did you like proteus or valentine best? proteus for speaking, valentine for looks.
but silvia i did not care for much. his fingers were red from fighting and he spoke like a schoolboy at lessons. stage love will never be true love while the law of the land has our heroines played by pipsqueak boys in petticoats! oh, when can we see another?
but at the playhouse. nurse?
i am not so well-born.
all the men at court are without poetry. if they look at me they see my father's fortune. i will have poetry in my life. and adventure. and love. love above all.
no . . . not the artful postures of love, but love that over- throws life. unbiddable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture. love like there has never been in a play. i will have love or i will end my days as a . . .
but i would be valentine and silvia too. good nurse, god save you and good night. i would stay asleep my whole life if i could dream myself into a company of players.
god save you, mother. ho water, nurse.
he sees himself in me! romeo montague, a young man of verona.
a comedy of quarreling families reconciled in the discovery of romeo to be the very same capulet cousin stolen from the cradle and fostered to manhood by his montague mother that was robbed of her own child by the pirate king!
from tomorrow, away in the country for three weeks! is master shakespeare not handsome?
oh, nurse! he would give thomas kent the life of viola de lesseps's dreaming.
you will not tell. as you love me and as i love you, you will bind my breast and buy me a boy's wig!
master shakespeare
my lord.
so my lord? i speak with him every day.
good sir… ?
i heard you are a poet.
but a poet of no words?
romeo, romeo . . . a young man of verona. a comedy. by william shakespeare.
who is there?
anon, good nurse. anon. master shakespeare?!
oh but why "alas?"
alas indeed, for i thought you the highest poet of my esteem and a writer of plays that capture my heart.
anon, anon! i will come again.
if they find you here they will kill you.
oh, not for the world!
anon, nurse!
lord wessex. you have been waiting.
you flatter, my lord.
do you intend to marry, my lord?
i do not love you, my lord.
virginia?!
but why me?
the queen has consented?
i will do my duty, my lord.
oh, will!
can you love a player?
answer me only this: are you the author of the plays of william shakespeare?
then kiss me again for i am not mistook.
i do not know how to undress a man.
i would not have thought it. there is something better than a play.
even your play.
and that was only my first try.
will
you would not leave me?
moonlight!
it was the owl--come to bed
mr. henslowe?
oh--no, no!
it is broad day! the rooster tells us so!
you would leave us players without a scene to read today?!
it is a new world!
oh let it be night!
oh, do not go
"but soft, what light through yonder window breaks? it is the east and juliet is the sun!"
"arise fair sun and kill the envious moon who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she…"
oh, will!
"it is my lady, o it is my love! o that she knew she were!"
that's my line!
anon, good nurse
"i am feared,
oh, but it will end well for love?
yes, this is not life, will. this is a stolen season.
sunday! greenwich!
what will you have me do? marry you instead?
you follow your desire freely enough in the night. so, if that is all, to greenwich i go.
you cannot, wessex will kill you
stage fighting! oh, will! as thomas kent my heart belongs to you but as viola the river divides us, and i will marry wessex a week from saturday.
good morning, my lord!
your majesty.
your majesty.
your majesty
i love theatre. to have stories acted for me by a company of fellows is indeed
and i love poetry above all.
oh, but they can!
i mean…your majesty, they do not, they have not, but i believe there is one who can
will! what--?
it is not my riding day, my lord.
i am going to church.
it is to be expected on a sunday.
mourning? who is dead, my lord?
he is dead?
will!
oh, my love, i thought you were dead!
you never spoke so well of him.
you lie.
you lie in your meadow as you lied in my bed.
calf love. i loved the writer, and gave up the prize for a sonnet.
i love you, will, beyond poetry.
you were not dead before. when i thought you dead, i did not care about all the plays that will never come, only that i would never see your face. i saw our end, and it will come.
if not wessex the queen will know the cause and there will be no more will shakespeare.
but i will go to wessex as a widow from these vows, as solemn as they are unsanctified.
will you read it for me?
"it was the lark, the herald of the morn, no nightingale. look, love, what envious streaks do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. i must be gone and live, or stay and die."
"i have more care to stay than will to go. come death, and welcome. juliet wills it so. how is't my soul? let's talk. it is not day."
nobody knew!
i am so sorry, mr. henslowe. i wanted to be an actor. i am sorry, will.
thank you.
good morning, my lord. i see you are open for business so let's to church.
no juliet?!
what happened to sam?
thomas kent!
every word.
a hired player no longer. fifty pounds, will, for the poet of true love.
it was we ourselves did that. and for my life to come i would not have it otherwise.
if my hurt is to be that you will write no more, then i shall be the sorrier.
the queen commands a comedy, will for twelfth night.
an excellent beginning let him be…a duke. and your heroine?
at sea, then--a voyage to a new world?…she lands upon a vast and empty shore. she is brought to the duke…orsino.
but fearful of her virtue, she comes to him dressed as a boy
but all ends well.
i don't know. it's a mystery
nor you for me.
write me well.