Everyone knows
the name of Shakespeare but not much about his personal life.
How did this great,
probably the greatest playwright and poet live before he went
to London? What
were his dreams and ambitions? What about his family? What did he do when
he first came to London to try his fortune?
The following covers this part of Shakespeare's life. It is taken from The
Life and Times of William Shakespeare written by Jennifer
Bassett, who uses Toby, Shakespeare's
countryman and life-long friend, as the narrator of the story.
It was a sunny day in October 1579 when I first met
Will, just outside Stratford, near a big orchard. I saw a boy up in one of the trees. He had red hair and looked about two years older than me.
"What are you doing up there?" I called.
"Just getting a few apples," he said, smiling.
"Those are Farmer Nash's apples," I said, "and he'll send his dogs after you if he sees you."
"Mr. Nash has gone to the market," the boy said.
"Come on! They're good apples."
The next minute I was up the tree with him. But Will was wrong. Farmer Nash wasn't at the market, and a few minutes later we saw his enraged red face above the wall on the far side of the field.
Will and I ran like the wind and only stopped when we reached the river. We sat down to eat our apples.
Will was fifteen, and lived in Henley Street, he told me. His father was John Shakespeare, and he had a sister, Joan, and two younger
brothers, Gilbert and Richard. There was another sister who died, I learnt later. And the next year he had another brother, little Edmund —the baby of the family.
"I go to Mr. Jenkins' school in Church Street," Will said. "Every day, from seven o'clock until five o'clock. Not Sundays, of course."
I was sorry for him. "Isn't it boring?" I asked.
"Sometimes. Usually it's all right." He lay back and put his hands behind his head. "But we have to read and learn all these Latin writers. I want to read modern writers, and English writers, like
Geoffrey Chaucer.
Can you read?" he asked.
"Of course I can read!" I said. "I went to school."
Will sat up and began to eat another apple. "I want to be a writer," he said. "A poet. I want that more than anything else in the world."
We were friends from that day, until the day he died. We met nearly every day, and he taught me a lot about books and poetry and writers. He was always diligent in his studies.
When Will left school, he worked for his father. John Shakespeare was a glove-maker, and he had other business too, like buying and selling sheep. But Will wasn't interested.
"What are we going to do, Toby?" he said to me one day. "We can't spend all our lives making shoes and gloves!"
"Well," I said, "we could run away to sea and be sailors. Explore the world, like
Francis Drake.
"
Will was still reading a lot and he was already writing poems himself. He sometimes showed them to me, and I said they were very good. I didn't really know anything about poetry then, but he was my friend.
Will was not happy with his writing. "I've got so much to learn, Toby," he said. "So much to learn."
Will had a lot to learn about women, too. One day in October 1582, he came to my house with a gloomy face.
"I'll never leave Stratford." he said. "I'm going to be married in a few weeks' time. To Anne Hathaway."
Will married Anne Hathaway in November, and she came to live in Henley Street. Families cost a lot of money, and John Shakespeare was having a lot of money troubles in those days. Times were hard in Henley Street.
Susanna was born the next May. Will was very pleased with her.
"Look, Toby, she's got my eyes," he said happily. "She's going to be as beautiful as the Queen of Egypt, and as clever as King Solomon."
Soon there was another baby on the way, and one evening in February 1585,I hurried round to Henley Street to hear the news. Will's sister, Joan, opened the door, and then Will came running down the stairs.
"It's two of them!" he said. "Twins! A girl and a boy. Isn't that wonderful?"
Will had some good friends, Hamnet and Judith Sadler, and he called the twins after them. John Shakespeare was very pleased to have his first grandson, and everyone was happy. For a while.
Will and I still went around together when we could. He was still reading, and writing, and soon I could see a change in him. He was twenty-three now, and he was not happy with his life.
"Stratford's too small, Toby," he said. "Too slow. Too quiet. Too monotonous. I've got to get away."
"Yes, but how?" I asked. "You've got a family — three young children, remember."
He didn't answer.
In the summer months companies of players often came to small towns, and in 1587 five different companies came. Will and I always went to see the plays. Will loved to talk to the actors and to listen to all their stories of London.
The Queen's Men came to Stratford in June, and we went to see the play. Will said it was a stupid play, with not a word of poetry in it.
One evening a few months later, I walked into the Shakespeares' kitchen, and there was Anne, with a red, angry face, shouting at the top of her voice.
"How can you do this to me? And what about the children? " Then she saw me and stopped.
Will was sitting at the table, and looked pleased to see me. "I've told Anne," he said quietly, "that I'm going to live in London. I want to be an actor, and to write plays, if I can."
He turned to Anne, " Listen. I'll come home when I can, but I must go to London. I can't do anything in Stratford."
He looked at me across the room. "Are you coming with me, Toby?"
"How soon can we start?" I said.
It's two days' journey to London by horse, and when we rode into
London, I began to feel afraid. This was a big, big city, and we were just two insignificant young men from a small town. I'll never forget the noise, and the smells, and the crowds. There were 200,000 people living in the City of London — I never saw so many people before in my life.
The next day we began to look for work. Those early years were wonderful. We didn't have much money, of course, and we had to work very hard. A new actor only got six shillings a week, and there wasn't work every week. I decided not to be an actor.
"Why not?" said Will. "It's a great life."
We were working that month for the Queen's Men at the theatre called The Curtain up in Shoreditch. Will was acting four small parts in two different plays. He played a soldier and a murderer in one play, and in the other play he was a thief, and also an Italian lord in love with the Queen of the Night. And he loved it.
"I'm not clever like you," I said. "I am going to do costumes," I said. "And properties."
Will was good at acting. Not the best, but good.
An
actor had to be versatile.
He had to learn his words, of course — perhaps for six different
plays at the same time. No theatre put on the same play every day. He had to dance, and sing, and play music. He had to jump, and fall, and fight. And the fights had to look real. The playgoers of London knew a real fight when they saw one.
Will was busy day and night. I don't know when he slept. He was acting in plays, he was writing his own plays, he was reading books, he was meeting other writers, making friends... He was learning, learning, learning.
One day we met Burbage, an actor with Lord Strange's Men.
"You've written four plays now, Will," he said. "They're good, and you're getting better all the time. And I'm getting better as an actor all the time. Come and work with Lord Strange's Men at the Rose theatre on Bankside. You can write for us."
We worked harder than ever at the Rose. Plays were always in the afternoon, because of the daylight. We had rehearsals in the morning, and by lunch-time people were already coming across the river to get their places for the play. And more and more people came. By 1592 London was hearing the name William Shakespeare again and again.
