Henslowe, do you know what happens to a man who doesn't pay his debts?
His boots catch fire!
Why do you how!...
when it is I who am bitten?
- What am I, Mr. Lambert? - Bitten, Mr. Fennyman.
How badly bitten, Mr. Frees?
Twelve pounds, one schilling and fourpence, Mr. Fennyman, including interest.
- Aaah! I can pay you! - When?
Two weeks! Three weeks at the most! Oh, for pity's sake!
Take them out.
Where will you find...
Sixteen pounds, five schillings and ninepence.
Including interest, in three weeks?
- I have a wonderful new play. - Put them back in.
- It's a comedy! - Cut off his nose.
It's a new comedy by William Shakespeare.
- And his ears. - And a share!
We will be partners, Mr. Fennyman!
Partners?
It's a crowd-tickler.
Mistaken identities. Shipwreck. Pirate king.
- A bit with a dog, and love triumphant. - I think I've seen it.
I didn't like it.
- But this time it is by Shakespeare. - What's it called?
Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter.
Good title.
A play takes time. Find the actors, rehearsals.
Let's say we open in two weeks.
That's, what, 500 groundlings at tuppence a head.
In addition, 400 backsides at threepence, a penny extra for cushions.
Call it, uh, 200 cushions.
Say two performances for safety. How much is that, Mr. Frees?
- Twenty pounds to the penny, Mr. Fennyman. - Correct.
- But I have to pay the actors and the author. - Share of the profits.
- There's never any-- - Of course not.
Oh-- Oh, Mr. Fennyman, I think you might have hit upon something.
Sign there.
So, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter.
Almost finished?
Oh, without doubt he's completing it at this very moment.
Will. Will!
Where is my play?
Tell me you have it nearly done. Tell me you have it started.
Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move.
No, no, we haven't the time. Talk prose.
Where is my play?
- It is all locked safe in here. - God be praised.
Locked?
- As soon as I find my muse. - Who is she this time?
She is always Aphrodite.
Aphrodite Baggot, who does it behind the Dog and Trumpet?
Henslowe, you have no soul,
so how can you understand the emptiness that seeks a soul mate?
Ow! Will!
I am a dead man, and buggered to boot.
My theater is closed by the plague these twelve weeks.
My actors are forced to tour the inn yards of England...
while Mr. Burbage and the Chamberlain's Men are invited to court...
and receive ten pounds to play your piece,
written for my theater, by my writer, at my risk...
when you were green and grateful.
- What piece? Richard Crookback? - No! It's comedy they want.
Like Romeo and Ethel.
- Who wrote that? - Nobody. You were writing it for me.
- I gave you three pound a month since. - Half what you owe me.
I'm still due for One Gentleman of Verona.
What is money to you and me? l, your patron, you, my wordwright.
When the plague lifts,
Burbage will have a new play by Christopher Marlowe for the Curtain.
- I will have nothing for the Rose. - Mr. Henslowe.
- Will you lend me 50 pounds? - Fifty pounds?
- What for? - Burbage offers me a partnership in the Chamberlain's Men.
For 50 pounds, my days as a hired player are over.
Oh, cut out my heart. Throw my liver to the dogs.
No, then?
Theaters are handmaidens of the devil!
The players breed lewdness in your wives and wickedness in your children!
And the Rose smells thusly rank by any name!
I say, a plague on both their houses!
Where are you going?
My weekly confession.
Words, words, words.
Once, I had the gift.
I could make love out of words as a potter makes cups of clay.
Love that overthrows empires.
Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire and brimstone.
For sixpence a line, I could cause a riot in a nunnery.
-But now-- -And yet you tell me you lie with women.
Black Sue, Fat Phoebe,
Rosaline, Burbage's seamstress, Aphrodite, who does it behind--
Yes, now and again. What of it?
I have lost my gift.
I am here to help you.
Tell me, in your own words.
I-lt's as if my quill is broken,
as if the organ of my imagination has dried up,
as if the proud tower of my genius has collapsed.
- Interesting. - Nothing comes.
Most interesting.
It's like trying to pick a lock with a wet herring.
Tell me, are you lately humbled in the act of love?
How long has it been?
A goodly length in times past, but lately--
No, no. You have a wife, children?
Aye.
I was a lad of 18.
Anne Hathaway was a woman half as old again.
- A woman of property? - She had a cottage.
- One day she was three months gone with child, so-- - And your relations?
- On my mother's side, the Ardens. - No, your marriage bed.
Four years and a hundred miles away in Stratford.
A cold bed, too, since the twins were born.
Banishment was a blessing.
- So, now you are free to love-- - Yet cannot love, nor write it.
Here is a-- a bangle...
found in Psyche's temple on Olympus.
Cheap at fourpence.
Write your name on a paper and feed it into the snake.
Will it restore my gift?
The woman who wears the snake will dream of you, and your gift will return.
Words will flow like a river.
See you next week.
- Now where? - To the palace at Whitehall.
All right.
Hello, Will.
Prithee, Mr. Kempe. Break a leg.
- You too, good Crab. - Crab's nervous. He's never played the palace.
When will you write me a tragedy, Will?
- I could do it. - No, they would laugh at Seneca if you played it.
There is no dog in the first scene, Mr. Kempe, thank you.
- How goes it, Will? - I'm still owed money for this play, Burbage.
Not by me. I only stole it.
My sleeve wants for a button, Mistress Rosaline.
Where were my seamstress' eyes?
- When are you coming over to the Chamberlain's Men? - When I have 50 pounds.
- You writing? - A comedy. All but done.
A pirate comedy.
- Wonderful. - Bring it tomorrow.
- It's for Henslowe. He paid me. Ten pounds. - You're a liar.
- He wants Romeo for Ned and the Admiral's Men. - Mmm. Ned's wrong for it.
Will?
- Here's two sovereigns. I'll give you another two when I see the pages. - Done.
Burbage, I will see you hanged for a pickpocket.
The queen has commanded it. She loves a comedy.
And the Master of the Revels favors us.
And what favor does Mr. Tilney receive from you?
- Ask him. - She comes!
Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus.
Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits,
were it not affection chains thy tender days...
When will you write me a sonnet, Will?
- I've lost my gift. - You left it in my bed.
Come to look for it again.
Are you to be my muse, Rosaline?
Burbage has my keeping,
but you have my heart.
You see? The consumptives plot against me.
Will Shakespeare has a play.
Let's go and cough through it.
My father weeping; my mother wailing;
our maid howling; our cat wringing her hands.
Yet did not this coldhearted cur...
shed one tear--
You see? Comedy.
Love, and a bit with a dog.
That's what they want.
He is a stone, a very pebble stone,
and has no more pity in him than a dog!
A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting.
Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear, nor speaks a word--
Well played, Master Crab!
I commend you!
What light is light...
if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy...
if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by...
and feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
there is no music in the nightingale.
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
there is no day for me to look upon.
Did you like Proteus or Valentine best?
Proteus for speaking. Valentine for looks.
Oh, I liked the dog for laughs.
Silvia, I did not care for much.
His fingers were red from fighting...
and he spoke like a schoolboy at lessons.
Stage love will never be true love...
while the law of the land has our heroines being played by pipsqueak boys in petticoats.
- Oh, when can we see another? - When the queen commands it.
No, but at the playhouse. Nurse!
Be still. Playhouses are not for wellborn ladies.
Oh! I'm not so wellborn.
Well-monied is the same as wellborn,
and well-married is more so.
Lord Wessex was looking at you tonight.
All the men at court are without poetry.
If they see me, they see my father's fortune.
I will have poetry in my life,
and adventure.
And love. Love above all.
Like Valentine and Silvia?
No, not the artful postures of love,
but love that overthrows life.
Unbiddable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart,
and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture.
Love as there has never been in a play.
I will have love, or I will end my days as--
As a nurse?
Oh, but I would be Valentine and Silvia too.
Oh, good nurse, God save you, and good night.
I would stay asleep my whole life...
if I could dream myself into a company of players.
Clean your teeth while you dream, then.
Now spit.
This time the boots are coming off.
- What have I done? - The theaters have all been closed down by the plague.
- Oh, that. - By order of the Master of the Revels.
Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theater business.
The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
- So what do we do? - Nothing.
- Strangely enough, it all turns out well. - How?
I don't know. It's a mystery.
Shall I kill him, Mr. Fennyman?
The theaters are reopened...
by order of the Master of the Revels!
The theaters are reopened!
Mr. Fennyman.
Mr. Tilney has reopened the playhouses.
If you wouldn't mind.
Where's the play?
Oh, it's coming. It's coming.
Will!
Will, I have wonderful news.
So have l. Romeo and Rosaline, scene one.
God, I'm good!
Rosaline? You mean Ethel.
Richard?
Burbage!
Mr. Tilney.
Like you, I found him not at home.
I would've made you immortal.
Tell Burbage he has lost a new play by Will Shakespeare.
What does Burbage care of that?
He's readying the Curtain for Kit Marlowe.
- You've opened the playhouses? - I have, Master Shakespeare.
- But the plague-- - Yes, I know.
But he was always hanging around the house.
The special today is a pig's foot marinated in juniper berry vinegar,
- served on a buckwheat pancake-- - Will!
Have you finished?
Yes, nearly.
- Good morning, Master Nol. You will have a nice part. - Yes!
- We'll need Ralph for the pirate king. - Clear that bloody table!
None other than the Admiral's Men are out on tour.
I need actors!
Those of you who are unknown will have a chance to be known!
- What about the money, Mr. Henslowe? - It won't cost you a penny!
Auditions in half an hour!
Ralph Bagswell, I'd have a part for you,
but, alas, I hear you are a drunkard's drunkard.
Never when I'm working.
Never when I'm working!
Get me to drink mandragora.
Straight up, Will?
Give my friend a beaker of your best brandy.
Kit.
- How goes it, Will? - Wonderful. Wonderful.
- Burbage says you have a play. - I have, and the chinks to show for it.
I insist. A beaker for Mr. Marlowe.
I hear you have a new play for the Curtain.
Not new. My Doctor Faustus.
Ah. I love your early work.
"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships...
and burnt the topless towers of llium?"
I have a new one nearly finished, and better.
The Massacre at Paris.
- Whew. Good title. - Mmm. Yours?
Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter.
Yes, I know. I know.
What is the story?
Well, there's this pirate--
In truth, I have not written a word.
Romeo.
Romeo is ltalian,
always in and out of love.
Yes, that's good. Until he meets--
- Ethel. - Do you think?
- The daughter of his enemy. - The daughter of his enemy.
His best friend is killed in a duel...
by Ethel's brother, or something-- His name is Mercutio.
Mercutio. Good name.
- Will! They're waiting for you! - Yes, I'm coming.
Good luck with yours, Kit.
- I thought your play was for Burbage. - This is a different one.
A different one you haven't written?
Was this the face...
that launched a thousand ships...
and burnt the topless towers of llium?
Thank you.
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships...
- and burnt the top-- topless towers of llium? - Thank you!
Was this the face...
that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless--
I would like to give you something from Faustus by Christopher Marlowe.
- How refreshing. - ...the topless towers of llium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
W-Was this the f--
Very good, Mr. Wabash. Report to the property master.
My tailor wants to be an actor.
I have a few debts here and there.
Well, that seems to be everybody.
- Did you see a Romeo? - I did not.
Well, I to my work, you to yours.
Oh, God.
May I begin, sir?
- Your name? - Thomas Kent.
I-l would like to do a speech by a writer who commands the heart of every player.
What light is light...
if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by...
and feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
there is no music in the nightingale.
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
there is no day for me to look upon.
She is my essence, and I leave to be if I be not--
- Take off your hat! - My hat?
Where'd you learn how to do that?
- I-- - Let me see you. Take off your hat.
- Are you M-Master Shakespeare? - Wait there.
Wait there!
- Will, w-where are the pages? - Where is the boy?
B-B-B-Break a leg!
Sir, will you buy my sweet orange?
Hey!
Everybody ready? All away!
- Follow that boat! - Right you are, governor.
I know your face. Are you an actor?
- Yes. - Yes, I think I've seen you in something.
- That one about a king. - Really?
I had that Christopher Marlowe in my boat once.
- Do you know that house? - Sir Robert De Lesseps.
Where is she? Our guests are upon us!
Lord Wessex, too, bargaining for a bride.
My husband will have it settled tonight.
Stamped, sealed and celebrated.
Tomorrow he drags me off to the country,
and it will be three weeks gone before we return from our estates.
God save you, Mother.
Hot water, Nurse.
I seek Master Thomas Kent.
- Who, sir? - The actor.
- Who asks for him? - Will Shakespeare.
Poet, playwright of the Rose.
Master Kent...
is my nephew.
I will wait.
Much good may it do you.
"Romeo Montague,
a Young Man of Verona."
Verona again?
"A comedy of quarreling families...
reconciled in the discovery of Romeo...
to be the very same Capulet cousin...
stolen from the cradle and fostered to manhood by his Montague mother...
that was robbed of her own child by the pirate king."
Your mother and your father--
From tomorrow, away in the country for three weeks!
Is Master Shakespeare not handsome?
- He looks well enough for a charlatan. - Oh, Nurse!
He would give Thomas Kent...
the life of Viola De Lesseps' dreaming.
My lady, when your parents return, I will tell.
You will not tell.
As I love you and you love me,
you will bind my breast and buy me a boy's wig.
Master Plum. What business here?
The five schilling business, Will.
We play for the dancing.
Hyah! Hyah, hyah!
I seek Master Thomas Kent.
Musicians don't eat. Sir Robert's orders.
She's a beauty, my lord,
as would take a king to church for the dowry of a nutmeg.
My plantations in Virginia are not mortgaged for a nutmeg.
I have an ancient name which will bring you preferment...
when your grandson is a Wessex.
- Is she fertile? - Oh, she will breed.
- If she do not, send her back. - Is she obedient?
As any mule in Christendom.
But if you are the man to ride her,
there are rubies in the saddlebag.
I like her.
By all the stars in heaven.
Who is she?
Viola De Lesseps? Dream on, Will.
Master Shakespeare.
My lady Viola.
My lord.
I have spoken with your father.
So, my lord? I speak with him every day.
Good sir.
I heard you were a poet.
A poet of no words?
Poet?
I was a poet till now, but I've seen beauty that puts my poems...
at one with the talking ravens in the Tower.
- How do I offend, my lord? - By coveting my property.
I cannot shed blood in her house, but I will cut your throat anon.
Do you have a name?
Christopher Marlowe, at your service.
Romeo. Romeo.
A Young Man of Verona.
A comedy by William Shakespeare.
- My lady! - Who is there?
- Will Shakespeare. - Madam!
Anon, good nurse, anon.
- Oh, Master Shakespeare. - The same, alas.
But why "alas"?
- A lowly player. - Alas, indeed.
For I thought you the highest poet of my esteem...
and a writer of plays that capture my heart.
- Oh, I am him too. - Madam!
Anon! I will come again.
Oh, I am fortune's fool. I will be punished for this.
Oh, my lady, my love!
If they find you here, they will kill you.
- You can bring them with a word. - Oh, not for the world.
- Madam! - Anon!
Draw, if you be men!
Gregory, remember thy swashing blow!
Part, fools! Put up your swords. You know not what you do.
It starts well, then it's all long-faced about some Rosaline.
Where's the comedy, Will? Where's the dog?
Do you think it's funny?
I was a pirate king, now I'm a nurse. That's funny.
We are six men short, and those we have will be overparted ranters...
and stutterers who should be sent back to the stews.
My Romeo's let me down. I see disaster.
We are four acts short, if you're looking for disaster.
- Sir! - Who are you, master?
I'm Ethel, sir, the pirate's daughter.
I'll be damned if you are!
Your attention, please!
- Gentlemen, thank you! - You are welcome.
- Who's that? - Nobody. He's the author.
We are about to embark on a great voyage.
It is customary to make a little speech on the first day.
It does no harm. Authors like it.
You want to know what parts you are to receive. All will be settled as we--
I'll do it.
Now listen to me, you dregs.
Actors are ten a penny,
and l, Hugh Fennyman, hold your nuts in my hand.
Huzzah!
The Admiral's Men are returned to the house!
Huzzah!
Henslowe!
Earl! Good to see you.
Who is this?
Silence, you dog!
I am Hieronimo.
I am Tamburlaine.
I am Faustus.
I am Barabbas, the Jew of Malta.
Oh, yes, Master Will. I am Henry the Sixth.
What is the play, and what is my part?
- Uh, one moment, sir-- - Who are you?
I'm, um-- I'm the money.
Then you may remain,
so long as you remain silent.
Pay attention. You will see how genius creates a legend.
- Thank you, sir. - We are in desperate want of a Mercutio, Ned.
A young nobleman of Verona.
- And the title of this piece? - Mercutio.
Is it?
I will play him.
Mr. Pope. Mr. Philips. Welcome.
George Bryan. James Armitage.
Sam, my pretty one!
- Are you ready to fall in love again? - I am, Master Shakespeare.
Your voice. Have they dropped?
No! No. A touch of cold only.
Master Henslowe, you have your actors... except Thomas Kent.
I, uh, I saw his Tamburlaine, you know.
- It was wonderful. - Yes, I saw it.
Of course, such mighty writing.
There's no one like Marlowe.
Better fortune, boy.
I was in a play.
They cut my head off in Titus Andronicus.
When I write plays, they'll be like Titus.
You admire it.
I liked it when they cut heads off,
and the daughter mutilated with knives.
- What's your name? - John Webster.
Here, kitty, kitty.
Plenty of blood.
That's the only writing.
I have to get back.
See, where he comes. So please you step aside.
I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.
I would thou wert so happy by thy stay to hear true shrift. Come, madam.
- Cut around him for now. - What? Who?
- Romeo. - The one who came with your letter.
- What? - Good morrow, cousin.
Is the day so young?
- But new struck nine. - Ay me. Sad hours seem long.
What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
Not having that which having makes them short.
- Good. - In love?
- Out. - Of love?
- Out of her favor where I am in love. - Don't spend it all at once.
Yes, sir.
- Do you understand me? - No, sir.
You're speaking about a baggage we never even meet.
What will be left in his purse when he meets his Juliet?
- Juliet? You mean Ethel. - God's teeth!
Am I to suffer this constant stream of interruption?
What will he do in Act Two, when he meets the love of his life?
I-l'm very sorry, sir. I have not seen Act Two.
Of course you have not. I have not written it.
Go once more.
Will.
Where is Mercutio?
Locked safe in here. I'll leave the scene in your safekeeping, Ned.
I have a sonnet to write.
Sonnet? You mean a play!
For Lady Viola De Lesseps,
by the hand of Thomas Kent.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May--"
Two hours at prayer!
Lady Viola is pious, my lord.
Piety is for Sunday!
And two hours of prayer is not piety, it is self-importance.
It would be better that you return tomorrow, my lord.
It would be better if you'd tell her to get off her knees and show some civility...
to her six-day lord and master!
Mmmph!
My lady Viola.
Lord Wessex. You've been waiting.
I am aware of it.
But it is beauty's privilege.
You flatter, my lord.
No. I have spoken to the queen.
Her Majesty's consent is requisite when a Wessex takes a wife,
and once given, her consent is her command.
Do you intend to marry, my lord?
Your father should keep you better informed.
He has bought me for you.
He returns from his estates to see us married two weeks from Saturday.
You are allowed to show your pleasure.
But I do not love you, my lord.
How your mind hops about.
Your father was a shopkeeper.
Your children will bear arms, and I will recover my fortune.
That is the only matter under discussion today.
You will like Virginia.
- Virginia? - Oh, yes.
My fortune lies in my plantations. The tobacco weed.
I need 4,000 pounds to fit out a ship and put my investments to work.
I fancy tobacco has a future.
We will not stay there long. Three or four years.
But why me?
It was your eyes.
No, your lips.
Will you defy your father and your queen?
The queen has consented?
She wants to inspect you.
At Greenwich, come Sunday.
Be submissive, modest, grateful...
and brief.
I will do my duty, my lord.
"Master Will, poet dearest to my heart,
I beseech you banish me from yours.
I am to marry Lord Wessex.
A daughter's duty...
and the queen's command."
Gentlemen upstage Ladies downstage
Are you a lady Mr. Kent
I'm very sorry, sir.
We're gonna have to do it again.
You did not like the speech?
No, the speech is excellent.
"Oh, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you."
Excellent, and a good length.
But then he disappears for the length of a bible.
There. You have this duel.
A skirmish of words and swords such as I never wrote, nor anyone.
He dies with such passion and poetry as you ever heard.
"A plague on both your houses!"
He dies?
- Ohh! - Will!
Where are my pages?
Did you give her my letter?
And this is for you!
Oh, Thomas, she has cut my strings.
I'm unmanned,
unmended and unmade,
Iike a puppet in a box.
- Writer, is he? - Row your boat!
She tells me to keep away.
She is to marry Lord Wessex! What should I do?
If you love her, you must do as she asks.
- And break her heart and mine? - It is only yours you can know.
She loves me, Thomas!
- Does she say so? - No.
And yet she does where the ink has run with tears.
- Was she weeping when she gave you this? - Uh--
- Her letter came to me by the nurse. - Your aunt.
Yes, my aunt.
But perhaps she wept a little.
Tell me how you love her, Will.
Like a sickness and its cure together.
Oh, yes.
Like rain and sun.
Like cold and heat.
Is your lady beautiful?
Since I came here from the country,
I have not seen her close.
Tell me, is-- is she beautiful?
Thomas, if I could write with the beauty of her eyes,
I was born to look in them and know myself.
A-A-And her lips?
Her lips?
The early morning rose would whither on the branch if it could feel envy.
And her voice, like lark's song?
Deeper, softer. None of your twittering larks.
I would banish nightingales from her garden before they interrupt her song.
- Ah, she sings too? - Constantly.
Without doubt. And plays the lute. She has a natural ear.
And her bosom.
Did I mention her bosom?
What of her bosom?
Oh, Thomas, a pair of pippins...
as round and rare as golden apples.
I think milady is wise to keep your love at a distance.
For what lady could live up to it close to...
when her eyes and lips and voice may be no more beautiful than mine.
Besides, can a--
can a lady of wealth and noble marriage...
Iove happily with a bankside poet and player?
Yes, by God!
Love knows nothing of rank or riverbank.
It will spark between a queen and the poor vagabond who plays the king.
Their love should be minded by each,
for love denied blights the soul we owe to God.
So tell my lady William Shakespeare waits for her in the garden.
But what of Lord Wessex?
For one kiss I would defy a thousand Wessexes.
Oh, Will.
Thank you, my lady.
Lady?
Viola De Lesseps. Known her since she was this high.
Wouldn't deceive a child.
Strangely enough, I'm a bit of a writer meself.
It wouldn't take you long to read it.
I expect you'd know all the booksellers!
Can you love a fool?
Can you love a player?
Wait!
You're still a maid, and perhaps as mistook in me as I was mistook in Thomas Kent.
Are you the author of the plays of William Shakespeare?
I am.
Then kiss me again, for I am not mistook.
I do not know how to undress a man.
It is strange to me too.
Go to. Go to.
I would not have thought it.
There is something better than a play.
There is.
Even your play.
Oh?
And that was only my first try.
Will.
You would not leave me.
I must.
Look how pale the window.
Moonlight.
Mmm, no. The morning rooster woke me.
It was the owl. Come to bed.
Oh, let Henslowe wait.
Mr. Henslowe?
Mmm, let him be damned for his pages.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
There is time. Mmm! It is still dark.
- It's broad day. The rooster tells us so. - It was the owl.
Believe me, love, it was the owl--
You would leave us players without a scene to read today?
My lady?
The house is stirring. It is a new day.
It is a new world.
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
which mannerly devotion shows in this.
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Aye, pilgrim.
Lips that they must use in prayer.
Oh, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do.
They pray.
Grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
It's you.
Suffering cats!
Then move not...
while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purged.
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
Sin from my lips? Oh, trespass sweetly urged. Give me my sin again.
Yes, yes! Um, not quite right.
It is more-- Let me.
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
Sin from my lips? Oh, trespass sweetly urged. Give me my sin again.
- You kiss by the book. - Well, Will!
It was lucky you were here.
- Why do not I write the rest of your play-- - Yes, yes!
Uh, continue. Now the nurse. Where is Ralph?
Madam, your mother craves a word with you.
- What is her mother? - Marry, bachelor,
her mother is the lady of the house, and a good lady...
and a wise and virtuous.
I nursed her daughter that you talked withal.
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her...
shall have the chinks.
- Is she a Capulet? - Mmm.
Oh, dear account! My life is my foe's debt.
Away. Be gone. The sport is at the best.
Aye, so I fear. The more is my unrest.
Come hither, nurse. What is yon gentleman?
The son and heir of old Tiberio.
Let it be night.
- What's he that follows here that would not dance? - I know not.
Go ask his name.
If he be married, my grave is like to be my wedding bed.
No, do not go.
I must. I must.
- The only son of your great enemy. - Terrible.
Simply... terrible!
"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east,
and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon...
who is already sick and pale with grief...
that thou, her maid, art far more fair than she."
- Oh, Will. - Yes, some of it's speakable.
"lt is my lady. Oh, it is my love!
Oh, that she knew she were!
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars...
as daylight doth a lamp."
Her eyes in heaven would through the airy region...
stream so bright...
that birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand,
that I might touch that cheek.
- Ay, me. - "Oh, Romeo.
Romeo.
Wherefore art thou, Romeo?
- Deny thy father and--" - Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
and I'll no longer be a Capulet.
Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
"What man art thou that thus bescreened in night...
so stumblest on my counsel?"
By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am.
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written I would tear the word.
"The orchard walls are high and hard to climb...
and the place death, considering who thou art,
if any of my kinsmen find thee here.
If they do see thee, they will murder thee."
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than 20 of their swords.
Look thou but sweet, and I am proof against their enmity.
Would not for the world they saw thee here.
I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes.
- And but thou love me let them find me here. - "Good night.
Good night,
as sweet repose and rest come to thy heart...
as that within my breast.
Oh, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?"
That's my line.
Oh. It is mine too.
Oh, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
What satifaction canst thou have tonight?
The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.
"My bounty is as boundless as the sea.
My love is deep.
The more I give to thee,
the more I have,
for both are infinite."
Madam?
- I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu. - Juliet!
- "Anon, good nurse." - Anon, good nurse. Sweet Montague, be true.
"Stay but a little. I will come again."
Stay but a little. I will come again.
Oh, blessed, blessed night.
"l am afeared...
being in night, all this is but a dream.
Too flattering sweet...
to be substantial."
To cease thy strife and leave me to my grief.
A thousand times, good night.
A thousand times the worse to want thy light.
I cannot move in this dress. It makes me look like a pig.
I have no neck in this pig dress.
- How is it? - It's all right.
Ned, I know, I know.
- It's good. - Oh?
The title won't do.
Ah.
Romeo and Juliet. Just a suggestion.
Thank you, Ned.
- You are a gentleman. - And you are a Warwickshire shit-house.
- What o'clock tomorrow shall I send to thee? - By the hour of nine.
I shall not fail. 'Tis 20 year till then.
I have forgot why I called thee back.
- You mean no dog of any kind? - Shh! Silence.
The friar marries them in secret,
then Ned gets into a fight with one of the Capulets.
Romeo tries to stop them and gets in Ned's way. I mean, in Mercutio's way.
So Tybalt kills Mercutio, then Romeo kills Tybalt.
Then the prince banishes him from Verona.
That must be when he goes on the voyage and gets shipwrecked...
on the island of the pirate king.
For God's sake, cease your prattling and get out!
Get out!
A thousand apologies.
Please.
And with a silken thread plucks it back again,
so loving-jealous of his liberty.
- I would I were thy bird. - Sweet, so would l; yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night. Good night.
Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Sunday.
'Tis Sunday.
I found something in my sleep.
The friar who married them will take up their destinies.
- But it will end well for love. - In heaven, perhaps.
It is not a comedy I'm writing now.
A broad river divides my lovers.
Family, duty, fate.
As unchangeable as nature.
Yes.
This is not life, Will.
It is a stolen season.
- Be patient, my lord. - Patient?
- Do you ask Her Majesty to be patient? - My Lord, I will go--
Sunday. Greenwich!
Now, pay attention, nursie.
The queen-- Gloriana Regina,
God's chosen vessel, the radiant one who shines her light on us--
is at Greenwich today and prepared during the evening's festivities...
to bestow her gracious favor on my choice of wife.
And if we're late for lunch, the old boot will not forgive!
So get you to my lady's chamber and produce her with or without her undergarments!
You cannot! Not for the queen herself!
What will you have me do? Marry you instead?
To be the wife of a poor player.
Can I wish that for Lady Viola except in my dreams?
And yet I would if I were free to follow my desire in the harsh light of day.
You follow your desire freely enough in the night.
- So, if that is all, to Greenwich I go. - Then I'll go with you.
- You cannot. Wessex will kill you. - I know how to fight.
Stage fighting.
Oh, Will.
As Thomas Kent, my heart belongs to you,
but as Viola, the river divides us,
and I must marry Wessex a week from Saturday.
I'll drag her down by the queen's command!
Good morning, my Lord.
My lady. The tide waits for no man, but I swear it would wait for you.
Oh, here we come at last, my lord!
Are you bringing your laundrywoman?
Her chaperone, my lady's country cousin.
My, but you be a handsome gallant,
just as she said.
You may call me Miss Wilhelmina.
On a more fortuitous occasion, perhaps.
Oh, my Lord, you will not shake me off.
Aye, she never needed me more. I swear by your britches.
- Now? - Now.
The queen asks for you. Answer well.
- Is there a man? - A man, my lord?
There was a man, a poet. A theater poet, I think.
- Does he come to the house? - A theater poet?
An insolent penny-a-page rogue! Marlowe, he said. Christopher Marlowe.
- Has he been to the house? - Marlowe?
Oh, yes. He is the one.
Lovely waistcoat. Shame about the poetry.
That dog!
Your Majesty.
Stand up straight, girl.
I've seen you.
You are the one who comes to all the plays at Whitehall, at Richmond.
Your Majesty.
What do you love so much?
- Your Majesty-- - Speak up, girl!
I know who I am.
Do you love stories of kings and queens?
Of feats of arms?
Or is it courtly love?
I love theater.
To have stories acted for me by a company of fellows is indeed--
They're not acted for you; they are acted for me. And?
And I love poetry above all.
Above Lord Wessex?
My lord, when you cannot find your wife,
you better look for her at the playhouse.
Playwrights teach us nothing about love.
They make it pretty; they make it comical; or they make it lust.
They cannot make it true.
Oh, but they can.
I mean, Your Majesty, they-- they do not, they have... not,
but I believe there is one who can.
My Lady Viola is young in the world.
Your Majesty is wise in it.
Nature and truth are the very enemies of playacting. I'll wager my fortune.
I thought you were here because you had none.
- Well, no one will take your wager, it seems. - Fifty pounds.
Fifty pounds?
A very worthy sum on a very worthy question.
Can a play show us the very truth and nature of love?
I bear witness to the wager...
and will be the judge of it as occasion arises.
I have seen nothing to settle it yet.
Are there no more fireworks?
They would be soothing after the excitements of Lady Viola's audience.
Have her, then, but you are a lordly fool.
She's been plucked since I saw her last, and not by you.
It takes a woman to know it.
Marlowe.
Burbage?