(Two young Elizabethan scholars meet in london, share a meal, ideas, poetry and the notion of writing a book together. They also discover that they will become friends.)
‘O, thou art fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.’
Kate asked, “Your favorite poets?” And they were off.
“ ‘O Doctor Cupid, thou for me reply-’ ”
“ ‘Driven else to grant by angel’s sophistry-’ ”
They grinned at each other and their eyebrows were up as they recited together, “ ‘That I love not, without I leave to love.’ ” And as they laughed, Mark forgot about the stinging cuts and the pulling stitches.
“Sidney used phrases I’ll never forget, like ‘Slave-borne Muscovite.’ ”
Kate shot back with “ ‘Upon my sunburned brain,’ ” and the game accelerated.
“Right, right, ‘Dribbed shot,’ sounds like basketball.”
“Or football, or as you call it soccer. Like Horace, ‘Poetry to teach and delight.’ ”
“ ‘Speaking pictures,’ or ‘Broidered with bulls and swans.’ ”
“ ‘Powdered with golden rain,’ wonderful imagery.”
“ ‘Or snorted we in the seven-sleepers den?’ ”
“ ‘Twas so, but this, all pleasures fancies be.’ You, cozener, Mark, you jumped a few decades on me.”
“I knew I couldn’t catch you out with Donne. Try this, ‘Then sprang up first the-’ ”
“Um, wait, I know-”
“Hint, Gol-”
“Of course!” The words gushed out in one breath. “ ‘ . . . sprang up first the golden age, which of itself maintained,’ the translator Arthur Golding on the golden age from Metamorphoses.”
Mark ordered two pints. “That was one of Shakespeare’s favorite books, I read or heard.”
“It’s a line on Ovid, ‘My mother gave it to me,’ from Titus Andronicus which makes me wonder whether Shakespeare brought it out of his memory bank. It was alleged that he forgot nothing, a human sponge who sopped up every worthwhile phrase he ever heard, ‘Screwed to my memory.’ ”
“You’re incredible. I wonder what he was like as a kid?”
“I’ve tried to imagine him. Whip smart, happy, full of ideas, writing things down, staging neighborhood plays, irrepressible.”
“You’re right, probably had a great self image, total self-confidence, born actor, writer. He must have had smart, supportive parents. I was thinking, came across something that reminded me, that scholars have talked about the so-called lost years and before his young adulthood; but nobody, as far as I know, has written a fictional account of what he did.”
Kate smiled and thoughtfully shook a forefinger. “Exactly, they say he had to have known the law, the military, the sea, business transactions and much more.”
“Thinking he showed up in London in 1590, or before, and started writing plays is silly. Even genius doesn’t work that way. You need a fund of life experiences to create like he did. Like someone said, to be successful you’ve got to have knowledge and know-how.”
“Know what to do and how to do it.” He’s an even-handed conversationalist, a switch from former let-me-explain-to-you-that–which-you-clearly-don’t-understand boyfriends.
“Right, you could only describe a young Shakespeare’s thought processes through examples, show how he accumulated the facts, information, whatever else he needed. Here’s a thought. How about we pool our ideas and work together? You and I could write that book.”
The idea hung in silence for a moment. Kate stared off into space, considering and thinking: I like it, before saying with a smile, “You’re woolgathering.”
“More like trading the wool, or brogging as the Elizabethans called it. It’s not so crazy. We could devise his life in logical ways that give him the awareness he needed in order to write what he did.”
Time passed unnoticed, and the manager approached. “We’re closing now and need to clean up. I’ll bring your check. That last round was on me.”
“Thank you. . . . How can you afford this bacchanalian feast on a student’s stipend?”
“My father’s a Wall Street investment banker.”
“I think I will see you again.” They had another good laugh, held eye contact and touched hands across the table.
During a reflective walk through quiet London streets, Kate thought: Eventful night, I like his style, attractive person, bright. Just met, and we’re talking about writing a book together.
Should I hold her hand? I think she likes me. Don’t push it. I want to kiss her. They reached Kate’s door.
“Could I see you tomorrow? Nine o’clock right here, morning I mean. Maybe we can go to the Middle Temple and then talk more about our budding bestseller?” She averted her eyes and her expression was ambivalent. Again he thought: Please say yes.
Parroting Mark with a grin, “You realize this might be a mistake, but it could be the start of an adventure. Could we make it at ten? It’s been a late night, well past my usual bedtime, and I’ve got a few things to do first thing.”
“Ten o’clock it is, we’re on.”
“Thanks for supper and a nice talk. Take care of those cuts.” She kissed him lightly on the lips and went inside. He stood there looking at her door. You’ll never get rid of me, and I will marry you. And then, sore leg and all, he walked all the way home with a happy look on his face.
‘I saw eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light.’
(This vignette was adapted from a much-longer scene and was excerpted from Discovering Will’s Lost Years and the Marlowe-Shakespeare Lost Play: Uncovering 16th and 21st-Century Mystery, Treachery and Obsession)
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