The Late Mr Shakespeare (28 page)

Imagine William Shakespeare in his prime. It is the April of 1594, say, and he is thirty years old today. He might be at his lodgings in London, though if he is there will be little enough for him to do here, the theatres having been shut down for over a year on account of the worst outbreak of the plague in living memory. (Fifteen thousand persons died of it in the last twelve months.) More likely, then, that he is in the provinces with his Company; or perhaps staying at Titchfield, the country house of his patron the Earl of Southampton; or he might even be at home with his wife and their three children …

The place is not important. Where he is does not matter.

It is the face of William Shakespeare that I want you to look at.

It is a frank face, though it keeps many secrets. Fair-skinned, fresh-cheeked, it is a face that blushes easily to reveal its owner’s heart. It is a good-looking face, with firm,
delicate features, and a gaze both calm and observant under brows set low.

It is a worldly face: sensual, sceptical, alert. The eyes are blue, and they dance with bright amusement most of the time. When they do not, the look they give you is straight and unwavering. He has a somewhat drooping lower lip.

That foolish hanging of his nether lip – I think he said he got it from his mother. His forehead, though, is splendid. Like the dome of an observatory.

The most singular feature, no doubt, is the poet’s nose. It is broader at the nostrils than down the straight, solid bridge. It is tip-tilted (slightly), and those nostrils arch quickly at the least unpleasant smell. All Mr Shakespeare’s senses are acute, but you can
see
his sense of smell at work, thanks to that singular nose. He is most sensitive to dirt and evil odours. Put him in a room with a spaniel and a tainted bone and watch the way his eyes water and his nose twitches. His senses revolt from the way dogs are fed at table. But if he is your guest, he will say nothing. He is very polite. He is very ‘After you’.

There is a small mole high on his left cheek.

I said his brow was splendid, and so it is. His hair, though, soft and brown, is receding from the forehead. Cheeks and chin are firmly moulded. He has downy moustaches and a small brown tuft of beard. Although the lower lip is more prominent than the upper, both are finely shaped. Their most characteristic expression is a faint ironic smile.

I only ever saw two portraits that came near doing this face justice. The first, the frontispiece of the Folio, that immortal piece of inferior engraving by Martin Droeshout. It
is
inferior, but it catches the man I knew. The other’s that
Stratford bust created by Gerard Jannsen, which (again) is no great work of art, but a pretty good likeness to how Mr Shakespeare looked in his later years. Note that both the Droeshout engraving and the Jannsen bust won the approval of those who knew him best – in the first instance, his fellow players; in the second, his widow and his daughters, and his sister. Two images of the Shakespeare I knew and loved.

In the bust, of course, the face has grown somewhat thicker, been a little bit coarsened. But the brow is still large and lofty, and the eyes do not leave you. He was always a well-built man, tall and lithe, his body nimble even when he put on weight.

I remember once we stood together by a haystack to shun a shower, and the rain ran down his face, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Mr Shakespeare’s tongue slipping out slyly, this way and that, just the merest quick flicker, like an adder’s, to get a taste of the raindrops on their way. I did not let him know I had seen him do it. But ever afterwards I have thought that the act was essential Shakespeare. He was a man who wanted to taste the sweetness and the bitterness of everything. He would eat each day to the core, and the dark night too. He smiled to himself as he feasted on those raindrops.

There are several lost plays in this careless world. Some went down to Cromwell, some were eaten by rats. Here, I will provide you with my list of them:

Of these lost plays, only
Cardenio
was by William Shakespeare (writing in collaboration with Mr John Fletcher). We presented it at Whitehall, before the Duke of Savoy, quite late in Mr Shakespeare's lifetime, but that's all I can recall of the wretched thing. The player Thomas Betterton may have a copy of it, as he claims he has, in the handwriting of Mr Downes, the famous prompter. If so, why he has never yet ushered it into the world, I do not know. There is a tradition (which I will merely mention) that Mr Shakespeare gave the script of this play, as a present of value, to a natural daughter of his, for whose sake he wrote it, at the time of his retirement from the stage. I can only say that this daughter was not known to your humble servant.

Mr Betterton is in the habit of talking about three other plays which he claims were the work of Mr Shakespeare, namely:

The History of King Stephen

Duke Humphrey, a Tragedy

Iphis and Iantha, or A Marriage Without a Man, a Comedy

Frankly, I never heard of any of them, and Betterton's story that they perished when Mrs Shakespeare ‘unluckily burnt 'em by putting 'em under pie bottoms' speaks (in my opinion) for itself.

Love's Labour's Won
, though, is a different matter.

Love's Labour's Won
is, in fact, the first version of the play now known as
All's Well That Ends Well
. It was one of Mr Shakespeare's earliest comedies, a companion piece in spirit to his
Love's Labour's Lost
.

I count this particular revision a spoiling and a pity. The trouble with
All's Well That Ends Well
is that you can see two hands at work in it. Both of them are Shakespeare, but the second is Shakespeare in a ruthless mood. Something about the froth of the original dissatisfied him. But in slashing out several key speeches he had given to Helena he removed, in my opinion, the heart of the thing.

As promised in Chapter Seventeen (the one where I first told you about the room where I am writing this book) I will now give you all that remains in my possession of
Love's Labour's Won
. As you will see, this consists entirely of Helena's speeches, as I remember them, and as I had written them out for my learning. Where they fit into
All's Well That
Ends Well
, as it stands now, I cannot exactly remember. That play, to speak plainly, is a spatchcock. It was never popular with the public, nor was Helena a favourite part of mine.

As to the clever place where I conceal this treasure – would it surprise you, sir, to look under your nose? The best place to hide anything is out in the open. Therefore, I keep all that is left of
Love's Labour's
Won
in that envelope there on the mantelpiece. Yes, madam, that one, propped beside my clock, which (as you say) you had not even noticed. Here, hand me the pages down, and I will speak them for you …

First, Helena remembers her childhood in Narbonne, the hot south-land where her father was a physician:

This next little excised passage came where Helena made her entrance in Scene 3 of the first Act, just after her guardian the Countess has spoken of love as ‘this thorn' which belongs to ‘our rose of youth'. No doubt the speech is too abrupt and not a little obscure, but (again) I think that
its excision takes sympathy away from Helena who as she exists in
All's Well That Ends Well
lacks the essential dash of poetic feeling that's necessary to her deeds. Without lines like these, her pursuit of Bertram, and her use of the bed-trick, can strike the audience as repellent.

Anyway, picking up the image just expressed by the Countess of Rousillon, Bertram's mother, in
Love's Labour's
Won
I had to say as Helena:

Then there is this, which must come from Act IV, when Helena is in the widow's house in Florence, about to perform her trick on Bertram:

Where this came in, God only knows, but I consider it a shame to have lost so much imagery of pretty fishes, which again adds beauty to the part of Helena:

I have this written out as verse, but it may be prose. Here, with your permission, I might mention a private theory of my own – namely, that there are several passages given to female characters in Shakespeare which have been taken for prose but which sound, in fact, quite new and original verse-rhythms. The later speeches of Lady Macbeth, for example, which are printed in the Folio as prose, are to my ear really verse, and very fine verse at that. When I spoke them I delivered them always in measure, and Mr Shakespeare never stopped me. Those lines drawn out in monosyllabic feet seem to me as wonderfully effective as any he wrote. The speeches in the sleep-walking scene, for instance, if spoken as verse, have a very great majesty.

You have had enough of
Love's Labour's Won
, have you, friends?

Very well, then. But just one speech more, before I put the sheets back in the envelope. This must surely belong
at the end, where in
All's Well
Helena never seems to have sufficient to say to Bertram to make it true in any sense that all ends well: