10 Hlffieare

10 Hlffieare T A |illiam Shakespeare was christened on Wednesday, l/ \/ April 26, 1564, in the town of Stratford-on-Avon, Y Y some 90 miles northwest of London. On November 27,1582, at age eighteen he obtained a license to marry Anne Whateley of nearby Temple Graftory but a bond for 40 pounds the next day names the bride as Anne Hathaway of Stratford. She was probably Agnes Hathaway, the daughter of Richard Hathaway, who was buried the previous September and who left her a dowry of twenty nobles. From the gravestone of Shakespeare's wife we know that she was born in 1556 and so was eight years older than her husband. Her first child, Susanna, was christened on May 26 of 1583, so that she was already with child at the time of her marriage. Two years later, in February 1585 she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girf named Hamnet and Judith Shakespeare. At the time of his marriage William Shakespeare's father was a poor man, and William himself was not much better off. His wife's marriage portiory about eight thousand dollars in today's money, was probably a factor in his decision to marry. So, at age 20, Shakespeare already had a wife and three children to support. This is the man that Greene called 153 1.54 g Louis Ule "Shakescene" in Green's Groatsworth of Wit, the famous actor and playwright of that name. ln Groatsworth of Wif Greene provided us with a wealth of information, not all of it flattering, about Shakespeare. The pamphlet is therefore often dismissed as the report of an envious man. But it was not in Greene's nafure to be envious. Nashe did once accuse him of lyitrA calling his Groatsutorth a "scald lying trivial pamphlet," but he was then defending himself from the chaige of authorship, as well as rising to the defense of Marlowe after Greene, urging him to repentance, had exposed him as an atheist. The dates of events in the life of Shakespeare mentioned in Groatsworth of Wit, depend on the date of the first meeting between Greene and Shakespeare. It could not have been later than the year 1591 and, if so, based on Greene's statement that Shakespeare "for seven years space was absolute Inter- preter to the puppets," we see that Shakespeare was no more than twenty years old when he was already a performer. Greene tumed to writing plays only after meeting William Shakespeare. Greene speaks of writing aplay, very likely Al- phonsus, King of Aragon, in 1588, hence his meeting with Shakespeare took place during this year or before. Seven years before theo in L581, Shakespeare, at age 17,began his career as a puppeteer. A William Shakeshafte, usually thought to be Shakespeare, is mentioned as an unemployed actor in Lanca- shire in a will dated 3 August 1581. Puppeteering would be excellent preparation for a career on the stage. To maintain steady employment Shakespeare would have found it neces- sary to travel, to acquire a stock of puppets and dramatic material, to advertise his perforrnances, to rent stalls at country fairs and to hire assistants. Shakespeare's circuit seems to have been north of Stratford- on-Avon: Leigh in Lancashire (where Shakeshafte is mentioned), nearby Manchester (suggested by the ballad, Fair Em, the Miller's Daughter of Manchester, wlich Shakespeare di- rected Robert Wilson to use as a plot for Fair Em) and Coven- try (from Greene's allusion n Qutp to Shakespeare wearing a Coventry hat). Shakespeare essentially put on a one-man show, one that did not require a script and which relied on improvisation and the burlesque of popular ballads. He would entertain by reciting extemporaneous verse, as did Robert Wilsoru and it was probably Wilson, Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe (1. 564-L 607 ) g 155 Tarleton that Marlowe had in mind when he wrote of "riming mother-wits." Shakespeare's account to Greene of his early hardships agrees with what we know of him at the time of his marriage: "What though the world once went hard with me, when I was fain to carry my playing fardle a-footback; Tempora mutantur..." That is, when he first started puppeteering, he could not afford to ride but had to carry his equipment from town to town on his back. But, as he says, "temport mutlntur," times change, and he now estimates his net worth at f,200. At the time of his meeting with Greene, this whole wealth was his "very share in playing apparel". Shakespeare's early financial success was not due as much to his income from puppeteering or from acting, as in acting as broker for costumes after the run of a play. During a plague Shakespeare could acquire these for a fraction of their cost if any monthly interest pay- ment was missed. Shakespeare may have had a direct financial motive in writing plays or commissioning them to be written. Playing apparel must be stored and protected from moths, weather, rats, and theft. It depreciates as an investment and brings no interest. Should a play fold and the actors sell ou! it would be- hoove Shakespeare to procure another play that could use his old costumes. Most actors had little interest in retaining possession of their playing apparel but Shakespeare, with his experience as a puppeteer, would be in the habit of keeping them and know also that it is just a matter of time before they could be used again. It would be cheaper for him to create dramatic material to fit the properties at hand, than to con- stantly change puppets and costumes. We conclude that at an early age Shakespeare made his living as a puppeteer. His financial activities, of which we have some records, were a nafural outgrowth of his theatrical contacts. It would be natural for him to expand his theatrical pawn-broking to make loans of money to people other than actors. Thus, William Shakespeare sued one John Clayton in Cheapside for seven pounds he lent him in May 1592. Shake- speare also bought plays and acted in plays written by other writers, and the explanation is that Shakespeare early realized that it takes more than costumes and actors to put on a paying performance. He accordingly treated playbooks as a capital investment.Th"y were his and they earned money. According 156 ? Louis Ule to Greene, Shakespeare was in the habit of employing scholars to write plays and readily admitted that actors " getby scholars their whole living." Shakespeare was himself a writer, for he tells Greene: "I was a country Author, passing at a moral" and he gives the names of two of them: The Moral of Man's Wit, and The Dia- logue of Diaes. Shakespeare boasts to Greene, "fot'twas I that penned them," implying that Greene may have seen them acted. When Greene describes Shakespeare as having an ungra- cious voice, Shakespeare takes exception and lists the roles he had played and ior which he was as famous as any actor of his time. These roles were, as Greene remembered them: Delphrigus, in an unnamed play; the King of the Fairies, in an unnamed play; a role in The Twelae Labors of Hercules, a play; and the devil in three scenes of the play Highway to Heaaen The role of Delphrigus is mentioned by Thomas Nashe in his preface to Greene's Menaphon: Sundry other sweet Gentlemen I do know, that have vaunted their pens in private devices and tricked up a com- pany of taffeta fools with their feathers whose beauty, if our Poets had not peecte (tricked up) with the supply of their periwigs, they might have anticked it until this time up and down the country with the King of Fairies, and dined every day at the pease porridge ordinary with Delphrigus. Nashe is saying that if sundry sweet Gentlemery such as Robert Greene, did not write plays for the actors they would still be playing The King of the Fairies and eating at the cheapest ordinaries (restaurants) with the actor, William Shakespeare, who played Delphrigus. Shakespeare further tells Greene that he can "serve to make a pretty speech," and, after delivering two lines of doggerel he asks him: "Was not this pretty for a plain rime extempore?" Imprecise caricature rather than devastating precision might better describe Greene's version of these lines, but we may conclude, in any case, that Shakespeare considered himself an able actor, speaker and extemporaneous poet. Greene does not belittle Shakespeare's knowledge of Latin, Christopher Marlowe (1 564-L 607 ) g 1.57 but rather shows Shakespeare respectful of Greene's univer- sity education by his diffidence in using a common Latin expression: tempora mutantur. But Shakespeare's un-self- concious use of the expression ex tempore shbws that he had used it often before in connection with his act. The windmill in Greene's Groatsworth wlich Shakespeare hoped to buy may be explained by the fact that William Shakespeare was a retailer of corn and malt. Greene says that Shakespeare "lodged him at the Town's end in a house of retail." It was probably Shakespeare's place of business where he stored his grain, playing apparel and other pawns, and where he put Greene up for the night while he himself went to better lodgings. Outside Bishopsgate in Fynnesburie Field there were several windmills for grinding corn which may have led Shakespeare to think of expanding his grain business by becoming a miller.

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