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.
Chapter Sixty-Six Pickleherring's list of the world's lost plays
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:
The Biter Bit
The Hog Hath Lost His Pearl
Rhodon and Iris
Queen Dido
All and Everything
The Bride Stript Bare
The Birth of Merlin
Whistle Binkie
Amends for Ladies
The Bride's Maids Spankt
Cardenio
Every Man Erect
Fair Em
All to Bed
The Way Things Happen
A Knot of Fools
The Tragedy of Gowrie
When a Man's Single
Dogs, a Masque with Music
The Chemical Wedding
Love Lies Bleeding
Ninus and Semiramis
The Elder Brother
The Passionate Shepherdess
Perkin Warbeck
The Twins' Tragedy
Right You Are (If You Think You Are)
Topcliffe, his Boots: or The Parsing of the Papist
Mr Poe
Udolpho
Two Lovers Killed By Lightning
The Incompetent Hawk, or In Two Fell Swoops
Arden of Faversham
Locrine
The Devil's Jig
Dramatic Eternity: Scene 666
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.
Chapter Sixty-Seven Love's Labour's Won
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:
'Twas ever summer in my dandled days
But sometime when the sky grew tired with heat
Slow thundry raindrops came, O it rained kisses
To cool my ear with whispers.
Then quickly flowers were jewels and moss was treasure
And long laburnam dripped like melting gold
And in the interstices of the stones
Small snails and lizards, spiders and black toads
Slid their wet scales against the cavern walls
Into the business of the flooded day.
First there was murmur in the tops of trees
Where the sky moved to ease the spate of rain,
Which though you could not see the branches tossed
To lay your hand upon the unmoved trunk
You knew the coming splendour of the storm,
And found the whole world water.
Great rivers grew where little trickles ran
And swans sat on them, cygnets in their wings,
And tall flamingoes beat against the wind
To find a higher perch above the surge.
All round me in the trees were watching eyes
As small things shivered for the wind and rain
And saw their masters ruffled from their lairs
Shake angry paws and pick fastidious ways
To proper earth where they could sit and lord it,