three locked chests, gold, silver, and lead, one of them containing the picture of Portia, and the fortunate suitor who picked out that rich casket was to be the husband of the brilliant Portia. The Prince of Morocco and Prince of Aragon with Bassania were the suitors. Portia says to Morocco, in terms of choice I am not solely led by nice direction of a maiden's eyes. Besides, the lottery of my destiny bars me the right of voluntary choosing. Lancelot, the foolish serving man for Shylock, says to old Gabbo his blind father, do you not know me, father? Gabbo replies, a laxer, I am sand blind, I know you not. Lancelot makes this wise statement. Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes you might fail of the knowing of me. It is a wise father that knows his own child. Shylock discharges Lancelot, and Jessica, the beautiful daughter of the moneylender, parts with him regretfully. She gives him a secret letter to deliver to her Christian lover Lorenzo, and then says, Farewell, good Lancelot! Alack! What heinous sin it is in me to be ashamed to be my father's child! But though I am daughter to his blood I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo, if thou keep promise I shall end this strife, become a Christian, and thy loving wife. This beautiful Jewess foreswares her birth and religion for infatuated love, and throws to the wind all duty and honor as a daughter, a renegade of matchless quality stealing her father's money and jewels to elope with the fascinating Christian Lorenzo. The Hebrew race has not produced many Jessica's, and the morality taught by Shakespeare of a daughter fooling her father is base and rotten in principle. Shylock says to his daughter, Well, Jessica, go into the house. Perhaps I will return immediately. Do as I bid you. Shut doors after you. Fast-bind, fast-bind! A proverb never stale in thrifty mind. Then at the turn of his back the beautiful fraud Jessica says, Farewell, and if my fortune be not crossed I have a father, you, a daughter, lost. Lorenzo, with his friends, appear under the window of Shylock's house to steal away Jessica, and she appears above in boys' clothes and asks, Who are you? Tell me for more certainty. Albeit I'll swear that I do know your tongue. He responds, Lorenzo and thy love. Jessica, before leaving her home spouts the following stuff to her lover. Here, catch this casket. It is worth the pains. I am glad to his night you do not look on me, for I am much ashamed of my exchange. But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit, for if they could, Cupid himself would blush to see me thus transformed to a boy. I will make fast the doors and gild myself with some more duckets and be with you straight. Nice specimen of a dutiful daughter. Contrast the conduct of the Christian Portia with the Hebrew Jessica, and the latter's action is thoroughly reprehensible. Portia obeys the injunction and will of a dead father, while Jessica violates criminally the duty she owes a live father, who is in the toils of personal and official swindlers. Portia in her palace awaits foreign and domestic suitors for her hand, heart, and wealth. The prince of Morocco and his train first appear. Portia in her splendid drawing-room receives the prince and says to her waiting maid, go draw aside the curtains and discover the several caskets to this noble prince. Now make your choice. The prince reads the inscriptions on the three caskets, gold, silver, and lead. Who chooses me shall gain what many men desire. Who chooses me shall get as much as he deserves. Who chooses me must give and hazard all he has. The prince asks, how shall I know if I do choose the right? Portia replies, the one of them contains my picture-prints. If you choose that, then I am yours with all. The prince of Morocco makes a long speech on the beauty and glory of Portia, and then decides to open the golden casket. Portia hands him the key, and when the contents come to view, he exclaims, O hell, what have we here? A carrion death within whose empty eye there is a written scroll. I'll read the writing. All that glitters is not gold often have you heard that told. When his life hath sold but my outside to behold, gilded tombs do worms infold. Had you been as wise as bold, young in limbs, in judgment old, your answer had not been in scrolled. Fare you well. Your suit is cold. The disappointed black prince says, Portia, adieu, I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave. Thus lovers part. Portia exclaims after his exit. A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go, let all of his complexion choose me so. When Shylock returned home, found his house deserted and robbed, he rushed into the street and cried, My daughter, oh my duckets, oh my daughter, fled with a Christian, oh my Christian duckets, justice, the law, my duckets and my daughter, a sealed bag, two sealed bags of duckets, of double duckets stolen from me by my daughter, and jewels, two stones, Portia's stones stolen by my daughter, justice, find the girl. She had the stones upon her and the duckets. The frantic raging of the old, broken down, soul-lacerated Jew, only brought from that Christian audience laughter, yells and howling jeers. The mob spirit was there, and the appeal for justice by Shylock fell upon deaf ears and stony hearts. Portia still holds court for her hand and heart at beautiful Belmont, the queen in the circling blooming hills of the blue Adriatic. The Prince of Aragon comes to the choice of caskets, and with lofty words in praise of virtue says, Let none presume to wear an undeserved dignity. O, that estates, degrees and offices were not obtained corruptly, and that clear honor were purchased by the merit of the wearer. How many then should cover that stand bare? How many be commanded that command? How much low corruption would then be gleaned from the true seed of honor? And how much honor picked from the chaff and ruin of the times? The Globe Theater shook with applause at this fine political speech of the Prince, and may be well contemplated in the state transactions of today. The Prince unlocks the silver casket and finds a portrait of a blinking idiot, and departing exclaims, Some there be that shadows kiss, such have but as shadows bliss. There be fools alive, I wish. Silver door, and so was this. Portia soliloquizes. Thus had the candle singed the moth of these deliberate fools, when they do choose they bear their wisdom by their wit to lose. And Narissa, the bright waiting-maid, says, The ancient saying is no heresy, hanging and wiping go by destiny. The third act opens with a street in Venice, and friends of Antonio bemoan the reported loss of several of his ships at sea, which will cause his default and ruin by the demands of Shylock. Salarino says to the Jew, Why I am sure if he forfeit that will not take his flesh, what's that good for? Shylock now begins to gloat over his prospect of a dire vengeance upon the Christian Antonio, and replies to Salarino, To bait fish with all, if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. Antonio hates me because I'm a Jew. Organs, dimensions, senses, affectations, passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a Christian is. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? The villainy you teach me, I will execute. Tubal, the Hebrew friend of Shylock, says, but Antonio is certainly undone. Shylock, delighted, says, that's true, that's very true. Tubal, Femian officer, bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of Antonio if he forfeit the bond. Go, Tubal, meet me at our synagogue. Portia again appears for the third time to undergo matrimonial choice. Bassanio, the particular friend of Antonio, is the real love suitor for the hand and heart of the beautiful Portia, and appears at her palace attended by his faithful Venetian friends. He has a high tone, but impecunious Italian gentlemen, whose heart and soul are 90% larger than his pockets. Portia seems to be fascinated with Bassanio and wishes him to remain at her home and take time in choosing the right casket, but he wants to act instant, confessing his love. Portia says, he takes sound while he doth make his choice. Now he goes with no less dignity, but with much more love than young Alcides, when he did redeem the virgin tribute paid by howling Troy to the sea monster. Bassanio, standing before the leaden casket, utters this high-sounding moral truthful speech. The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, but being seasoned with a gracious voice obscures the show of evil. In religion, what damned error but some sober brow will bless it and approve it with a text, hiding the grossness with fair ornament. There is no vice so simple, but assume some mark of virtue on his outward parts. How many cowards whose hearts are all as false as stairs of sand, where yet upon their chins the beard of Hercules and frowning Mars, who, inward searched, have livers white as milk. And these assume but valour's excrement to render them redoubted. Look on beauty and you shall see tis purchased by the weight which therein works a miracle in nature, making them lightest that wear most of it. So are those curled, snaky golden locks which make such wanton gambles with the wind upon supposed fairness, often known to be the dowers of a second head, the skull that bred them in the sepulcher. Thus ornament is but the treacherous shore to a most dangerous sea. Thou meager-led casket which rather rebuffs than dost promise ought, thy plainness moves me more than eloquence, and here choose I, joy the consequence. Opening the leaden casket, Bassania exclaims, what find I here? Fair Portia's counterfeit, what demigod hath come so near creation. Here's the scroll, the continent and summary of my fortune. If you be well pleased with this and hold your fortune for your bliss, turn you where your lady is in a loving kiss. Bassania kisses Portia, and she makes this womanly speech. You see me, Lord Bassania, where I stand such as I am. Though for myself alone I would not be ambitious in my wish to wish myself much better. Yet for you I would be trebled twenty times myself, a thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich. Happiest of all is that my fawn spirit commits itself to yours to be directed, to become her lord, her governor, her king. Myself and what is mine to you and yours is now converted. But now I was the lord of this fair mansion, master of my servants, queen or myself, and even now, but now, this house, these servants and this same myself are yours, my lord. I give them with this ring, which when you part from, lose or give away, let it presage the ruin of your love and be my vantage to exclaim to you. Bassanio tells Portia that he is not a free man, that Antonio borrowed three thousand ducats for him from Shylock and that now he is miserable because Antonio may lose his life by the Jew claiming a pound of flesh in forfeit of the bonded debt. Portia proposes to pay six thousand ducats rather than Antonio suffer and says to Bassanio, first go with me to church and call me wife, then away to Venice to your friend. You shall have gold to pay the petty debt twenty times over. Shylock swears out a writ and puts Antonio in jail and demands trial before the Grand Duke of Venice. The Duke, in open court with all the witnesses and lawyers and people present, implores Shylock not to insist to cut a pound of flesh from the body of Antonio and argues for mercy. But Shylock, impenetrable to the cries of mercy, says to the judge, I have told you a grace of what I purpose and by our holy Sabbath have I sworn to have the due and forfeit of my bond. The pound of flesh which I demand of him is dearly bought, is mine and I will have it. If you deny me, fire upon your law, I stand for judgment, shall I have it? A learned doctor of laws, Bellario, is expected to appear as the advocate for Antonio and the Duke awaits him, but receives a letter saying that a young lawyer named Balthazar will represent him as sickness prevents his presence. Portia, disguised like a doctor of laws, appears in court. The Duke asks, come you from old Bellario? Portia replies, I did, my lord. Antonio and Shylock stand up in court and Portia, after surveying each inquires, is your name Shylock? He replies, Shylock is my name. She says to Antonio, you stand within Shylock's control, do you not? He responds, I, so he says. Portia asks, do you confess the bond? Antonio replies, I do. Portia, then must the Jew be merciful? Shylock asks, on what compulsion must I, tell me that? Then Portia rises in court and makes this lofty, never-to-be-forgotten speech. The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed, it blessed him that gives and him that takes. To his mightiest in the mightiest it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown. His scepter shows the force of temporal power, the attribute to awe and majesty, wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings, but mercy is above his sceptered sway. It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, it is an attribute to God himself, and earthly power doth then show likeest gods when mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, though justice be thy plea, consider this, that in the course of justice none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy, and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy. I have spoke this much to mitigate the justice of thy plea, which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice must needs give sentence against the merchant there. Shylock with unforgiving spirit replies, my deeds upon my head I crave the law, the penalty and forfeit of my bond. Portia asks, is not Antonio able to discharge the money? Bassanio replies, yes, here I tender it for him in the court, yea, twice the sum. And still appealing to the Duke says, to do a great right, do a little wrong, and curb this cruel devil of his will. Portia says, there is no power in Venice can alter a decree established. And Shylock lighting up with joy replies, a Daniel come to judgment, yea, a Daniel. Preparation is made to cut the pound of flesh from the breast of Antonio, and this brave old Christian merchant says to his dearest friend Bassanio, fare you well, grieve not that I am fallen to this for you, for herein fortune shows herself more kind than is her custom. It is still her use to let the wretched man outlive his wealth to view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow and age of poverty. Portia, speaking to Shylock says, take thou thy pound of flesh, but in the cutting if thou dost shed one drop of Christian blood thy lands and goods are by the laws of Venice confiscated unto the State of Venice. The Jew, finding himself absolutely blocked, consents to take the money offered. Yet, Portia tells him that his property and life are now at the mercy of the Duke because he has conspired against the life of a citizen of Venice and bids him down therefore and beg mercy of the Duke. Then the great Duke, Judge of the Court speaks to Shylock, that thou shalt see the difference of our spirit, I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it. For half thy wealth it is Antonio's, the other half comes to the general State. Shylock bravely replies, take my life and all, pardon not that. You take my house when you do take the prop and thus sustain my house. You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live. Then Antonio says if the Jew will give up all his property to Lorenzo and his daughter Jessica and become a Christian, he, the merchant of Venice, will be content. Portia then triumphantly asks, art thou content, Jew, what dost thou say? And poor old Shylock gasps I am content. Thus ends one of the most bare-faced ideals of the ages, and my friend William is responsible for the nefarious and systematic machinery of roguery and persecution injected into the play to satisfy Christian hate against the wandering Jew. In looking around the world even today, we might truthfully exclaim, oh Christianity, Christianity, how many crimes are committed in thy name? The fifth act of the merchant of Venice winds up with harmonious love and prosperity for all concerned. At the beautiful home of Belmont, Bassanio, Portia, Lorenzo, and Jessica, as well as Graziano and Narissa, are married and living in blissful association. In the moonlit, love-lit conversation between Lorenzo and his Jewish wife Jessica, Shakespeare wings in some of his finest classical illusions, a word banquet for all passion-struck lovers. Lorenzo, seated amid waving trees, trailing vines, and perfumed flowers, illuminated by the mystic rays of Luna, says to Jessica, the moon shines bright. In such a night as this, when the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees and they did make no noise, in such a night, troiless, me thinks, mounted the Trojan walls, and sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents where Cressid lay that night. Jessica replies, in such a night did this be fearfully or tripped the dew, and saw the lion's shadow air himself and ran dismayed away. Then Lorenzo talks. In such a night stood Dido with a willow in her hand upon the wild sea-banks and waved her love to come again to Carthage. And Jessica. In such a night, Medea gathered the enchanted herbs that did renew old Asin. Lorenzo, then triumphant, speaks. In such a night did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew and with an unthrifty love did run from Venice as far as Belmont. Jessica satirically replies, In such a night did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well, stealing her soul with many vows of faith and nare a true one. Lorenzo fires back this answer, and in such a night did pretty Jessica like a little shrew slander her love and he forgave it her. Jessica gets in the last word and says, I would outnight you, did nobody come, but hark, I hear the footing of a man. Lorenzo declines to enter the house for rest or sleep, for the rest is of love and music. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank. Here will we sit and let the sounds of music creep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night becomes the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica, look how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patins of bright gold. There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest, but in his motion like an angel sings. Still quiring to the young-eyed harmony is in immortal souls. But whilst this muddy vesture of decay doth grossly close it in, we cannot have it. By the sweet power of music, therefore the poet did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods. Since not so stockish-hard and full of rage but music, for the time doth change his nature, the man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds. It's fit for treasons, the motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affectations dark as arabes let no such man be trusted. Portia Bassanio and friends arrive from the trial of Antonio at Venice, and at the brilliant home of Belmont all is peace and love. Bassanio discovers that the young lawyer in disguise was Portia, and she twits him for giving away his ring to the young advocate as a recompense for clearing Antonio from the toils of Shylock, and then she discourses to her friends about music by night. Me thinks it sounds much sweeter than by day. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark when neither is attuned, and I think the nightingale, if she should sing by day, when every goose is cackling, would be thought no better a musician than the wren. How many things by season seasoned are to their right praise and true perfection. Peace there, the moon sleeps and all retire. Music murmurs through the soul hopes of a sweet heavenly goal and enchants from pole to pole while the planets round us roll. End of Chapter 15