I finally have the opportunity to comment on Anti-Stratfordians! It gets me every time that Mark Rylance is an Anti-Stratfordian! Yes, Mark Rylance, as in ‘former creative director of Shakespeares Globe’ Mark Rylance. I can’t watch anything he’s in without my brain just going ‘doesn’t believe WS was real’.
I'm reading YOUNG QUEENS OF THE RENAISSANCE and your history of Catherine de Medici is A LOT BETTER. I've checked out McMyne's first book and requested her second!
I have never been able to relate to Shakespeare until this interview. The conversation between the two of you makes me wish I had paid more attention in high school. Hilarious ... and interesting.
Okay, for me, Shakespeare is maybe only half a dirtbag. Anyone who could write the following, a scene I regard as the greatest in the history of theater, cannot be considered a full-blooded dirtbag. No, it cannot, because it appeals so deeply to my inner 11 year old scatalogical self:
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Act 4, Scene 4
LANCE:
When a man's servant shall play the cur with him,
look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a
puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or
four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it.
5
I have taught him, even as one would say precisely,
'thus I would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver
him as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master;
and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber but he
steps me to her trencher and steals her capon's leg:
10
O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself
in all companies! I would have, as one should say,
one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be,
as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had
more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did,
15
I think verily he had been hanged for't; sure as I
live, he had suffered for't; you shall judge. He
thrusts me himself into the company of three or four
gentlemanlike dogs under the duke's table: he had
not been there—bless the mark!—a pissing while, but
20
all the chamber smelt him. 'Out with the dog!' says
one: 'What cur is that?' says another: 'Whip him
out' says the third: 'Hang him up' says the duke.
I, having been acquainted with the smell before,
knew it was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that
25
whips the dogs: 'Friend,' quoth I, 'you mean to whip
the dog?' 'Ay, marry, do I,' quoth he. 'You do him
the more wrong,' quoth I; ''twas I did the thing you
wot of.' He makes me no more ado, but whips me out
of the chamber. How many masters would do this for
30
his servant? Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the
stocks for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had
been executed; I have stood on the pillory for geese
he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for't.
Thou thinkest not of this now. Nay, I remember the
35
trick you served me when I took my leave of Madam
Silvia: did not I bid thee still mark me and do as I
do? When didst thou see me heave up my leg and make
I finally have the opportunity to comment on Anti-Stratfordians! It gets me every time that Mark Rylance is an Anti-Stratfordian! Yes, Mark Rylance, as in ‘former creative director of Shakespeares Globe’ Mark Rylance. I can’t watch anything he’s in without my brain just going ‘doesn’t believe WS was real’.
Derek Jacobi too!
What a fantastic piece to read first thing this morning. Am so grabbing all the books! Thank you!
I'm reading YOUNG QUEENS OF THE RENAISSANCE and your history of Catherine de Medici is A LOT BETTER. I've checked out McMyne's first book and requested her second!
I have never been able to relate to Shakespeare until this interview. The conversation between the two of you makes me wish I had paid more attention in high school. Hilarious ... and interesting.
Okay, for me, Shakespeare is maybe only half a dirtbag. Anyone who could write the following, a scene I regard as the greatest in the history of theater, cannot be considered a full-blooded dirtbag. No, it cannot, because it appeals so deeply to my inner 11 year old scatalogical self:
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Act 4, Scene 4
LANCE:
When a man's servant shall play the cur with him,
look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a
puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or
four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it.
5
I have taught him, even as one would say precisely,
'thus I would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver
him as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master;
and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber but he
steps me to her trencher and steals her capon's leg:
10
O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself
in all companies! I would have, as one should say,
one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be,
as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had
more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did,
15
I think verily he had been hanged for't; sure as I
live, he had suffered for't; you shall judge. He
thrusts me himself into the company of three or four
gentlemanlike dogs under the duke's table: he had
not been there—bless the mark!—a pissing while, but
20
all the chamber smelt him. 'Out with the dog!' says
one: 'What cur is that?' says another: 'Whip him
out' says the third: 'Hang him up' says the duke.
I, having been acquainted with the smell before,
knew it was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that
25
whips the dogs: 'Friend,' quoth I, 'you mean to whip
the dog?' 'Ay, marry, do I,' quoth he. 'You do him
the more wrong,' quoth I; ''twas I did the thing you
wot of.' He makes me no more ado, but whips me out
of the chamber. How many masters would do this for
30
his servant? Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the
stocks for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had
been executed; I have stood on the pillory for geese
he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for't.
Thou thinkest not of this now. Nay, I remember the
35
trick you served me when I took my leave of Madam
Silvia: did not I bid thee still mark me and do as I
do? When didst thou see me heave up my leg and make
water against a gentlewoman's farthingale? Didst
thou ever see me do such a trick?
Yay Mary McMyne!