英文名著分集阅读 詹妮弗·巴西特《威廉·莎士比亚》part6

William Shakespeare by Jennifer Bassett

单词提示

1.court 王室人员 2.grief 悲伤

原文

Chapter 6: Death in the family

After the plague years, we were busy all the time. There were new companies of players, and Will now belonged to the Lord Chamberlain's Men. The Lord Chamberlain was a very important man, close to the Queen. And we often put on plays for the Queen's Court and in the houses of the Great Lords of England. We had some very good actors. There was Will and Richard Burbage, of course, and John Hemmings. And there was Augustine Phillips, Henry Condell, and Thomas Pope. There were other actors too, but those six were the real company. They worked together for more than 20 years, and made a lot of money too. I did the costumes and properties for the Chamberlains. John Hemmings said I was the best properties man in the city. Will was special, because he wrote the plays, and what plays they were. He never wrote the same play twice like some writers, he was always trying something new, something different, and he wrote fast too. John Hemmings could never understand that. “How can you write so fast, Will?” he asked him, “and you never make a mistake or change a word?” Will didn't really understand it himself. “It's all in my head.” he said, “I think about it, and then it just comes out on paper.” He wrote a play about love in 1595, young love. It was Romeo and Juliet. It was a very sad play, because the young lovers die at the end, but the playgoers loved it. They wanted to see it again and again. Will played the part of old Capulet, Juliet's father, One of the boy actors, played the part of Juliet. There were no women actors, so boys played all the women's parts. Of course, Will never put real love making on stage. He did it all with words, clever, beautiful words, and you forgot that the women and girls were really boys in dresses. Some of the boy actors were very good and went on to play men's parts when they were older. We played Romeo and Juliet at Richmond Palace that year. We always played before the Queen at Christmas. She liked to see the new plays and she paid us £10 a play. We often had to work through the night to get the stage ready in time, but it was exciting to be in one of the Queen's palaces at Christmas. There was a lot of singing and dancing and eating and drinking. Some years, Christmas began in November and didn't finish until February or March. The year 1596 began well, but that summer the weather was really bad, cold, wet, it never stopped raining, and the plague began to come back into London. We were in Stratford for the summer, but I went down to Hampshire for a few weeks to do some business for Will about some sheep. Will didn't need me at home, because he was busy writing his new play—A Midsummer Night's Dream. I came back to Stratford one wet August evening. The house in Henley Street was strangely quiet, and I went round the back and up to Will's room, his writing room, we call it. He was just sitting there, not doing anything, just sitting. “What's the matter, Will?” I said, “Where is everybody?” “At church?” His face was gray and his eyes looked empty, dead. “What's happened?” I asked, “What is it?” He looked at me. “Hamlet,”he began, “Hamlet was ill last week and he died yesterday. He was only 11, Toby,and he's dead. My boy, my only son, He's dead, Toby, dead.” He put his face in his hands. What can you say to a man when something like that happens to him? I sat down next to him and put my hand on his arm. We sat together silently. I knew that Will loved that boy of his red haired, bright as a new penny, full of life, just like his father. After a while, I said, “You'll have other sons.” “Anne's 40 already.” Will's voice was tired, “She's had no children since the twins.” “Will, now you've got two fine girls in Susanna and Judith, they'll marry before long, and then you'll have more grandsons than you can count. You'll see there'll be boys running up and downstairs shouting for their granddad, Will