My heart is empty after my writing yesterday, and my life too. For what is there of William Shakespeare left to write?
That is my son’s face that sits not there,
That emptiness along our table,
The laughter absent from our hall,
The cloak that hangs not at the door.
I was father of a son. Now I am not.
I thought my world would die
When my son had ceased to live.
O, pardon.
Though no man notices,
Will Shakespeare ceased to be.
There was a father once. I am not he.
When I first lifted my pen, my young life whirled with passion that ripened, like a field of wheat, to finally write of love, a man’s love and a father’s. Now, with those two loves scythed down, I wrote of tragedies, wringing pain out of my anguished body onto pages and giving them to the world. I think that without those plays I could not have borne my life.
But life seeps in despite the pain. One day I laughed again, one night I drank, and once more took a mistress to my bed. Honours fell upon me, the King’s favour, good estates. And then one day my pen ran dry, for I had purged my pain and had no dreams to fill the void. I played at writing with good Fletcher, but my muse, my heart, had fled.
All that was left was the dream that had been my father’s: to see our household rise in estate, from glover to merchant, merchant to gentleman. And, having no dreams of my own, I came back here, to be the husk that you see now, my corn withered. I smile, I bow, I dress; I have Jem follow me lest I, a gentleman, demean myself by carrying a parcel.
Today I took a shovel full of coals from the great Yule log that has been burning since Christmas, and put it to the tinder when the maids had set the fire again. Thus, by custom, will our household’s fire shine bright for the full year ahead.
My wife and daughter laughed and clapped as the new fire caught, as if true purpose can be found in fire. And yet the custom has been done in every house throughout the land and still the plague comes, the smallpox, the agony and death that flesh is heir to.
After, I signed my name to the year’s new land agreements, this being the end of the tenant farmers’ year, and its beginning.
Today is the horse and cattle fair too.
‘Thomas says there be a fine pair of carriage horses to be sold,’ my daughter told me this morning.
‘And does Thomas Quiney intend to buy them?’ I demanded.
She flushed, knowing that her Thomas has not the money for a pair of terriers until her dowry be in his pocket. ‘He thought they would suit you, Father.’
I shrugged. ‘We do well with those we have.’
‘Yes, but She stopped, but I could hear her words. If we had two pairs of carriage horses, she could then say, ‘Why, Father, we need another carriage.’ That way she and her ‘sweet Thomas’ could ride instead of walk, with a family crest upon the door, the one I purchased for my father and that gave him so much joy.
She is now counting her linen; and my wife is making Lenten jellies of almond milk, and baked fancies to decorate the marriage feast.
And I write . . . of what? Of prating and foolishness, of tenants and horse fairs; I who wrote with the muse of fire at my heels, encircling whole kingdoms in my words.
There is no tragedy of King Lear here, played out by an old farmer and his daughter; nor Romeo and Juliet; no wise Portia, just my wife, ordering the largest carp in Stratford for baking. Words I have; but no substance to give to them. My life is like a gilded chestnut, seeming fine until you crack it and see the worms have eaten in while the world believes it is still rich and whole.
I have writ my past into this book; writ my love, my wit and agony into my plays. What then is left to me?
If I were mad, I should forget my son;
Or madly think, a babe of clouts were he:
I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity . . .
Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief.