Shakespeare In Love - Viola de Lesseps Lines

Top of Scene Five

What light is light, if Sylvia 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. Such poetry… But how can one care for Silvia while she is — by order of the Lord Chamberlain — played by a pip squeak boy in petticoats?

NURSE: I liked the dog.

Stage love will never be real love until we women can be onstage ourselves. Yet when can we see another?

NURSE: When the Queen commands it.

But at the playhouse.

NURSE: Playhouses are not for well-born ladies.

I am not so well-born.

Well-monied is the same as well-born these days and well-married better than both. Lord Wessex was looking at you tonight.

All the men at court are without poetry. If they look at me they see my father’s fortune. I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all.

NURSE: Like Valentine and Silvia?

No — not the artful postures of love, but the love that overthrows life. Love like there has never been in a play. I will have poetry in my life or I will end my days—

NURSE: As a nurse?

But I would be Valentine and Silvia too, somehow. 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.

SCENE 7

WILL: Tomorrow.

May I begin, sir?

WILL: Your name?

Thomas Kent. I would like to do a speech by a writer who commands the heart of every player, sir.

WILL: Yes, I am sure.

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.

WILL: Where did you learn to do that?

At the playhouse, sir.

WILL: There is no playhouse in London where my verse is spoken truly.

Are you Master Shakespeare?

WILL: I have not seen you audition before, Master Kent.

I am new to London, sir. I am from the country—staying at the de LEsseps’. In Cheam.

WILL: Please, sir. Speak some more. Without your hat.

My hat?

WILL: Let me see your face.

No!

WILL: Please. Speak it to me again. Let it trip off the tongue.

Sir!

WILL: It’s a love scene. Please take off your hat.

Just leave my hat alone.

NURSE: My Lady. Where have you been?

I have been to audition for the theatre.

WESSEX: My Lady Viola.

My Lord.

WESSEX: I have spoken to your father.

So, My Lord. I speak with him every day.

WESSEX: I have spoken to your father about your future.

I trust you found it of interest. I rarely know what is going to happen next. Good sir!

WILL: My Lady.

Are you not the poet William Shakespeare?

WILL: I am not, My Lady.

But sir, I have seen you at the playhouse.

WILL: I am a poet no longer. As I have seen a beauty that would prove all my poetry prose.

What brings you to my house?

WESSEX: I need a dowry, your family seeks a title. It seems our fortunes are well met.

You think only of “a fortune,” My Lord. Fate pays no heed to worldly commerce.

WILL: This is a dream.

Dreams are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy which is as thin of substance as the air.

WILL: Did you really just say that?

Indeed I truly hope, sir, this is no dream.

WILL: If we are awake let me dream you such words that will make you immortal.

Good sir. None can be made immortal. I only dream of being alive.

WILL: Christopher Marlowe, at your service.

You smile, sir. I am glad you are happy.

NURSE: Look, My Lady, a letter to Thomas Kent.

Who from?

NURSE: From the playwright, William Shakespeare. He was desperate to speak to Master Kent.

Oh, I can’t believe it. “I have never heard my words spoken with such honesty. I am writing 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! And I would have you play Romeo Montague—a young gentleman of Verona.”

NURSE: Verona, again?!

Is Master Shakespeare not handsome?

NURSE: He looks well enough for a mountebank.

Oh, Nurse! He would give Thomas Kent the life of Viola de Lesseps’ dreaming.

NURSE: My Lady, this play will end badly.

’Tis a comedy. It ends with a pirate jig. As you love me and as I love you, you will bind my breast and by me a boy’s wig. Rehearsals begin tomorrow.

NURSE: Your father—

From tomorrow away in the country for three weeks.

NURSE: My Lady. You’ll catch your death out here.

Leave me, Nursey.

NURSE: Believe me, this will all end in tears.

Romeo, Romeo…a young gentleman of Verona. A comedy. By William Shakespeare.

MARLOWE: Well, go on. My Lady.

Who is there?

NURSE: Madam!

Anon, good Nurse, anon. Master Shakespeare!

WILL: The same, alas.

Why alas?

WILL: A lowly player.

Alas indeed, for I thought you the highest poet of my esteem and a writer of the most brilliant comedies that capture my heart.

NURSE: Lady Viola.

Anon, good Nurse, anon. I will come again.

MARLOWE: “A lowly player”?! You’re supposed to be a poet. Get out of there before you shame us all.

If they find you here, they will kill you.

WILL: And you can bring them with a word.

Not for the world! Speak to me. Inspire me.

WILL: Alas I cannot for I am…struck dumb by your beauty.

Come, come. Good poet. These are hackneyed tropes. Extemporize, improvise. Fill me with your words.

WILL: Now?

Yes. Translate our base tongue into the golden verse of love.

WILL: Erm… Pigs!

What was that?

MARLOWE: Well, it’s not exactly Philip Sidney.

Go on.

WILL: Hath all too short a date.

Oh this is beautiful, Will… More…

WILL: I have it back, Kit.

Oh, it’s beautiful.

WILL: It’s nothing, really.

Only you could have conceived such a thing.

WILL: I think it lacks something in the middle.

Not another word. It’s perfect.

NURSE: Madam.

I must go.

WILL: No. But I am a poor poet. I have not had payment.

Such sublime eloquence is God’s own recomopense.

MARLOWE: Too far.

I could not sully thy lips gilded with such golden words.

MARLOWE: Lady, you will burnish them to brighter eloquence. Help me up, Kit.

Good sir, do not use yourself all up.

NURSE: Lady Viola!

Oh, go away!

WILL: May I, Mister Alleyn? Master Kent is playing Romeo, and Master Nol is Benvolio. Gentlemen, a scene in Verona.

Ay me, sad hours seem long. Was that my father that went hence so fast?

NOL/BENVOLIO: It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?

Not having that which, having, makes them short.

NOL/BENVOLIO: In love?

Out.

NOL/BENVOLIO: Of love?

Out of her favor where I am in love.

WILL: No no! Don’t spend it all at once! He is speaking about a baggage we never even meet! What will be left in your purse when he meets his Juliet? What will you do in Act Two when he meets the love of his life?

I am very sorry, sir, I have not seen Act Two.

WILL: Patience. All will come together.

Does Romeo get his Juliet?

WILL: Thomas, Master Kent, I have a letter for Lady Viola de Lesseps. The lady of your house. You

WILL: Fourteen lines. Give it to her. I shall ever be in your debt.

Oh, it is complete. 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, and summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold complexion dimm’d; And every fair from fair some time declines, by chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d: But thy eternal summer shall not fade. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade when in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee. Oh, I am made immortal!

NURSE: My Lady. My Lady. My Lady. Where have you been? Lord Wessex is waiting for you. He’s waiting downstairs. Quickly, you must change.

How long has he been here?

NURSE: All morning.

What did you tell him?

NURSE: I told him you were at prayer, My Lady.

For four hours?

NURSE: I said you were pious, My Lady.

Why is he here today?

WESSEX: My Lady.

Lord Wessex. You have been waiting.

WESSEX: I am aware of it. It is beauty’s privilege. Though four hours’ is less piety than self-importance. I have spoken to the Queen. Her Majesty’s consent is requisite when a Wessex takes a wife, and once gained, her consent is her command.

Do you intend to marry, My Lord?

WESSEX: 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.

WESSEX: How your mind hops about! Your father was a shopkeeper, your children will bear a coat of arms, and I will recover my fortune. That is the only matter under discussion today. You will like Virginia.

Virginia?

WESSEX: Why, yes! My fortune lies in my plantations. The tobacco weed. I need four thousand pounds to fit out on a ship and put my investments to work — I fancy tobacco as a future. We will not stay there long, three or four years.

But why me?

WESSEX: It was your eyes. No, your lips. Will you defy your father and your Queen?

The Queen has consented?

WESSEX: She wants to inspect you. At Greenwich, come Sunday. Be submissive, modest, grateful. And on time.

My summer’s lease is all too brief. Bring me pen and ink. I must write to WIlliam Shakespeare.

HENSLOWE: Ah, Master Kent. You’ve kindly decided to join us.

Sorry, there was a terrible snarl-up under Putney Bridge.

NED: Gentlemen, keep time, distance, proportion. Ready. And. Double forward. And double back. Turn, face your partner. Double away… The lovers touch hands… That’s good… Next figure. Leaving the lovers…

Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

SAM/JULIET: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do! They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

SAM/JULIET: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake. It’s your cue.

Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.

SAM/JULIET: Saints do not move though grant for prayers’ sake.

Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.

WILL: Where is the danger? You are consorting with your family’s mortal enemy. Now I am Juliet. Let’s carry on with the scene.

Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.

WILL/JULIET: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d! Give me my sin again.

NED: Let’s skip to the end of the scene. “Exeunt Capulet, Lady Capulet, Guests, Gentlewomen and Masquers.”

Will, I have a letter for you from Viola de Lesseps.

RALPH/NURSE: His name is Romeo, and a Montague, the only son of your great enemy.

William, I am to be married to Lord Wessex a week on Saturday. Do not come to the house, it is dangerous for you. Please do not visit me again.

WILL: Master Kent!

Rower. Down river. De Lesseps Hall, please. On the double.

ROWER: Steady on, guvnor.

Will!

ROWER: What was it? The one with a king?

Please, I’m in a hurry.

ROWER: Writer as well, are you?

Row your boat!

WILL: She tells me to keep away. She is to marry Lord Wessex.

If you love her, you must do as she asks.

WILL: And break her heart and mine?

It’s only yours you can know.

WILL: She loves me, Thomas!

Does she say so?

WILL: Well, no…And yet she does. Look where the ink has run with tears. Was she weeping when she gave you this?

I…Her letter came to me by the nurse.

WILL: Your aunt?

Yes, my aunt. Perhaps she wept a little. Tell me how you love her, Will.

WILL: Like a sickness and its cure together.

Yes, like rain and sun, like cold and heat. Is your lady beautiful? Since I came to visit from the country, I have not seen her close. Tell me, is she beautiful?

WILL: Oh, Thomas, if I could write the beauty of her eyes! I was born to look in them and know myself.

And her lips?

WILL: Oh. Thomas, her lips! The early morning rose would wither on the branch, if it could feel envy.

And her voice? Like lark song?

WILL: Deeper, softer. None of your twittering larks! I would banish nightingales from her garden before the interrupt her song.

She sings too?

WILL: Constantly. Without doubt. And plays the lute, she has a natural ear.

I think the lady 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 lady born to wealth and noble marriage love happily with a bankside poet and player?

WILL: Yes, by God! Love knows nothing of rank or riverbank! It will spark between a queen and the poet vagabond who plays the king, and 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?