THINKING HAT, ELIZABETH THE FIRST AND SHAKESPEARE

Let’s see, what can I post today? "Errr ! . . Umm ! . . Errr !"

At times such as these I seek my thinking hat, my friend and inspiration.

Do I remind you of a deep thinking Plato? . . . . or perhaps a Socrates?  Definitely so, and certainly from the same stable, do you not think?

Don't be fooled by that rather gormless and vacant external expression, for inside that hat there is a positive powerhouse of activity and imagination, awaiting just a flicker of inspiration to spark and unleash my next literary tsunami.

Can you detect those powerful electrical impulses, jumping from dendrite to dendrite, dendron to dendron ~ and initiating the birth of creativity, with thoughts leaping from left cerebral hemisphere to right, at the speed of light? For this thinking hat has magical properties ~ it has got me out of the mire of inactivity and writer’s block on many occasions, and is powerful, rather like its cousin, the sorting hat of Harry Potter fame.

But do I feel a subject brewing? Not yet!! But wait!! Tarry a while ~ something is stirring, and fast!!!  I see a vision, not of this age, but very clear and real, as if it was.

We are being transported back in time, I can feel it ~ time is rushing backwards ever so quickly ~ 400 years to an age we studied whilst at school ~ the age of Elizabeth and Shakespeare, where language was more picturesque and words flowed as if by the pen of the mighty Bard himself, if a tad less so by Francis Bacon.

I imagined what life and everyday conversation might be like, thinking and speaking in pseudo-Shakespearean. So tarry a while good friends for all will be clear as thought cometh at this very hour, nay at this very minute! Nay, I am not bonkers for I relive a scene experienced in my present, but relived as if in yesteryear. It was the funeral reception of my good friend Nora, wife of Denis, when I met their charming grand daughter.

"Good morrow, fine Lady Leanne, ye are a maiden of such beauty, the like I have not set eyes upon this very week, nay not even this very year. Tell me good Lady I pray, how can it be that one so fair as ye can spring from the loins of that plain and ordinary father I know so well. It is a puzzle to exercise a mind indeed?"

I was amazed when she replied, "I thank ye good Sir for your words so generous and for those compliments so rare to my person - my eyelashes so long and finely manicured do but flutter in the wind - come sup with me fine Sir and together we shall have a merry conversation with words so free and plenty. Come, you may embrace me on my cheek but naught else methinks, and then perchance, let us sit and sup ale together and converse of joyful things!"

Wonderful . . .  If any young lad is looking in and wondering how to talk to ladies, try it in Shakespearean, they like something a little different. They get so bored being hit on all day long with the same old crap, time and time again!! So be different and you can say anything in this lingo and will not get your face slapped, I promise. She will see in you a man of class and you will pass all her tests.

I did wonder how on Earth William kept it up, writing glorious verses, line after line, play after play, year after year? Obviously it is a measure of his genius and we know there now is an enormous following. Yet he was popular even during his own day, wasn't he?

I wondered whether they all talked like that in the Elizabethan era, 400 years ago, or was it just William who did?  Surely not!  OK he may have been a little more verbose than the others and obviously knew how to hatch and develop a plot or two, and to craft a canny story, but he would hardly go home from work and say to Anne Hathaway, "Thank goodness I'm home, luv, where’s me tea, and now I can relax and let me hair down and talk proper for a change".

Nay, it must have been the language of the day, so I wondered how Queen Elizabeth might have spoken to someone with whom she was most displeased. Perhaps, "Pray good Sir, thou hast grieved me to the very core and before this very day is gone I shalt have thy head! Come, guards, escort this vile and evil man to my Tower and let the rack regurgitate his secrets and strip him of his bowels!"

The poor individual might plead his case by saying, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much, my liege, hell indeed hath no fury like this woman’s scorn! . . . but prithee show thy mercy upon thy lowly subject, Ma’am!”

“Enough and begone, good Sir! For I hath made my judgement and this lady’s not for turning, not on this day, nor for the morrow, nay, nor for any other day, savy!!”

Gosh, she was so intransigent, wasn't she?  No wonder no-one dared propose marriage to her. She would have eaten them alive, just like a black widow spider.

But were they not so polite with all their 'Good Sirs' and 'Good Ladies'?  Even when they were extremely annoyed, or were about to torture, kill or murder someone, or chop off their heads. We are not nearly as polite today - shame on us.

The executioner might have spoken, "Good Sir! My sharpened axe is thirsty for thy blood and at that appointed hour it will fall like falcon from the sky and sever that vile receptacle which houseth thy brains and thoughts from thy lifeless body. Aloft shall thy head be held and dripping blood, whilst from thy body jets of blood will spurt into the very air to drench us."

Imagine that poor chap waiting with his head on the block, time advancing so agonisingly slowly, waiting, waiting, waiting for the axe to fall. He might say, "Prithee thee, good Sir to act with haste according to the wishes of my liege to make good speed with thy act so vile, for my knees do quake and smite one other in terror, and I am all of a dither and quiver ~ kindly make my future dark and blank with utmost speed, kind Sir."

“Nay good Sir, such is thy request and I wouldst of course deny it. For  I wouldst have my practice swing to smite and sever that scrawny neck in two with just a single blow, not two, nor three, for that wouldst insult my pride and I like my task well done. Hark, the watching crowd is thirsty for their pleasure, for they wouldst have their sport and merriment, and when this deed is done all would gasp with wonder should thine eyes blink when that bloody severed head is held up high!”  Gosh the poor man.

I looked up William on google and asked, "How many children did William Shakespeare have?" The answer was, "How the heck do I know!" Yet in another place I learned, three ~ not many for those days and I wondered why. I have a suggestion. The answer might lie in the language Bill used to Anne. For perhaps when the mood of love arose between them and was amplified by their overtures he might have concentrated a little too much on his words of love, thus hindering his natural progression and action. Consequently he might have said something like, "Good day, Lady Anne, prithee tarry a while in patience for I am not yet ready for the task that lies before me! Tarry a while and in due season watch mine manhood bloom and blossom like a rose before thy very eyes, ‘As You Like It!’"

Oh Bill, you've blown it! That's a passion killer if ever I've heard one. She'll start laughing and be no longer in the mood so you'll have to start all over again. 

She might remark, "Good husband, I do not mock thee but merely show my mirth, for I grant thee (Hathaway) with words but this day thou doth amount to almost nought, and to me thou art but as a little boy. Methinks we should postpone this pleasure 'til another day when thou art more generously equipped, thus more fitting to the task before you. But hark! methinks thoughts of inspiration ~ two titles for thy plays spring forth between my ears. So, my good husband, no longer wrestle with these conundrums for these titles be clear and likened to a cloudless sky, just like this day’s experience ~ 'Much Ado About Nothing' and 'A Comedy Of Errors'”

“Anne, thou art an inspiration to behold, of former matters I shalt return this hour on the morrow, but tarry with me no longer for words spring clearly in my mind and I must make utmost haste to regurgitate this genius ~ tarry no longer dearest wife, go put the kettle on.  'A pen - a pen my Kingdom for a pen', for I have Macbeth's soliloquy germinating in my brain and I wouldst make these words immortal, "Two truths are told as happy prologues to the swelling act of the Imperial theme . . . . . . " 

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I posted this a number of years ago but recently reworked it and had some fun.