Speaker 1: Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess in the year fifteen
ninety six by Anna Benison McMahon. One at the Mermaid
Thus Raleigh, thus immortal Sidney shown illustrious names in Great
Eliza's Days Thomas Edwards. The numberless diamond shaped window panes
of the Mermaid Tavern were twinkling like so many stars
in the chill December air of London. It is the
last meeting of the Mermaid Club for the year fifteen
ninety six, and not a member is absent. As they
drop in by twos and threes and gather in groups
about the room, it is plain that the expectation is
on tiptoe. They call each other by their Christian names
and pledge healths. Some are young, handsome, fastidious in person
and dress. Others are bohemian in costumed speech and action.
All where knee breeches, and nearly all have pointed beards.
He of the harsh fighting face, of the fine eye
and coarse lip, and the shaggy hair, whom they call
ben although one of the youngest, is yet plainly one
of the leaders, both for wit and for wisdom, That
grave and handsome gentleman whose lordly bearing and princely dress
mark his high rank is another favorite. He has written
charming poems, has fought gallantly on many fields, has voyaged
widely on many seas, has founded colonies in distant America.
Is a favorite of the Queen. But in this Mermaid club,
his chief glory is that he is its founder and leader,
the one whose magnetism and personal charm has summoned and
cemented in friendship all these varied elements. At last, the
all important matter of the yearly Christmas play at Court
has been settled. The Master of the Revels has chosen
from the rich stores of his manuscripts the Midsummer Night's Dream,
graciously adding that for wit and mirth it is like
to please Her Majesty exceedingly, a high honor indeed for
its author. For not then, as now were plays written
primarily for the recreation and approval of the audience of
the theater. True, the public stage was fostered and attracted
its daily audience, but rather as a dress rehearsal, its
main purpose being to train the players for the court
presentations at one of Her Majesty's palaces. The secret spur
to both players and playwright was the hope of being
among the chosen for the festivities at Richmond, Whitehall or Greenwich,
as the Queen might fan to hold her court. Disappointment, soreness,
jealousy not seldom followed the award of the coveted distinction,
but not so on this occasion. For now the successful
candidate is one of the youngest and best beloved of
this jolly coterie, and their pride in him is shown
by the eagerness with which they await his coming to
read to them the changes in the manuscript of his
play since its former presentation. Ah hear the burst of
applause that greets his late arrival. A high browed, sandy
haired man of thirty two lithe and figure of middle height,
with a smile of great sweetness, yet sad withal on
his face. One may read the lines of recent sorrow,
and all know that he has returned, but recently to
London from the mournful errand which took him to his
Stratford home the burial of his dearly beloved and only son.
Hamnet the plaudits for the author of the most successful
play of the season, Romeo and Juliet, which was then
taking the town by storm at the curtain theater, were
little heeded by the grief stricken father as he urged
his horse over the rough roads of the four days Journey,
arriving just too late for a parting word from dying lips.
But private sorrows are not for those who are called
to public duties. A writer must trim his pen not
to his own mood, but to the mood of the hour.
And Queen Elizabeth old in years. But every young in
her love of fun and frolic and flattery, must be
made to forget the heaviness of time and the infirmities
of age. If she may no longer take part in
outdoor sports, the hunting, the hawking, the bear baiting, she
still may command processions, fetes, masks and stage plays. It
pleases her now to see this wonderful fairy piece of
which she has heard so much since two years ago
it graced the nuptials of the Earl of Darby. Does
she not remember also that pretty impromptu verse of the
author when acting the part of King in another Man's
play two years ago at Greenwich? Did she not twice
drop her glove near his feet in crossing the stage
and how happily had he responded to the challenge, true
to the character as well as to the meter of
his part. He had picked up the glove, presenting it
to its owner with the words, And though now bent
on this high embassy, yet stoop we to take up
our cousin's glove. Seats were taken, the manuscript is opened,
and the club becomes a green room conference. The play
is not to be recast entirely. The chain changes from
the early version, being mainly to introduce certain touches to
flatter the royal ears, and to suit it to the
more elaborate equipment of the white all stage. Quill in hand,
the reader, as he proceeds, crosses out from his manuscript
everything that clogs the movement or detracts from the playfulness.
Giving free rein to his luxuriant imagination. He scatters the
choicest flowers of fancy to create a vivid and animated picture.
The lovers meet and part with pretty rhymes and repartee.
The hard handed men, the tradesmen and tinkers bring their
clumsy efforts to serve the wedding feast. The fairies graceful,
lovely enchanting dance amid the fragrance of enameled meadows. His
fellow writers feel the charm. No one of them can
do work in so many kinds, nor of such kind
in each They recognize their master. They are under his
magic spell. The familiar stories from Plutarch and Chaucer and
Avid take on a new meaning. The very holly on
the walls seems alive with the fairy folk, as indeed
it should be, according to the pretty old superstition that
elves and fairies hover about all Christmas fetes. Hence, branches
are hanging in hall and bower in order that these
invisible guests may hang in each leaf and cling on
every bough. The holly, its prickly leaves, symbolic of the
crown of thorns, and its red berries of the blood
of Christ, vanishes the ivy and other greens, and becomes
the popular favorite that it has since remained for Christmas decoration.
A responsive audience, truly roars of laughter greet the rollicking
humor of the clowns and their rude burlesque of things theatrical,
but longest and loudest is the applause over the new touches,
those portions that have been written in to please the
court and the Queen. To remodel a play written for
a marriage celebration, so that it shall seem to praise
the virginity of the queen. Were surely no slight task,
but it has been accomplished. Though the scene is laid
in Greece. Yet the play is full of the English
life that all knows so well. Merry England and not
classic Greece has given the poet the picture of the
sweet country school girls working at one flower, warbling one song,
growing together like a double cherry. Of England is the
picture of the hounds with ears that sweep away the
morning do from England. All this outdoor woodland life, the
clowns play, and the clowns themselves bottom with his inner
imitable conceit and his fellow's snug quence. And the rest
English is all Puck's fairy lore. The cowslips tall, the
red hipped humblebee, oberon spank, the pansy love in idleness,
and all the lovely imagery of the verse. English is
the whole scenic background, and the wood near Athens is
plainly the Stratford boys idealized memory of the wear break
that he knows so well, mayhap in very truth on
some midsummer night, the young poet, even then of imagination
all compact, did indeed dream a dream or see a
vision like unto this, bringing it from Stratford to London,
partly written, but foregoing its completion for labor that would
find readier acceptance at the theater. However that may be certain,
it is that this is a red letter night at
the m made. The genius of gentle Will has taken
a new point of departure and shines as it has
not shown before, either in his making over of other
men's plays or in his few original works. He has
conquered a new realm of art. The phantoms of the
fairy world, for the first time have been endowed with
a genuine and sustained dramatic interest. Small wonder that no
one ventures to interrupt as the pages are turned. Even
at the close, only one, the Selinus faced Ben, offers
a criticism. Being well versed in classic lore, he protests
against the characterization of theseus Duke of Athens, saying it
is too modern and has in fact nothing of the
Antique or Grecian in its composition, But he is overruled speedily,
and as the meeting breaks up, one of the younger
fellows whispers to another Shakespeare was sent us from heaven,
but Johnson from College two at the Queen's Palace, those
flights upon the banks of Thames that so did take
Eliza and our James ben Jonson. It is Christmas night. Lords,
ladies and ambassadors have been summoned to Whitehall Palace to
witness the play for which author, actors and artists of
many kinds have been working so industriously during the past
few weeks. The banqueting hall, with a temporary stage at
one end, has been converted into a fine auditorium. Facing
the stage, and beneath her canopy of state sits Queen
Elizabeth in rough and farthingale, her hair loaded with crowns
and powdered with diamonds, while her sharp smile and keen
glance take note of every incident nearest her person. And
evidently the chief favored of the moment is the man
who has long been considered the adornus of the court.
He is now also its hero, having but recently returned
from the wars in Spain, where his gallantry impromptitude at
Cadiz have won new glories for her majesty. In five
short years more, his head will come to the block
by decree of this same majesty. But this no one
can foresee, and all voices now unite in praises for
the brave and generous Essex. Another conspicuous favorite is a
blue eyed, pink cheeked young fellow of twenty three, whose
scarcely perceptible beard and mustache and curly auburn hair falling
over his shoulders and half way to his waist would
suggest femininity. Except for his martial manner and tall figure,
his resplendent attire is notable even in this gorgeously arrayed company.
His white satin doublet has a broad collar edged with
lace and embroidered with silver thread. The white trunks and
knee breeches are laced with gold. The sword belt, embroidered
in red and gold, is decorated at intervals with white
silk bows, purple garters embroidered in silver thread, fastened the
white stockings below the knee. As one of the handsomest
of Elizabeth courtiers, and also one of the most distinguished
for birth, wealth and wit, he would be a striking
figure at any time, but tonight he has the added
distinction of being the special friend and munificent patron of
the author of the play. That they have come to
witness to him had been dedicated the author's first appeal
to the reading public, a poem called Venus and Adonnis,
published some three years since. Also a certain sugared sonnet
privately circulated, prote testing for to no other pass my
verses tend than of your graces and your gifts to tell.
And through the patronage of this man, the gracious Earl
of Southampton, the actor author was first brought to the
Queen's notice, finally leading to the present distinction at her hands.
But now the stage compels attention. The silk curtains are withdrawn,
disclosing a setting of such elaboration and illusion as never
before has been witnessed by sixteenth century eyes. Never before
has the frugal Elizabeth consented to such an expenditure for costumes, properties, lights,
and music. In vain, the audience awaits the coming of
the author. He is behind the scenes, an anxious and
watchful partner with the machinist in securing the proper working
of these new mechanical appliances and the smoothness of the
scene shifting. The Queen is a connoisseur in these matters,
and there must be no bungling. The stage is divided
horizontally between the roof and floor, the upper part concealed
from the audience, while the lower section represents the interior
of a royal palace at Athens. Three soundings of the
cornet announce the opening of the play, with its stately dialog,
in which Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, Queen of
the Amazons, anticipate their approaching nuptials. Egius enters with his
daughter Hermia to bring complaint to the Duke that she
will not marry Demetrius, the husband he has selected for her,
but is bewitched with love for Lysander. The Duke reasons
with Hermia, but the maiden is still obdurate and demands
to know the worst that may befall if she refuses
to wed Demetrius. The Duke pronounces sentence either to die
the death or to abjure forever the society of men. Therefore, fair, Hermia,
question your desires, know of your youth, Examine well your
blood whether if you yield not to your father's choice,
you can endure the livery of a nun. For I
to thee in shady cloister, mewt to live a barren
sister all your life, chanting faint hymns to the cold,
fruitless moon. Thrice blest they that master sow their blood
to undergo such maiden pilgrimage. But earthlier happy is the
rose distilled than that which withering on the virgin thorn grows,
lives and dies in single blessedness. The tributes to the
maiden pilgrimage, and a single blessedness win from the Queen's countenance,
a glow which age has had no power to diminish.
The highway to favor with the virgin Queen, as every
court and every writer knows, lies through praises of her
voluntary state of celibacy. Thus threatened, Hermia is urged by
Lysander to a clandestine marriage. If thou lovest me, then
steal forth thy father's house tomorrow night, and in the
wood a league without the town where I did meet
thee once with Helena, to due observance to a morn
of May, there will I stay for thee. Hermia, hearing
these words, feels her heart leap with joy. She tries
to answer soberly in the same measure used by her lover,
but as her words become impassioned, she breaks into rhyme,
My good lysender, I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,
by his best arrow with the golden head, by the
simplicity of venus doves, by that which knitteth souls and
prospers loves, and by that fire which burned the Carthaine,
when the false trojan under sail was seen, by all
the vows that ever men have broke in number more
than ever woman spoke in that same place, Thou hast
appointed me tomorrow, truly will I meet with thee. A
scene of homely prose follows. The tradesmen and tinkers of
Athens are planning to turn actors and to play Pyramus,
and thisby for the Duke's wedding feast. It is full
of local hits which are not lost upon the audience.
In the practical jokes, the melodrama, the ranting bomb bass,
and Bottom's ambition to play a tyrant's vain, they recognize
the satire on the amateur theatricals of the trade skills,
the clownish horseplay of the moralities so called. These crude plays,
once so popular, have become the jest of an audience
who pride themselves on a drama of higher ideals and
greater art. A sudden fall of the upper curtain, and
the lower stage is concealed, the upper one breaking upon
the view of the delighted spectators, and announcing act too
of the play. It is a night scene in a
wood near Athens, mossy banks and green trees, clouds and
twinkling stars in the heavens, forms of fairies sitting about
like humming birds, or resting in nodding fern leaves. They
sing in quick, short rhymes, suiting the tempo to their actions.
Met we on hill, in dale forest, or mead by
paved fountain, or by rushy brook, or in the beeched
margin of the sea, to dance our ringlets to the
whistling wind, over hill, over dale, through flood, through fire,
over park, over pale, through flood through fire. I do
wander everywhere swifter than the moon's sphere, and I serve
the fairy queen to dew her ow orbes upon the green,
the fairy queen and king appear engaged in a very
human quarrel. Titania, like any mortal woman, is little disposed
to yield to the demands of her lord and master
one of her cherished treasures. They part in anger, and
Oberon summons Puck, the art mischief maker, and sets on
foot the punishment of the rebellious lady. The audience, easy
believers in spells, magic and witchcraft, are in full sympathy
with Puck's mission to secure the potion whose magic power
will create love or cause infidelity and hatred. Never had
poetry been fuller of imagery or sweeter in verification than
in the line spoken by Oberon, Nor had Queen Elizabeth
ever received a more graceful compliment. Thou rememberest, Since once
I sat upon a promontory and heard a mermaid on
a dolphin's back uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, that
the rude sea grew civil at her song, and certain
stars shot madly from their spheres to hear the sea
maid's music. That very time I saw, But thou couldst
not flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid,
all armed a certain aim he took at a fair
vestal throned by the west, and loosed his love shaft
smartly from his bow, as it should pierce a hundred
thousand hearts. But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon, and
the imperial voteress passed on in maiden meditation. Fancy free,
yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell. It
fell upon a little western flower before milk white, now
purple with love's wound, and maidens call it in idleness.
Fetch me that flower. Mark the Queen's flushed cheek and
parted lips. The mermaid on the dolphin's back is no
fancy picture, but an exact description of one of the
pageants at the festivities in her honor at Kenilworth. Although
twenty years have passed, Memory still loves to linger about
those days when she visited her favorite, the fascinating Earl
of Leicester, on her royal progress, before state policy and
private peak had combined to create strife and alienation. From memory.
Also was the verse picture painted the lad of eleven,
who had made light of the fifteen miles between Kenilworth
and Stratford, by tearing across ditch and hedge and meadow,
could not easily forget the sights of that memorable day.
Little then could he foresee the present hour. But rightly
now does he judge that these reminiscences of the olden
days will please her majesty? Rightly also does he judge
that the ridiculous situations between the lovers will not be displeasing.
A queen whose whole reign has been marked by warfare
against the marriage of her courtiers and her clergy, whose
own mother's marriage had been so unhappy, will sympathize with
Puck when he says of the lovers, those things do
best please me? That fall out preposterously? Or Lord, what
fools these mortals be? A mad frolic now begins in Fairyland.
Puck stirs up all sorts of complications by squeezing the
magic flower juice on the wrong eyes, with such sad
results that Titania falls in love with the weaver bottom
with the ass's head on his shoulders. The two friends,
Hermia and Helena, rail at each other over the seeming
desertion of their life, But in the morning, the spell
having been removed, and each lover restored to his proper relations,
the rivals become once more true friends. The fairy king
and Queen also have become reconciled, and prepare to celebrate
the double wedding of the mortals with sports and revels
throughout their fairy kingdom. The fifth act restores the lower
stage and the palaces of theseus. His wedding festivities have begun.
The hard handed men of Athens perform their crude interlude,
made all the more grotesque by the awkwardness of Francis
Flute the bellows mender in the character of thisby it
is his part to fall upon the sword and die,
thus ending the play. Imagine the delight of the courtly
auditors when the clumsy man in the part of the
disconsolate lady falls not upon the blade but upon the
scabbard of the unfamiliar weapon. But laughter and applause are
arrested by the appearance of a bright, transparent cloud. It
reaches from heaven to earth, and borne in upon it.
With music and with song are Oberon, Titania and their
elfin train. The cloud parts, and Puck steps forth to speak.
The epilog if we shadows have offended, think but this
and all is mended, that you have but slumbered here
while these visions did appear. The Christmas play is over,
but not over the Christmas fun. Lords and ladies are
but human, and have devised a stately dance in which
they themselves participate until nearly sunrise, the Queen herself joining
at times, and never so happy as when assured of
her wondrous majesty and grace. Did they did any one
at this Christmas play of three hundred years ago feel
the full charm and glow glory of this immortal creation
of the poet? Did its lines ring in their ears
the next day, and the next and the next? Did
they foresee how its rhythm would dance down the ages
and abide in these present days and in this present
speech of ours? But this is something that I, your
truthful reporter, cannot answer. Three. An old time Christmas carol
sung to the Queen in the presence at Whitehall fifteen
ninety six. I sing of a maiden, that is Machelus,
king of all Kings, to her son she chests. He
came all so still there his mother was as do
in April that falleth on the grass. He came all
so still to his mother's bower, as do in April,
that falleth on the flower. He came all so still
there his mother lay, as do in a pril, that
falleth on this spray. Mother and maiden was never none
but she well. May such a lady God's mother be
the end end of Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess
in the year fifteen ninety six by Anna Bearonson MacMahon