Act 2 — Scene I.

At the Mermaid. Ben Jonson is standing at the end of the room, L., Fletcher and Lord Lacy near him. Marston and Dekker are with Chapman in the middle. Chettle is seated, R., facing Jonson. Shakespeare enters behind Chettle, door R.

Jonson:

[Stretching.] It’s good to be free—free to feast, and not feed like a dog—free! That prison was killing me. [Calling out as Shakespeare enters.] Ho, Will! here’s your chair, yawning till you come.

Chettle:

Here’s one with jaws as thirsty-wide, my lad, and dry to boot. Will you fill ’em?

Shakespeare:

[Passing Chettle with a smile.] The stranger first, Chettle, then the drink. I’ve not seen Ben for months and months. [Goes to Jonson and takes both his hands.]

52Ben Jonson:

[Pushing a chair towards Shakespeare.] And now little poet, what will you drink? Canary or sack. [Claps his hands.] Here, Drawer!

Shakespeare:

I’m ill with thirst, and for that disease there’s no medicine like small beer.

Jonson:

[To drawer.] Bring beer.

Chettle:

Have sack, Shakespeare, sack’s the drink: when sack goes in, wit comes out. Beer’s cold and thin, fit for young girls, who quake to think of lovers; but sack’s rich and generous, breeds courage and self-content; equals the poor man to kings, and kings to gods.

Shakespeare:

[To Jonson.] A little more, and he’d rise into measure.

Jonson:

Out of measure, you mean; the verse is my part. Curious how abstinence breeds desire, and 53desire song. Try prison for six months, Will, and your mouth will drip with longing for wine, women and good company. Ah, the leaden hours!

Chettle:

Ho! ho! my lad of the mountain. No prison needed by the godly. Without provocation or incitement I want women often, good company always, wine perpetually. It’s very strange: I’ve often had too much sack, often; but enough, never. Read me that riddle, Shakespeare!

Shakespeare:

That desire, Chettle, still outlives performance, is no riddle. [Turning to Jonson.] Your punishment punished all of us, Ben.

Dekker:

And all for killing an actor.

Selden:

In fair duello, too: allowed since the Norman time.

Lacy:

[With gestures.] Was it a punto, Ben, or a 54reverso, an imbrocato or a montanto that reached the throne of life?

Dekker:

[Half maliciously.] Or did a mere downright passada thrust poor Spencer from the stage?

Jonson:

[Menacingly.] ’Twas a cudgel Downright used on Bobadill: don’t forget that, Cobbler!

Dekker:

’Tis as good a trade as bricklaying, and gives more time for thought.

Marston:

Was it a Toledo, Ben, or a long Fleming gave the mortal wound?

[Jonson rises, crying “You dog!” Lord Lacy on one side, and Shakespeare on the other, hold him back, and constrain him to sit.]

Lacy:

Amity, friends, amity!

Shakespeare:

Every man in his humour, Ben; who should know that better than you?

55Jonson:

[Sits again, grumbling.] The curs, who bark and run.

Lacy:

Let’s have a hanap, friends, to cool the embers of strife.

Chettle:

One cup of sack, Shakespeare, to chase your melancholy and start your wit.

Shakespeare:

Not one. Sweet wine on bitter beer would make me Chettle. [Turns to Jonson.] So you became a Catholic in prison, Ben. Was it the loneliness, or fasting?

Jonson:

Loneliness, perhaps: in solitude one listens to the heart.

Marston [Interrupting.]

That’s weak, Jonson, childish-weak. Solitude breeds religion as the dark breeds devils—out of fear.

56Dekker:

Religion’s a trade to the priest, an intrigue to women, to men a laughing-stock.

Chettle:

Don’t say that, don’t blaspheme, don’t attack the Faith, mad lads! I always mean to repent, but put off the evil day of reformation so long as health lasts. Conscience and sack struggle in me for the mastery, and the conflict makes me thirsty and so sack wins. But no scorners or blasphemers, say I.

Shakespeare:

We’re all godly at heart; eh, Chettle? We all wish other men virtuous, so that there’ll be more frolic for us.

Chettle:

Ha! Ha! You’re right, lad! [To the drawer.] Another cup, you bodkin, you radish, you—Ah, we are all sinners, Will, villainous sinners! [He drinks.]

Selden:

I incline to the new faith. These puritans are much in earnest, though they go too far. One of 57them told me of late that actors should be outlawed, for they were not mentioned in the Bible. [Laughs.]

Chettle:

[Interrupting.] Why didn’t you reply that tailors weren’t mentioned there, either, and so the crophead knave himself should go naked.

Marston:

Wonder of wonders! Chettle is learned in the Scriptures.

Lacy:

Our catechist in pious phrases, man, our doctor of divinity.

Dekker:

He knows more of tavern reckonings! He! He!

Chettle:

Why not, lad, why not? The animal man must keep a balance.

Selden:

Religion is like the fashion; one man wears his doublet slashed, another laced, another plain, but every man has a doublet and a religion.

58Chapman:

[Pompously.] ’Tis easy to mock at things sacred; but without religion there’d be no society. Be Protestant or Catholic, as you will; but without either we’d fall into anarchia.

Jonson:

Hum! I don’t know—What do you say, Shakespeare?

Shakespeare:

If all our rushlights went out, the sun would still be shining.

Lacy:

Oh, Shakespeare! What a blessed union of wit and poetry like virtue and beauty in a maid or a Toledo blade hafted to one Chrysolite.

Chettle:

I have a story, Ben, my bully boy, that you’ve not heard yet, a story of Will Shakespeare. Dick Burbage knows it. Ha! Ha!

Marston:

If new, let’s hear it.

59Dekker:

If old, it’s better than Chapman’s mouthing.

Chettle:

The pretty mercer’s wife, who often has a room to see the play, made a meeting with King Richard III, Dick Burbage, there. Quiet Will overheard the appointment, and after the play followed the lady. Poor Dick, having to change his robes, came late, and knocked. “Who’s there?” asked Will, from the inside. “Richard III,” whispered Dick. “Ah,” quoth Will, “Richard III comes after William the Conqueror.” Ho! ho! ho!

Selden:

So the sportive blood of youth beflecks the dignity of manhood!

Dekker:

’Tis too pat to be true.

Fletcher:

We poets are all given to Venus.

Chapman:

How true that Venus story is, and how beautiful. 60We shall never equal the Greeks; never; they were our masters in everything.

Chettle:

Masters indeed! Here’s Shakespeare would put down any of them in anything.

Jonson:

I’m not sure of that, Chettle. The Agamemnon’s a great play.

Chettle:

Ay, but what say you to Henry IV.! That’s the play for me. I warrant the Greeks had nothing like Falstaff. What d’ye say, Shakespeare? Stand for your own, my boy!

Jonson:

He lacks the language, the window through which the Greeks must be studied.

Chettle:

It’s wit, man, ye want, not knowledge. Come, Will. Put the Briton above the Greek: I’ll tarre you on.

Shakespeare:

I think the Greeks are over praised. Fancy 61making Love an inferior goddess, born of salt water. [“Ho! Ho!” laughs Chettle.] Love’s born of summer air and light; flowers are her footprints and the stars sing to her coming: Venus, not Jupiter, reigns in Heaven and Earth.

Jonson:

[Interrupting.] Good, old Knowell, good! But let’s have a toast, or you’ll talk us all to death. Here’s to the ever-sacred memory of our great Queen, who lets players and playwrights live in spite of Puritans and preachers.

Fletcher:

To the Virgin who beat the Spaniards, and made Britain mistress of the seas.

Dekker:

In the same way the dog made the dinner, for he looked on, while men feasted.

Selden:

Hush, hush! No disloyalty!

Chettle:

[Puts down the empty pot.] I’ll drink to no virgin, my roaring boys, not even in name. 62Obstruction’s twin brother to Destruction—I’ll none of it. Long live life! Here’s to the Queen’s great father, Henry VIII. There’s a man for you: could eat like a man, and drink like a man, and love like a man. He was a king, if you like. Here’s to his memory!

Jonson:

You can have him all to yourself, Chettle, your many-wived hero.

Chettle:

Tut, man, he was the eighth Harry, and had a right to eight wives. ’Tis the Scripture. [Drinks.]

Dekker:

Chettle’s drunk.

Shakespeare:

Chettle’s right: here’s to the memory of Henry VIII, who gave wine to the laity, and women to the clergy.

[All drink, laughing. Messenger enters, and speaks to Jonson, who rises hastily.]

Jonson:

Here’s my friend, Francis Bacon, come to see us.

63Chettle:

Bring him in, lad: Shakespeare here’ll [Exit Jonson] teach him what he can’t find in law-books.

[Jonson meets Bacon at the door.]