Huh? Who's there?
Marlowe.
You are playing my Dr. Faustus this afternoon.
Don't spend yourself in sport.
- What do you want, Kit? - My Massacre at Paris is complete.
- What? You have the last act? - If you have the money.
-Tomorrow. -Then tomorrow you shall have the pages.
Oh, will you desist, madam!
- Oh! - Twenty pounds on delivery.
Now, what is money to men like us?
Besides, if I need a play, I have another waiting-- a comedy by Shakespeare.
Oh, Romeo.
- Gave it to Henslowe. - Never!
Well, I'm to Deptford. I leave you my respects, Miss Rosaline.
I gave Shakespeare two sovereigns for Romeo.
You did, but Ned Alleyn and the Admiral's Men have the playing of it at the Rose.
Treachery!
Traitor and thief!
Oh, no.
No!
By my head, here comes the Capulets.
By my heel, I care not.
Follow me close. I will speak with them.
Gentlemen, good-den! A word with one of you.
Are you going to do it like that?
Positions.
- By my head, here comes the Capulets. - By my heel, I care not.
Follow me close. I will speak to them.
Gentlemen, good-den! A word with one of you.
And but one word with one of us?
Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.
Where's that thieving hack that can't keep his pen in his own ink pot?
What is this rabble?
Draw, if you be a man!
Wonderful. Wonderful!
And a dog.
No!
Have privy, players! Please!
Oh! Not with my props!
Oh!
- Will! What-- - A writer's quarrel.
Quite normal.
Stay here.
You are hurt.
I dreamed last night of a shipwreck.
- You were cast ashore in a far country. - Oh, not yet.
Not yet.
'Ey, we need that for the balcony scene.
My investment! Lambert!
Vengeance!
A famous victory!
Kegs and legs open, and on the house!
Oh, what happy hour.
- This is a tavern! - It is also a tavern.
- I remember you. The poet! - Yes, William the Conqueror.
One at a time. One at a time.
Oh, he's a pretty one. Tell me your story while I tickle your fancy.
- It's a house of ill repute. - It is, Thomas, but of good reputation.
Come. There's no harm in a drink.
You are welcome to my best house. Here's to the Admiral's Men.
- The Admiral's Men! - The Admiral's Men!
The Admiral's Men!
Well, l-- I quite liked it.
Master Kent,
you have not yet dipped your wick.
My "wick"?
Mr. Fennyman, because you love the theater, you must have a part in my play.
I am writing an apothecary, a small but vital role.
My heavens. I thank you.
What's the play about, then?
Well, there's this nurse--
Silence, silence, silence!
Master Shakespeare...
has asked me to play the part of the apothecary.
The apothecary?
What is this story? Where is the shipwreck?
How does the comedy end?
- By God, I wish I knew. - By God, if you do not, who does?
Let us have pirates, clowns and a happy ending,
or we shall send you back to Stratford to your wife.
Will! Mr. Henslowe! Gentlemen all!
A black day for us all! There is news from a tavern in Deptford.
Marlowe is dead.
Stabbed.
Stabbed to death in a tavern at Deptford.
What have I done?
He was the first man among us.
A great light has gone out.
Forgive me.
God forgive me.
...Our Lord Jesus Christ's sake.
One morning in the month of May
From my cot I stray
Just at the dawning of the day
I met with a charming mai--
You look sad, my lady. Let me take you riding.
- It's not my riding day, my lord. - Bless me, I thought it was a horse.
I'm going to church.
Of course. I understand. It is to be expected.
Yes, it is to be expected... on Sunday.
And on a day of mourning.
I never met the fellow but once at your house.
Mourning?
Who is dead, my lord?
Oh! Dear God, I did not think it would be me to tell you.
Great loss to playwriting and to dancing.
My lady.
- He is dead? - Killed last night in a tavern.
Come then. We'll say a prayer for his soul.
Who can remember sorrow
Spare me, dear ghost.
Spare me, for the love of Christ. Spare me!
Will!
Oh, my love.
I thought you were dead.
It is worse.
I've killed a man.
Marlowe's touch was in my Titus Andronicus,
and my Henry VI was a house built on his foundations.
You never spoke so well of him.
He was not dead before.
I would exchange all my plays to come for all of his that will never come.
You lie.
You lie by this river as you lied in my bed.
My love is no lie.
I have a wife, yes,
and I cannot marry the daughter of Sir Robert De Lesseps.
You needed no wife come from Stratford to tell you that,
and yet, you let me come to your bed.
Calf-love.
I loved the writer and gave up the prize for a sonnet.
I was the more deceived.
Yes, you were deceived,
for I did not know how much I loved you.
I love you, Will,
beyond poetry.
Oh, my love.
- You ran from me before. - When I thought you dead, I did not care...
about all the plays that would never come,
only that I would never see your face.
I saw our end, and it will come.
- You cannot marry Wessex. - If not you, why not Wessex?
If not Wessex, the queen will know the cause,
- and there will be no more Will Shakespeare. - No. No.
But I will go to Wessex as a widow from these vows,
as solemn as they are unsanctified.
For killing Juliet's kinsman Tybalt,
the one who killed Romeo's friend Mercutio,
Romeo is banished.
- But the friar who married Romeo and Juliet-- - Is that me?
You, Edward. The friar who married them gives Juliet a potion to drink.
It is a secret potion. It makes us seeming dead.
She is placed in the tomb of the Capulets.
She will awake to life and love when Romeo comes to her side again.
I have not said all.
By maligned fate, the message goes astray which would tell Romeo of the friar's plan.
He hears only that Juliet is dead.
And thus he goes to the apothecary...
That's me.
and buys a deadly poison.
He enters the tomb to say farewell to Juliet who lies there cold as death.
He drinks the poison.
He dies by her side,
and then she wakes and sees him dead.
And so Juliet takes his dagger...
and then kills herself.
Well, that will have them rolling in the aisles.
Sad... and wonderful.
I have a blue velvet cap that'll do well.
I've seen just such a cap on an apothecary.
Just so.
Yes, it will serve.
But there's a scene missing.
Between marriage and death?
The play... all written out for you.
I had the clerk at Bridewell do it.
He has a good fist for lettering.
There is a new scene.
- Will you read in for me? - "Wilt thou be gone? It's not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale."
"lt was the lark, the herald of the morn;
no nightingale.
Look, love, what envious streaks...
do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night's candles are burnt out,
and jocund day stands tiptoe...
on the misty mountaintops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die."
"Yon light is not daylight; I know it, l.
It is some meteor that the sun exhales...
to be to thee this night a torchbearer...
to light thee on thy way to Mantua.
Therefore, stay yet.
Thou needst not to be gone."
"Let me be ta'en,
Iet me be put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I have more care to stay...
than will to go.
Come, death, and welcome.
Juliet wills it so."
You will go far, I fear.
I hope we work together again.
"Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua's law...
is death, death to any he that utters them."
Then him. Then me.
"Put-- Put this...
- in any liquid thing you will and--" - Hah!
What is it? What is it? What is it?
How silver sweet sound lovers' tongues by night.
- Like soft music-- - Shakespeare!
Upstart inky pup!
I'll show you your place, which is in hell!
- You're on my ground now! - By God, I'll fight the lot of you!
I am more than enough!
Move!
Absent friends.
This is the murderer of Kit Marlowe!
Will?
I rejoiced in his death because I thought it was yours! That is all I know of Marlowe!
Will? Uh, it's true.
It was a... tavern brawl.
Marlowe attacked and got his own knife in the eye.
A quarrel about the bill.
The bill? Oh, vanity, vanity!
Not the billing, the bill!
Oh, God.
- I am free of it. - Where is she?
Close it.
- My Lord Wessex. - The Rose harbors the ass that shits on my name!
Take it down stone by stone.
I want it plowed into the ground and sown with quicklime!
Mr. Tilney, what is this?
Sedition and indecency.
Master of the Revels, sir. She's over here.
- Where, boy? - There.
I saw her bubbies.
So, a woman on the stage!
A woman! I say this theater is closed!
Why, sir?
For lewdness and unshamedfacedness!
And for displaying a female on the public stage!
Not him, her!
That's who I meant.
- He's a woman. - This theater is closed.
Notice will be posted!
Ned, I swear, I knew nothing of this.
- Nobody knew. - He did.
I saw him kissing her bubbies.
It is over.
I'm sorry, Mr. Henslowe.
I wanted to be an actor.
I'm so sorry, Will.
You were... w-w--
w-wonderful.
Thank you.
"Let me put this in any liquid thing you will and--"
Everything all right?
I would've been good.
- I would've been great. - So would l.
We both would.
Lambert, kill him.
That can wait.
The Master of the Revels despises us all for vagrants and peddlers of bombast.
But my father, James Burbage,
had the first license to make a company of players from Her Majesty,
and he drew from poets the literature of the age.
We must show them that we are men of parts.
Will Shakespeare has a play.
I have a theater. The curtain is yours.
Will! We'll be needing a Romeo.
Oranges! Sweet oranges!
My ship is moored at bankside, bound for Virginia on the afternoon tide.
Please do not weep, Lady De Lesseps.
You are gaining a colony.
And you, my lord, are gaining 5,000 pounds...
by these drafts in my hand.
Would you oblige me with 50 or so in gold...
just to settle my accounts at the dockside?
Ah, the bride!
Good morning, my lord.
I see you are... open for business, so let's to church.
Be gone!
Hup, hup, hup!
Oh, my lord!
- Be good to her, my lord. - I will.
Oh, God bless you!
Thank you. Uh, let go. There's a good nurse.
The tide will not wait!
Farewell! You'll all be welcome in Virginia!
Candy apples!
Buy my apples!
Thank you, sir. Apples!
Is this, uh-- Is this all right?
Yeah.
Licentiousness is made a show! Vice is made a show!
Vanity and pride likewise made a show!
This is the very business of show!
T-T-- T-Two--
T-T-T-T-- T-- T--
T-- T-T-Two households--
- We're lost. - No, it will turn out well.
- How will it? - I don't know. It's a mystery.
T-T-- T-- T-T--
T-- T--
Two households,
both alike in dignity,
in fair Verona,
where we lay our scene.
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes...
a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life...
whose misadventured, piteous overthrows...
doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
...the which of you with patient ears attend,
what here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
- Wonderful. - Was it...
good?
Gregory, on my word we'll not carry coals.
No, for then we should be colliers.
I mean, and we be in choler we'll draw.
- Master Shakespeare. - Luck be with you, Sam. Sam!
It's not my fault. I could do it yesterday.
Do me a speech. Do me a line.
"Parting is such sweet sorrow."
- Another little problem. - What do we do now?
- The show must-- You know. - Go on!
Juliet does not come on for 20 pages. It will be all right.
- How will it? - I don't know. It's a mystery.
- Fear me not. - No, marry, I fear thee!
- Let them begin. - I will frown as I pass by.
- Let them take it as they list! - Nay, as they dare.
I will bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to them if they bear it.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
- I do bite my thumb, sir. - Excuse me. Thank you.
- Thank you. Excuse me. - Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
- Can we talk? - Shh!
- We have no Juliet. - No Juliet?
- It'll be all right, madam.
- What happened to Sam? - Who are you? - Thomas Kent.
Do you know it?
- I serve as good a man as you. - Every word.
Hyah! Yah!
I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
but to rejoice in splendor of mine own.
Nurse!
Where's my daughter? Call her forth to me.
Now, by my maidenhead at 12 years old,
I bade her come.
How now, who calls?
What, ladybird!
God forbid! Where's this girl?
What, lamb!
What, ladybird!
What, Juliet!
How now, who calls?
- We'll all be put in the Clink. - See you in jail.
Your mother-- Your mother.
Madam, I am here. What is your will?
This is the matter.
Nurse, give leave a while. We must talk in secret.
Nurse, come back again. I have remembered me; thou's hear our counsel.
Thou knowest my daughter's of a pretty age.
- Faith, I know her age unto an hour. - She's not 14.
Oh, I'll lay 14 of my teeth. And yet my teen be it spoken,
I have but four--
Tell me, daughter Juliet,
how stands your dispositions to be married?
It is an honor that I dream not of.
Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!
I-- I'm sped.
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
Ask for me tomorrow,
you shall find me a grave man.
Yes!
Yah!
"Such mortal drugs I have,
but Mantua's law is death to any he that utters them."
Then him. Then me.
Romeo, away, be gone!
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain. Stand not amazed!
The prince will doom thee death if thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!
Oh, I am Fortune's fool!
Why dost thou stay?
Which way ran he that killed Mercutio?
That murderer, which way ran he?
- There lies that Tybalt. - Up, sir. Go with me.
I charge thee in the Prince's name obey.
Where are the vile beginners of this fray?
"Oh, I am Fortune's fool."
You are married?
"lf you be married, my grave is like to be my wedding bed."
Art thou gone so,
Iove, lord,
aye, husband, friend?
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
for in a minute there are many days.
Oh, by this count I shall be much in years ere again...
I behold my Romeo.
Farewell.
Oh, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
as one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.
Then trust me, love,
in my eyes, so do you.
Dry sorrow drinks our blood.
Adieu.
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
and this distilling liquor drink thou off.
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest.
And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death...
thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
and then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
What ho! Apothecary!
Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor.
Hold, there is 40 ducats.
- Let me have a dram of poison-- - Such mortal drugs I have,
but Mantua's law is death to any he that utters them.
- Art thou so-- - My poverty, but not my will, consents.
I pay thy poverty and not thy will.
Eyes, look your last.
Arms, take your last embrace.
And, lips,
oh, you, the doors of breath,
seal with a righteous kiss...
the dateless bargain...
to engrossing death.
Come, bitter conduct.
Come, unsavory guide.
Thou, desperate pilot, now at once...
run on the dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark.
Here's to my love!
Oh... true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick.
Thus with a kiss...
I die.
Where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be, and there I am. Where is my Romeo?
Dead!
What's this?
A cup, closed in my true love's hand?
Poison, I see,
hath been his timeless end.
Oh, happy dagger,
this is thy sheath.
There rest...
and let me die.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
the sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.
Some shall be pardoned,
and some punished;
for never was a story of more woe...
than this of Juliet...
and her Romeo.
Bravo!
- Yea! Yea! - Yea!
- Bravo! - Yea! Bravo!
- God save the queen! - I arrest you in the name of Queen Elizabeth!
Arrest who, Mr. Tilney?
Everyone!
Admiral's Men, the Chamberlain's Men...
and every one of you ne'er-do-wells that stand in contempt...
of the authority vested in me by Her Majesty!
Contempt? You closed the Rose. I have not opened it.
That woman is a woman!
What?
A woman? You mean that goat?
I'll see you all in Clink, in the name of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth!
Mr. Tilney!
Have a care with my name. You will wear it out.
The queen of England does not attend...
exhibitions of public lewdness.
So something is out of joint.
Come here, Master Kent. Let me look at you.
Yes, the illusion is remarkable.
And your error, Mr. Tilney, is easily forgiven.
But I know something of a woman in a man's profession.
Yes, by God, I do know about that.
That is enough from you, Master Kent.
If only Lord Wessex were here.
He is, ma'am.
Y-Your Majesty.
There was a wager I remember...
as to whether a play could show the very truth and nature of love.
I think you lost it today.
You are an eager boy. Did you like the play?
I liked it when she stabbed herself, Your Majesty.
Master Shakespeare.
Next time you come to Greenwich, come as yourself,
and we will speak some more.
Your Majesty.
Why, Lord Wessex.
Lost your wife so soon?
Indeed I am a bride short,
and my ship sails for the new world on the evening tide.
How is this to end?
As stories must when love's denied--
with tears and a journey.
Those whom God has joined in marriage...
not even I can put asunder.
Master Kent.
Lord Wessex, as I foretold, has lost his wife in the playhouse.
Go make your farewell and send her out.
It's time to settle accounts.
- How much was that wager? - Fifty shillings.
Pounds.
Give it to Master Kent. He will see it rightfully home.
Tell Master Shakespeare something more cheerful next time...
for Twelfth Night.
Too late.
My Lady Wessex.
A hired player no longer.
Fifty pounds, Will,
for the poet of true love.
I'm done with theater.
The playhouse is for dreamers.
Look what the dream brought us.
It was we ourselves did that.
And for my life to come, I would not have it otherwise.
I have hurt you, and I'm sorry for it.
If my hurt is to be that you write no more,
then I shall be the sorrier.
The queen commands a comedy, Will,
for Twelfth Night.
A comedy.
What would my hero be?
The saddest wretch in all the kingdom, sick with love?
It's a beginning.
Let him be a duke, and your heroine--
Sold in marriage and halfway to America.
At sea, then. A voyage to a new world.
A storm. All are lost.
She lands... on a...
vast and empty shore.
She's brought to the duke--
- Orsino. - Orsino?
Good name.
But fearful of her virtue, she comes to him dressed as a boy.
And thus is unable to declare her love.
But all ends well.
How does it?
I don't know.
It's a mystery.
You will never age for me,
nor fade,
nor die.
Nor you for me.
Good-bye, my love.
A thousand times good-bye.
Write me well.
My story starts at sea,
a perilous voyage to an unknown land.
A shipwreck.
The wild waters roar and heave.
The brave vessel is dashed all to pieces,
and all the helpless souls within her...
drowned.
All save one:
a lady...
whose soul is greater than the ocean,
and her spirit, stronger than the sea's embrace.
Not for her a watery end,
but a new life beginning on a stranger shore.
It will be a love story,
for she will be my heroine for all time.
And her name will be Viola.