Stratford 1580
Will Shakespeare was a serious-looking boy with a wide, high forehead and wavy dark hair, the eldest son of a glover, former mayor, and chief alderman of Stratford-upon-Avon. That is, his one father, John Shakespeare, was all of these. The family’s house sprawled over several lots on Henley Street and was a palace compared to Meg’s half-ruined house on Addle Street. Will’s mother, Mary Arden, came from a proud family who had once owned the entire forest northwest of Stratford. But her wealth had passed to her husband at their marriage and then through his fingers like sand. When Will was a little boy she would kiss him and say, “You are all my riches now.” She taught him to read using a hornbook, and Will soaked up words as a field soaks up water.
While not an overly pious family, the Shakespeares sometimes graced the front pew of Holy Trinity Church. The priest there, unlike his counterpart at London’s St. Alphage, did not meddle in the lives of his parishioners. But private misdeeds became public matters nonetheless. One of Will’s first memories was of a woman shrouded in white and forced to stand while the preacher denounced her sin. Thus it was in church that Will first heard the words “harlot” and “lechery.” He thought the faceless, white-clad girl with her head bowed was a ghost from beyond the grave, bound to return there after the service.
Will’s family was a boisterous one, down through his brother Gilbert, sister Joan, and three younger siblings. The shouts of children playing and the clatter from the workshop filled the sturdy timber house, along with the smells of his mother’s cooking and the less savory odor of animal hides soaking in urine. Every night Will knelt to receive his father’s blessing and heard him say, “Remember always your duty of obedience. Revere God in heaven and your father on earth.”
A good son, young Will worshipped his father. He retained another early memory of standing on a bench watching a troupe of richly costumed actors perform in the guildhall. He danced with excitement to see them, while his father’s arms about his knees kept him from falling.
“I want to be a player,” Will said in great earnest. “Everyone will look at me and clap their hands.” His father only laughed.
When he was about thirteen, Will realized that some misfortune had befallen his father. He stopped attending council meetings and no longer wore his black furred gown and alderman’s thumb ring. He was sometimes drunk and his nightly blessing gave way to threats. Sometimes he beat Will or Gilbert, saying, “Remember, I am your father!” as if he himself had forgotten.
School offered Will an escape, and he gladly rose before dawn to lose himself in studying history, ciphering, and Latin. His favorite work was Ovid’s Metamorphoses with its tales of gods changing form and meddling with mankind. He was not often truant, save when a company of players came to nearby Warwick or Coventry. The master would duly whip him for missing his lessons, but his heart was not in it, for Will was his best student. Will himself hardly minded the punishment because the plays gave him such pleasure. He marveled how ordinary men, like Ovid’s gods, could transform themselves and persuade him their feigning was truth.
As Will progressed through Stratford grammar school, the fortunes of John Shakespeare worsened. He sold some properties and mortgaged others. Creditors came to the house demanding payment, but Mary bargained with them until they went away. The bailiff delivered a summons to court, but John ignored it. He seldom left the house, and when he did Will was afraid he would be arrested. Fortunately the magistrate was an old friend of his father’s and hesitated to enforce the warrants against him.
As his father declined, Will grew strong like a new shoot from a weak branch. His shoulders strained against his jerkin and his chin sprouted a few soft hairs he coaxed into the shape of a beard. He began to notice the female sex, their round and pleasing bodies. He would often recall the opening lines of Ovid’s poem:
Of shapes transformed to bodies strange, I
purpose to treat;
Ye gods vouchsafe (for you are they that
wrought this wondrous feat)
To further this my enterprise.
Restlessly he longed for change of any kind; sleeping and waking he dreamed of every sort of greatness and many a shapely girl.
But dreaming could not dispel his family’s troubles. Often he heard his parents quarreling behind the closed door of the shop and leaned closer to listen.
“You have also profited from my wool trading,” his father was saying.
“But I did not condone it. The first time you were fined I warned you to stop. If only you had heeded me!” His mother sounded tearful.
Will had often accompanied his father to the sheep fair. He helped with the shearing and filled the bags with fleece, enjoying the greasy softness under his fingers. There were now thirty or more bags—each weighing a tod, or twenty-eight pounds—in their barn. Will knew how profitable wool trading could be. More profitable than making gloves.
“You ask who betrayed you? Why, most likely some merchant whose honest trade you have usurped,” his mother said.
“God rot him, whoever he is! I have traded wool for fifteen years without a license. Why should the Privy Council now enforce a long-breached law? I’ll raise my rents to pay the fine.”
“You have already done so. Your tenant over on Mill Lane, William Burbage, calls you a robber.”
Will slipped away, keeping to himself the knowledge of his father’s lawbreaking. One moment he felt contempt for him, the next moment pity. He wanted his father to be an honest glover and respected citizen again.
What did Will want for himself? Not to become his father, for one thing. He thought of Ovid’s Proteus, changing aye his figure and his hue, From shape to shape a thousand times. Will wondered what shape he would finally take. He might become an actor who, with a change of costume and a new manner of speaking, could be either a beggar or a king. He watched his own mind shift as wind stirs a field of wheat, until he found that his thoughts had ripened and were ready to harvest.
He went to his father. “I want to leave school.” The sound of his own deep voice surprised him. “I have enough learning.”
John Shakespeare laid down his needle and leaned his elbows on his work bench. “You do not want to become an Oxford philosopher? A lawyer at the Inns of Court?” He waved a hand at these airy fancies they could no longer afford.
Will eyed his father directly. “It is time for me to earn an honest living. To relieve our family’s troubles.”
John Shakespeare frowned.
Will realized it would not do to anger him. “Whatever I earn I will send home,” he said with more humility.
“Don’t beat about the bush. What labor do you intend to do?”
“I want to become a player.” The words rushed from Will’s mouth. “I’ll join Lord Warwick’s company if he will have me. I will gain such renown the queen herself will ask me to perform for her.”
Again John Shakespeare laughed at his son’s ambitions. “An honest living? A player is no better than a vagabond. Would you shame me thus?”
Will’s retort came quickly. “You have already shamed this family by breaking the law with your wool trading.” He could feel his neck and face growing hot. “And by selling Wilmcote, the last of Mother’s estates, which was to be my inheritance.”
John Shakespeare stood up and thrust aside his worktable, spilling its contents to the floor. He seized a strip of hide. It whistled through the air, snapped against Will’s skin, and wrapped around his arm like a whip.
“Remember I am your father! You dare not speak to me so.”
Will pulled his arm free and clenched his fists to keep from striking back.
“You will leave school,” said John Shakespeare. “But it will be to learn my trade and none other.”
You’re a tyrant! Will wanted to shout. But I am a rebel and will not submit!
“But Father, I am not meant to be a glovemaker,” Will protested.
His man’s voice betrayed him, changing back into a boyish squeak.