litigated against the publisher of the pamphlet. Marlowe threatened Chettle with vengeance. Nashe, a declared friend of Robert Greene called the publication a “scald trivial lying pamphlet”.
Who would have thought that reading could be so difficult?
Ironical though it may seem; the strongest argument for William Shaksper being the author of the Shakespearian works is often overlooked by those who wish to prove just that; (the Stratfordians).
In 1601 Ben Jonson, the author of “Every Man in his Humor” (1598) and Every Man Out of his Humor” (1599), staged a piece called “Poetaster”. In this work the character of “Falstaff” was ridiculed by the character”Captain Tucca”, furthermore, there were sarcastic parodies on the balcony scene in “Romeo and Juliet” and the welcome of the wandering players in “Hamlet”.
Shakespeare did not let the matter go unpunished. In 1601/2 he staged “Troilus and Cessida”; in this work the slow-witted anti-hero Ajax stands proxy for Ben Jonson. Shakespeare lambasted the self-enamoured young upstart Jonson with the words:
This man hath robb’d many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant- a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion. There is no man hath a virtue that he has not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it. (Troilus and Cressida, I/2)
This was indeed a ticking-off that the sensitive young Ben Jonson wouldn’t forget that soon.
For the Christmas festivities of 1602 the students of Cambridge University staged a very successful satire “The Return from Parnassus”, in which two somewhat older students go about discovering themselves and what are their vocations.
William Kempe dancing “the morris”
After many failed attempts to find a vocation, Philomusus and Studioso try the acting profession. They seek the advice of two members of Will Shaksper’s company “The Lord Chamberlain’s Men”; Richard Burbage and William Kempe, the clown and the tragedian respectively. The two young men perform for the actors, whereafter Burbage and Kempe discuss their talents.
KEMPE. The slaves are somewhat proud, and besides it is a good sport in a part to see them never speake in their walke, but at the end of the stage, just as though in walking with a fellow we should never speake but at a stile, a gate, or a ditch, where a man can go no further.
BURBAGE. A little teaching will mend these faults, and it may bee besides they will be able to pen a part.
KEMPE. Few of the University men plaies well, they smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and talke too much of Proserpina and Juppiter. Why heres our fellow Shakespeare puts them all downe. Aye, and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow ... but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit.
(The Return of Parnassus, IV/3)
„Our fellow Shakespeare“? When Kempe, the clown speaks of “our fellow Shakespeare” does he mean Will Shaksper, the actor or does he mean William Shakespeare, the author? In the satire, the words that are put into Kempe’s mouth suggest that he holds “Metamorphosis” for the name of an author even though everybody knows that the “Metamorphoses” are a piece written by the author Ovid- and in the same breath he says that Will Shaksper, the actor, is the author of the Shakespearian works.
This joke that the students make at Kempe’s and Shaksper’s expense is based on the fact that Will Shaksper, the actor’s being William Shakespeare, the author is no more likely than “Metamorphosis” being the name of an author; two huge deliberate blunders!
A modern day rapper might say, when discussing modern day myths in a similar way:
”Elvis is still alive, man,
Paul McCartney lies in his grave,
Milli Vanilli sings their own songs, man,
And Will Shaksper writes his own plays.”
Ah but! I hear from Stratford “What about that monument and the strange looking bust in the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford?” -The bust was commissioned to a famous Anglo-Flemish sculptor family by the name of Janssen, presumably, six or seven years after Shaksper’s death. biblograpop
The family Janssens also made the monuments for the graves of Henry Wriothesley, second Earl of Southampton and for the third, fourth and fifth Earls of Rutland.
The businessman and actor, Will Shaksper, didn’t make any arrangements for a monument in his will. Such a monument, plus the transport from London would have cost somewhere between £ 50 and £ 60 (the price of a house). We can safely assume that his family didn’t decide to spend that much money, so there must have been an anonymous donor.
1709
There has been considerable discussion as whether or not the pen and paper where featured in the original bust of Shaksper, or if they were added during the “cleaning and restoration” of 1748. Be that as it may, the only similarity that I can see between the bust and Droeshout’s engraving of 1623 is the hair loss.
Droeshout Engraving, 1623
2009
Shaksper’s final resting place is graced with a rather flowery inscription; that was in all likelihood incomprehensible to Will Shaksper’s relatives:
IVDICIO PYLIUM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM,
TERRA TEGIT, POPULUS MAERET, OLYMPUS HABET
(A Pylian in Judgement, a Socrates in genius, a Virgil in art,
The earth buries him, the people mourn him, Olympus possesses him.)
Furthermore there is an appellation in his name to the Stratford tourist:
STAY, PASSENGER, WHY GOEST THOU BY SO FAST?
READ, IF YOU CANST, WHOM ENVIOUS DEATH HATH PLAST
WITHIN THIS MONUMENT. SHAKSPEARE: WITH WHOM
QUICK NATURE DIED; WHOSE NAME DOTH DECK THIS TOMB
FAR MORE THAN COST: SITH ALL THAT HE HAS WRIT
LEAVES LIVING ART, BUT PAGE, TO SERVE HIS WIT.
OBIIT ANO. DOI 1616.
AETATIS 53, DIE. 23 AP.
Or as our modern-day rapper might put it:
“Look at this slab, man, read what it says.
My main man, William Shakespeare, is lying in this grave.
He came out of Momma’s womb,
Now he’s lying in this tomb,
In the short time in between, he wrote some cool plays.
We had to bury the flesh, the bones and the blood,
We didn’t bury what he wrote, check it out, dude -It’s good.”
Died 1616 A.D. At the age of 53 on 23 April.
The (shall-I-say-good?) intention of the commissioner of this bust is quite clear and the second inscription on the slab over the (empty?) grave makes it even more obvious:
Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these