The Late Mr Shakespeare

Chapter Fourteen How Shakespeare's mother played with him

Some say that the first word spoken by William Shakespeare was neither 'Cheese!' nor 'Roses!' but that as soon as he came forth from his mother's womb he cried out with a great voice and what he cried was this: 'Drink! Drink! I want drink! Bring me ale to drink!'

No doubt you do not believe the truth of this first saying of Shakespeare's after his nativity. No more do I. But tell me, if it had been the will of God that the babe should cry out not as other babes do but in this wise, would you still say that little Willy could not have done so? I tell you, it is not impossible with God that a child should speak in the first moment of his life, and that he might call out for a pot of ale, if he wanted one.

Be that as if may, the midwife Gertrude told me on her oath that at the sound of his father's flagons clinking the baby William would of a sudden fall into an ecstasy, as if he had then tasted of the joys of paradise. So that every morning his mother would strike with a spoon upon a glass or a bottle, and at the sound her son would become happy, lolling and rocking himself in his cradle, nodding with his head, a perfect little tosspot.

And if he happened to be vexed, or if he did fret, or weep, or cry, they had only to bring him some ale in a bottle with a teat, and he would be instantly pacified, and as still and as quiet as they could wish.

WS was by all accounts a fine, handsome boy, and of a burly physiognomy. In fact he cried little, and laughed when he could. He beshat himself very smartly every hour. To speak truly of him, as Dr Rabelais says of the infant Gargantua, he was wonderfully phlegmatic in his posteriors. So what did Shakespeare do in the days of his beginning? He did, sir, what you did, and what I did, and what even you did, madam. That is to say, he passed the time like any other child since the birth of the world. He passed his time in drinking and in eating and in sleeping. And he passed his time in eating and in sleeping and in drinking. And he passed his time in sleeping and in drinking and in eating. And he passed his time in eating and in drinking and in sleeping. And he passed his time in sleeping and in eating and in drinking. And he passed his time in drinking and in sleeping and in eating.

And, sometimes, as I say, he shat himself.

And as soon as he learnt to walk he learnt to run. He may even have learnt to run before he could walk. Before or after, in no time at all the boy Shakespeare was chasing after butterflies. And in no time at all he had trod his shoes down at the heel.

What were his very first games?

He blew bubbles at the sun through a yarrow straw. He shooed his mother's geese, sir, and he pissed in his breeches and his bed.

What were his very first fancies?

He hid himself in the river for fear of rain. He hoped to catch larks, madam, if ever the blue skies should fall.

What else did he do?

He shat in his shirt. He wiped his nose on his sleeve. He let his snivel run down into his porridge, and then gobbled up the brew. He slobbered and he dabbled in the ditch. He waddled and he paddled in the mire. He sang sweet songs and he combed his hair with a bowl of chicken gruel.

What else did he think?

Why, he thought that the moon was made of green cheese, and that if he ate cabbage he would shit beets, and that if he beat the bushes he might catch the throstle-cocks.

So what was his first ambition?

To run away.

Is it true that Shakespeare was a lecher, even as a child?

It is true, so they say, that little WS was always groping his nurses and his governesses, upside down, arsiversy, topsiturvy, handling them very rudely under their petticoats in all the jumbling and the tumbling he could get into.

How could this be?

He had already begun to exercise his tool, sir, and if you will forgive me, madam, to put his codpiece in practice.

But how did he know what to do, and him so young?

On account, I am told, of his mother.

His mother?

His mother.

Mary Shakespeare who had been Mary Arden?

The same.

Are you telling us that she taught him the facts of life?

You may believe it, or not, just as you please. I only tell you stories I heard in Stratford.

Who told you this one?

The midwife Gertrude, speaking on her oath.

A midwife told you that Shakespeare's mother told him the facts of life when he was still a child?

No, sir. The midwife Gertrude told me that Shakespeare's mother taught him the facts of life when he was still a child.

How so? How so?

I'll tell you how so, both of you. Mary Shakespeare would take her son's little member very pleasantly in her hands, and she would pass her time with it there between her fingers, and she would cherish it and dandle it and play with it, and do all sorts of tricks with it, rubbing it softly in her silks as well as briskly in her palms, until the thing fairly throbbed at her slightest touch, until it beat like a captured nestling in her grasp, until it stood up stiff as any little thorn for her. Mary Arden was a farmer's daughter. She had milked many a cow in her days on the farm. Not that she milked her son William, you understand. He was too young to be milked when she started to play games with him. She called his prick her pleasure, her pride, and her pillicock. She called his little balls her sugar-plums. She whispered all this in his ear as he lay beside her in his father's bed, and his father away at the ale-house. She took him out by the hand to the green mossy banks in the Forest of Arden also, and mother and son lay together in the long grass, and she did it there too. She said sweet William was her pretty rogue, and that he was equipped like any knight, and that he would go far since the world was his already.

Did Mary apply her red lips to it?

Don't be disgusting, sir. We are speaking of his mother!

But you say that she played with it?

Madam, let's change the subject--