Chapter 21: ALBION FAYRE. By Kevin Barry Partridge.

Chapter 21

ALBION FAYRE

By

Kevin Barry Partridge

The scene: a crowded expanse which stands before London’s great Guildhall. The date: the first day of May 1595. A great fayre is taking place and the bustling area is encircled by stalls and tents with higglers selling food and drink: hot lambs wool cider, sherry and the various waters of life, also marchpanes, gingerbreads, humbles, thick greasy amulets, collops, roasted ox and mutton and kickshaws and nuncheons of every kind. Between them are low stages presenting entertainments and performance’s: boxing and fencing booths, jugglers, troupes of acrobats and renowned actors of the day presenting famous soliloquies. There are areas for 9 pin bowling laid out and covered lanes for archery. Zigzagging through the crowds are men on stilts and drum boats full of children being pulled by tiny ponies, and there are other boats attached to frames by ropes that swing – with some effort from the occupants – and out of which burst great screams of delight. In the very centre of the square a Maypole has been placed and many children dance and weave their way around, laughing and singing songs while great lengths of ribbon twist and billow in the wind. At a raised stage two men stand watching a grisly entertainment. A decapitated body lays twitching upon the floor, whilst the unconnected head sits upon a silver platter screaming at the gathered crowd like a costermonger drumming up trade.

 

K – “Come on now ladies and gentlemen, don’t be shy – let ‘John the Baptist’ answer any questions you might have…come on now, let’s be having you……. ”

S – “Scot was right, This Kingsfield is an absolute rogue…and therefore should be rogued, lest he go to seed and more like him sprout up to tarnish we true players with their…skullduggeries.”

D – “Oh gentle master Playwright, gentle sir – A wooden board, with two holes cut in the size of human heads hath kept this good juggler in ale and beef and mustard these twenty years, should we not at least applaud his economy of effort – and lo – he has the crowd. His bulls blood dough and smoky brimstone sparks may seem rough magic to you Master stagecraft, but he has not all the devices of the goodly Rose to furnish them, and I must confess that with age the very simplest things in life do grow in my affections. A fool I’ll grant you, but a stately one.”

S – “Stately – aye, but Churchly too…being a Knave.”

D – “Ha ha, you should try good sack with breakfast sir, a surfeit of verjuice is making you sour! Come, I would, for a haypnee piece test this block knocked Baptist’s wit.”

S – “Indeed I would, most happily sir, and even have a question. But I am not well versed enough in cant to converse with these cozeners in their native tongue of peddlars french. In any case I need me a Mimir, not a murmuring counterfeit crank. I know that noggin…and though he surely won’t be needed, the finest Al-Jeddi in Araby might reattach that dome without restoring any good wit within ‘cause well I know that none were there before.”

D – “This enquiry must be most burning to have forged such sharpness in your tongue good sir, let us find you an answer, hastily before – with a brabblesome quip – you cut your own head off, for then we shall have no more good plays to entertain us. Fear not – I think have the remedy – The Welsh they say are blunt and to the point, perhaps the prophetic pate of Bran, that hollow crown which lays – I’ve read – guarding England from invasion, beneath the high White Tower might sate your most urgent quest in lieu of any honest ‘John’ and dull your waggling cuttles edge to boot. Though no reports of miraculous ghostly speech have reached mine ear from those fearsome shining spires I hear that Ravens still are held in high esteem within those grounds so – though you are no Odin sir – you might still perchance commune with him in safety – crow to crow.”

S – “Haw haw. I am greatly saddened sir that you would have me so soon to the Tower, I having strived so hard to avoid that place – the East wind being most cruel there I hear. Alas though the journey would be wasted I fear – I am more Owl than Rook these days, being mainly now, nocturnal – and though both birds do hold their Parliaments – Bran, being worthy of his ancient birth – hath surely learnt to hold his tongue to all but kith and kin and thus he keeps his luminous plumes a snowy white, no gossip he.”

G – “That is a shame, you both being versifiers of some repute – the two of you together would have made for quite a ‘Storytelling’.”

S – “Indeed, you are a veritable ladder-doctor – you operate on many levels. Did you read that trulls scurrilous rag?”

D – “I did not. Though I am old I am not yet deaf and your name is heard even in Mortlake…..my daughter Katherine who nurses me in my ‘dotage’ is much took with you sirrah and therefore took much offense on your behalf. He was hardly a trull though, you surely wrong him there – I enjoyed his ‘Frier Bacon’ very much – the conceit of the shield-like wall of brass pleased me very much, even if his ’ frier’ was too lackadaisical to complete that task…well, what need does England have of a brass shield when She has the head of Bran and Gods good Tempests to protect her. I think that we can safely say though – he did prick us both, his’ Bacon’ seeming rather familiar to me…and more talking heads of course…we seem to have hit upon a theme! Forgive me my jibe, I could not resist and did not mean to sting.”

S – “…And you did not, I had long heard that Greene was the colour of envy and so was not surprised by the hue of his venting spleen. Unfortunately the fates – that quietus made before I had the chance to settle him myself. Personally, I found his ‘Bacon’ rancid…there being too much ‘Faustus’ in the flavour. But indeed good sir – touche! How should sharp tongue be met if not by equal blade? The keenest poniard wit has yet to inflict a lasting wound on me, laughter being a fine buckler to injury…and well I know that you are most surgical in your strikes – being a Doctor of good repute – and cutting only at those sickening parts most in need of healing. In any case, Master Physician, I am – in truth – disturbed not by propositions of the rapiers blade but by a vague premonition of the axe. My enquiry vexes me greatly, but I fear to ask of you, the query being delicate.”

D – “ well – ‘Absit Omen’ – but come sir, I have felt you building to a suit…if you think to question me do so now, sadly and yet gladly I am no Mimir, for I am also wary of the axe, but also well practiced at the avoidance thereof. So do not think that you might find me later – decollated – spouting secrets on the south side of the bridge…or “preaching from the pole”. ‘Tis true, I am no longer favoured by the Court – but the Queen in her mercy dispatches me to Manchester, where I am to be marooned with my beloved daughter on the island of ‘obscurity.’ My misdemeanors though many being grave do not travel well and so I think my head will ‘scape the spike, once and for all – God a mercy – and close though I’ve come. Gold – master Shakespeare, or rather a lack thereof hath paved my path Northwards post-haste. So again I pray you – if you have a question ask me now.”

S – “Very well sirrah. What know you of James of Scotland?”

D – “Ah, and now I comprehend the reason for your pussyfooting….well why not, Walsingham is gone and I am soon away. He is an Scholarly man and vain, though that can hardly be news. He is favored by the Cecils who look ever to the future and the furtherment of their own fortunes…though in fairness they have done some service to the Realm. The puritan zealots and indeed the hawks place much stock in him, though I think they will both be disappointed. He will I believe pour oil upon our troubled waters and will not strike a match to that which already lays – God be praised. Heads that wear crowns – Master scribe – uneasy lay and tend to take solace in the status quo, tweaking ‘bout the edges though they may, and believe you me, I most devoutly pray that I am right. I fear the puritans ever growing influence more than the first sweat of a summer sickness. Beyond that I know not much, nothing that might be imparted with impunity anyway, forgive me sirrah but your profession does proceed you, and one does not talk treason with the town crier. Personally I will be glad to be far from here, should the seeming inevitability – – which your enquiry seems to imply – come to pass. He is no friend to the Esoteric Arts and is, I hear, busy burning Witches up beyond the wall…Why ask you?”

S – “As you have touched on sir, I hear he is of late most distracted by the subjects of ‘Daemonologie’, Necromancy and Witchcraft, and is even now writing a book exposing the Black Magicians art…”

D – “Yes, I have heard as much…you look at me sir. Oh of course, did you think that I was a ass, that you could tempt my head into a noose and ride me all the way to Tyburn?”

S – “Indeed sir no…”

D – “I have been before the Star chamber sir – for treason – and that while I was still a youth, so believe me when I tell you that while – like Proteus – I may have learned to change my outward shape as needs arise, I will never be your ass. Do not test me sir – better men than you have coveted my head – ‘nemo me impune lacessit’ – now tell me plain – and in the name of friendship – have you been sent to do me harm?”

S – “No! And if I have offended you I pray for your forgiveness…I had not thought ‘til now how much these matters might touch on you.”

D – “ ‘Might’ touch on me….oh, please don’t plead your ignorance sir, you led me most well – that I should beg to see the very rope with which you sought to hang me, well there really is no fool like an old fool is there. I know the reasoning behind your accusing stare and rightly do assure you that bright “Apollo’s laurel bough” still grows within my breast and hath not yet been touched by flame. Yes, I know that work and was much saddened at the writers fate, though you must know he mingled with the most villainous mountebanks that England has to offer! He delved too deep and “jarred too far” – how could he ‘void the ‘reckoning.’ But think me not his ‘Doctor’ sirrah, even if on Dragons backs I rode – I would school you sir on the secret codes of Alchemy, were there more time…”

S – “Sir I…”

D – “…My ‘Spiritual conferences’ were conducted through a scryer and with the most devout religious observances of fasts and prayer and in these ‘actions’ Jesus ever was my guide. I spoke to you of troubled waters…you do not know what efforts I have made to reconcile the faiths – my only wish has been – ‘pro Deo et patria’ – to unify all the peoples of this good World in health and safety under a Brutish…I mean a British banner of Empire – Brutus you understand – ‘lapsus liguae’. What ‘deals’ Kelley struck I know not of and were sealed before I met him. Yes, I have learned to doubt him….his communications…his tricks – a rod he had….nay, not a rod – a hollow tube with grains of Gold hid in, which with some agitation then fell out – and that was how he falsely wrought his worthless art of alchemy, so – let him languish in a foreign jail. Perhaps I was mistook in him and doubtful though his confederates may have been – they touched me not…in truth I know not what to think of those events, they having ended badly. Nonetheless, cannot a bad actor still recite a good script? Come now, if you did not seek to draw me out on these dark arts of Necromancy, tell me why you have touched on this affair.”

S – “Fear sir, fear that I will meet with Marlowes fate…you surely know his Edward touched on James.”

D – “Aye, on James and on her Majesty as well, all Monarchs have their favorites.”

S – “…Indeed, indeed. Theatre…writing is the only life I know…I must go on but almost fear to tread, the crowd demands – abstracted chronicles of the times – so I now walk upon a narrow blade! I have been taught a lesson that I never wished to learn, as lessons often are – that Monarchs assume all things relate to them, even when they do not and I no longer know how or what to write. You are the most learned man I know, I hoped that you would help me negotiate the razors edge – that is all.”

D – “Speak on – ‘ad rem’.”

S – “ I have in Mind the bare bones of a Scottish play: a tragedy about…you know that ancient King – Macbeth – with much mystical mumbo jumbo planned as should enthrall a man whose eyes already have adjusted to the dark and find their comfort there.Though believe me sir not half so Black as ‘Faustus’ I watched that play and almost thought that Devils did appear, and not through stagecraft, though craft I know there was. But returning to Macbeth, I have even now hung a rough melody upon the staves, but knowing little of this James, I know not what tones to strike so that his executioner will not.”

D – “Hmm…..’Genius’ sir, is always the safest note, though high and hard to reach – ‘macte virtute sic itur ad astra’.

S – “…I…”

D – “…Come Master of Songs, no false modesty, I’ve heard you sing and know you scale those heights….show them wonders and delights the like of which they have never seen and you will be forgiven, almost, anything. However, should the Muses prove fickle, as oft they are…being Women – ‘honesty’ should suffice – so long as you are an honest man and willing to expose your heart, which is, I’m afraid, always a somewhat vulnerable position, for you will find that there are many eager daggers at the court. Failing that ‘flattery’, though by then you will find yourself already on your knees and therefore halfway to the block and failing that – ‘shock’ – which being as close to ‘block’ as ‘head’ to ‘dead’ leads unerringly to a fast horse and a faster ship and thence to a distant land in which case – safe journey sir. I think that you have learned a lot from Ovid, but he himself was taught that lesson, though none may know the cause. I would that your Marlowe had found that horse but he could not. He himself drove the stake into the ground and bound himself thereon, then like Maydays beetle was he forced to dance around the spike in ever decreasing circles, thus rounding on his fate. Forgive me – ‘fidus Achates’ – for my suspicions – spies and subterfuge have surrounded me too long and I am melancholy about my journeying…if you want to know of Marlowe think not on Monarchs – look to his own folly, and to Kyd.”

S – “ I thank you sir.”

D – “….Shall I tell you the truth Master of the stage – do not seek to please. Only twice in my life have I actively sought favor and both those times were disastrous to me: When I was a boy my greatest hope was just to be liked, you know, to have true friends.”

S – “There is no sin in that sir.”

D – “No, indeed there is not, though you cannot know the irony therein – but this desire in me was so eager that I gave to others full sway of myself and was most grievously treated – cheated and chastised – because I did not approach them as an equal they would not treat me thus, do you see. I was, perhaps a foolish child…and therefore suffered most severely….though they were just doing what boys do of course, and in truth their disdain was a great service to me because I hardened myself and started to apply the gifts that God had given me to studying…and almost as a miracle the World opened like a flower before me, so – there was some good I suppose. Then again when I was in my…middle age I felt my….I tell you this most secretly.”

S – “Of course.”

D – “…I felt my influence waining with the Queen. My rivals had a quiver full of arrows that they could fire on me at will, each with an unholy accusation written on – ‘Virgin’ Queens must appear untainted, I suppose – by the company they keep, even more than you or I and so her visits ceased. I do not say She was the Sun sir, but her presence yielded much warmth and light and I was sorry for her absence. So once again I sought favor, thinking some profitable and newfangled knowledge might return her love to me and that desire drove me hard into troubled times, and to the grip of troubled men, though freshly I am free. And so I tell you do not seek to please sir – none but yourself anyway – you will find more comfort and protection in ‘respect’ – therefore – ‘luceat lux vestra’.”

S – “Thank you sir for these words, you are the wisest man I know…the times, not you were out of joint.”

D – “ ‘O tempora’ – but you are most welcome sir, and welcome too in Manchester I have enjoyed our all too few conversations and would that they continued, despite the distance being great…and of course my diminished library is ever open to your use. In fact, I have set aside some books that I think you will find useful, which I will send them to thee. Write back, and tell me when you have them so I know they have arrived.”

S – ”I will… I was sorry to hear about your library, a terrible depredation.”

D – “This is England sir, did you not know, we are making a brand new tradition for ourselves – The sacking of our seats of knowledge. The Queens father, of course, started the custom – he always admired Rome – the theatricality, the vainglorious pomp – perhaps he was emulating Caesar in Alexandria. But my God, you would weep sir, if you knew how many exemplary and irreplaceable volumes and Manuscripts were lost with the ‘dissolution of the monasteries’ and the destruction of their libraries…all for the royal purse of course…we were busy a wooing and a warring at the time…I managed to save a few when I was still a boy, and many more of course were hidden and secured but umpteen went astray, and with them a good part of our history…and then of course the sickly Edward and his accursed Reformation extirpated innumerable ‘heretical and unsanctionable’ volumes that had survived… and now my own great library is also ravaged… and all while I was at my folly – so you see I am just part of our great new convention, one must stay abreast of the times. Certainly, though a wonderful thing about books is that there are often several copies of each volume…so the work survives. You toil in a venerable vineyard sir and – ‘in vino veritas’ . Writing seems to me to be a throughly democratic profession! Truly I have spent much time with Princes and learned men – and they are great hoarders of the common good – in books, I think, must lay the hopes of the ordinary man…..perhaps you might yourself one day be published, indeed I do pray that the day comes, for you are most deserving.”

S – “I thank you, I will strive to be so, sir.”

D – “Thank yourself sir, for already being so, I know how far you have climbed. Do you know the real reason why – on these Majestical islands – so much of our past will forever be obscured by the mists of time, Monmouth and Holinshed notwithstanding – our ancestors had an Oral Tradition – I should perhaps speak loftily about the Bardic consuetudes of the Welsh and Irish poetic guilds, their Gordian rhythmic shibboleths – the more so because I was myself much taken once with the need for secrecy and codes, having learned a certain…discretion from the Alchemists of old – from Bruno and Bacon – ‘abundans cautela non nocet’.

S – “One need only reflect upon our own conversation sir to conclude that discretion is often…the better part of valour.”

D – “indeed, but I do sometimes wonder if the point of all this secrecy is simply so that the very highest knowledge will always be reserved for a privileged few – do you see, the hierarchy – Kings and priests! Did the Druids ever write? They could, I read once that they had an Alphabet of trees, if you can believe that – but their tenets prevented them from setting anything down…doctrine you know, which was fine for the favored few until their praxis was disrupted and ultimately, broken by those who knew the value of the written word – organization – order – heritage! The pen, not the sword ultimately annihilated the Oak people, from their Irish stronghold. So now we must mount great egg hunts for their sorrowful bagatelle legacy and scramble for crumbs at their meager hypothetical feast…”

S – “…A humiliation of riches, sir?”

D – “Indeed…and all for want of writing – ‘verba volant, scripta manent’.”

S -” ‘Ars longa vita brevis’!”

D – “Ha, I have heard that you are to bear arms sir – you must include a lance upon your escutcheon – you joust most well. Tragic though, for I am sure the ‘Derwydds’ had much to teach us…you know there are times when I think that Language is a kind of Magic – intrinsically, dauntingly, master Shakespeare, you of all people must know what I mean…I would dearly love to be sure of some of the old words, to know they are from the source and unpolluted – ‘fons et origo’ – even one – ‘verbum sat sapienti est’.

S – “I have always found a great irony in the times of which you speak – that the Romans, upon leaving should sow the seeds – in Patrick and his Irish Monks – that would, in time return us to that same vice like grip of Rome, from which we are but newly free. Perhaps all roads truly do lead back to that – eternal city. However, strange and circuitous as that edifying passage was, surely we were incredibly fortunate that there was at least some overlap, in those chaotic times between the already dwindling ‘oral’ tradition of the Bards, and higher still the Lilis and the Ollam’s – who by their strict tenets had largely kept their stories unchanged for hundreds of years and those first few literate Monks, who arrived just in time to write them down before they were gone forever. I am not a devout man, but I confess that I almost see a Divine Hand at work.”

D – “You humble me sir, and I have been a devout man. Perhaps I wished to draw the curtain back too far, to see that shining hand. You are right of course, although I do question whether the Romans or those Celtic Monks set down a true image of those that they contended with.”

S – “Fascinating times…St Patrick must have made practically made love to the Blarney stone to have sweet-talked so many…unwashed Pagans.”

D – “Ha ha, indeed sir – though I do – from time to time think you might be correct to worry about the block, your sometimes going…too far. Truthfully though, I have been greatly concerned by legacies of late – the Oak seers, my own…there are solemn moments – master of simplicity – when I do fear my own works, written though they be are shrouded in so much mist that they will one day become – unintelligible – there are more diabolically Daedalean argots than peddlars french…but alas I begin to ramble. All will be well, I will doubtless find that there are bookstalls even in Manchester, and I shall browse them at my leisure, there are hopes yet for my Library, good sir. ”

S -”Indeed, and be of good cheer – ‘nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo’ – there must be times when even the Misty Mountains tops appear clear to those high enough to see them…I would view them with you sir, if you should ever deign to show me…’til then I hope you have a safe journey to your rest.”

D – “ Rest…does rest exist? Well, perhaps I will find me some – cloistered in that city – though I know not what welcome we either of us should expect….Northern gentlemen I think are calib…excuse me – calibrated on less fine a scale than such as you and I and I do not relish going – I would gladly visit those peaks again with you, I can even remember some of the ascending paths – but I am commanded North – ‘alea iacta est’! In any case master of insults – so long as your pen does not grow as sharp as your tongue hath been this day you will be welcome. Kingsfield might be a loafer but he has a Royal name and if you will hold the mirror up to Monarchs sir, lay a little oil of your own across the surface – to idealize the reflections. Prince’s like to see themselves soft around the edges, and truthfully too sharp an image is a danger, they do have something of the Cockatrice about them after all – ‘id est’ – their looks can kill.”

S – “’Tis unwise to meet their eyes, that much is true.”

D – “Take comfort sir you have the advantage on all the Lords of England – the axe is so in thrall to your pen that you yourself have the commanding thereof – only the Queen can say as much – but, I beseech you, tread carefully – the tightened rope on which you walk gets higher every day, be careful that in your elevated state your hand does not begin to tremble from lack of air and with a slip you yourself cut your thread of life with that same pen. Apropos sir – do not become your own Atropos. The Cecil’s are ever watchful, and will never forgive you for the hunchback. But tell me master of words, does all the World pass though Bankside that you should know the business of the Scottish court?”

S – “…Aye sir, the weaving winds – now as ever – bring whispers up the Thames that sensitives such as you and I might know the workings of the World, and the stews of Southwark are spiced with flavours from every corner of this good round Earth, coney being the prime. I got this latest from some Danes…and much besides, whose land instilled in James this lust for Witches blood and current dark obsessions.”

D – “Alas, I have learned to mistrust those whispers. Does one ever really know from whence they blow?”

S – “No sir……I…..what know you of the days subterranean sports?”

D – “Being chthonic, if barely – they will be Pythian I think, I have seen the thousand arrows laid aside in case our fine young blades should fail in their appointed task…..though he that bears the bow to shoot them will be rather hard to find on such a murky a day as this.”

S – “Aye sir, and in these dark times. Basilisks and Basilica’s then, I know the game….though I was chased in moonlight and through forest in my youth and did not get to strike the fatal blow. But surely they should use St Pauls for such as this…where children are more used to being chased by monsters spouting brimstone from their lips and have become accustomed to the prospect of a fiery end.”

D – “Your wit speaks faster than your discretion sir, kindly moderate yourself – I am very nearly a Warden you know…ha ha, fear not. We good Christians do rightly hesitate to let a Dragon roam on sacred ground, they having roamed so long there. Of course St Pauls would be most apt – St Michael himself being the slayer of that foulest Dragon of all: the Devil – Satan….and in fact I have read that on that site once stood the temple of Diana – the mistress of the hunt, so…Primordial chaos is a Woman sir – ‘ab ovo’ – and rightly so because from chaos all things flow – The Babylonians had a name for her – Tiamat – I believe. She was like Echidna I think, and from her aphotic womb sprang the all the Dragons of the World, those simulcrums of moon and darkest night. Order, of course and reason are a man and so infact is light – the Germans have a word for this dichotomy: ‘chaoskampf’: and thus as we have touched on – Apollo, being light slays Python, or the night and Zeus, being order slays the Typhon of disorder….you know of course that these two Monsters in their earliest forms were not ‘Drakons’ but ‘Drakaina’s’. ‘Ergo’ now – and rightly so – Order, high above dark Chaos stands as on Diana’s trampled Temple St Pauls Cathedral justly sits and so…an apt site indeed. Should not the chaotic and Moonlit night so fear the Son of God?”

S – “Oh, aye sir aye – as the Dawn. Though I do truly wonder if we ourselves as men have not draped these once and future ladies in these dark and Scaly weeds…in these – enameled skins – and is not the Moon said to be a mirror?

D – “Aye sometimes, also the sickle of castration I think, there is much mystery in the bewitching Lunar phases.”

S – “Yes of course, Nights and Dragons ay….we should perhaps bedeck our hopefuls in the Spanish style so that ‘the Knight and Dragon’ Drake would more readily lead these worthies on a merry chase….indeed ’tis good of Queen and Spanish both to give ‘Sir Francis’ a quiet day off for these frivolities – between Armada’s – as twere”

D – “Ha ha! Aye, they come and go apace – well then, let us wish our ragamuffin band well, should they bag their beast we must have the church bells ring while we sow the teeth of the Drake – and grow us some more good and Reverent sailors.”

S – “True sir, for what else should grow from an admirals teeth than Mermen, and we will need them soon I think, the last lot laying dead of starvation in Margate’s gutters or still in Clink for the raiding of Bartholemew fair. Just let us hope that they do not expect to get paid.”

D – “God save us from the Spanish ire – they surely must be nearly out of trees……really if I could just reconcile religions I…but wait. Am I mixing up my Serpents, the ‘Spartoi’ did not spring from the mouth of Python, but from another mou..Myth? Oh I am getting old.”

S – “ Serpents sir I believe cannot be mixed for they are all the same. Do not worms – when cut in two – two lives take on and have our Myths not shown that them being cut a thousand times? All worms then must surely spring from that first worm, that worm that tempted Eve: The Cockatrice of Paradise.”

D – “Well said – though not so grand, a common or garden…common garden worm I think, he has surely swelled over time with his reputation as the famous and notorious are apt to do – God also save us from such temptations…but look, the children are returned…are you with…?”

S – “…’In loco parentis’ – as I was coming anyway.”

D – “I understand, well no more of Cadmus and his foe, I have remembered me the whole tale and would that I had not invoked that theme…..greetings all, how liked you your nuncheons and the mummers play.”

(Enter some Children)

Boy – “Very well sir…….Saint George was most Heroic and the Turk most villainous. But tell me who is Cadmus?”

D – “You have the hearing of a Coraniaid young sir! Oh very well, he was a hero when the World was young – he slayed a…Beast, a Beast beloved of the Gods and in so doing founded Thebes, but was himself eventually transformed…into the very image of that same Beast that he had slain. Many men child have become the Monsters that they once fought, the quest for blood doth cloud the vision shrouding even innocence with a threatening stain… but think not of Cadmus, St George shall be your model for the day.”

Boy – “Then you had better have some magic potion ready – good doctor, St George faired most poorly in the play, and had to be revived.”

D – “You little…go to, and mind you pay attention to your instructions…and good luck to all – you are called, as indeed I think are you and I Master Shakespeare. Greetings sir”

(Exit children, enter Mercer)

Mercer – ” …And greetings to both of you honourable gentleman, and indeed many thanks good sirs for your wonderful efforts on our behalf – to you Doctor Dee for your great work and of course your optics and light, which though you did explain we none of us can fathom. ”

D – “ You are most welcome sir, I have harnessed great ‘Phosphorus’ for you – ‘et lux in tenebris lucet’. I, like my Father before me – am most proud to be a member of your illustrious company and enjoyed the task you set me very much. In my youth I took the greatest pleasure in writing plays and designing stagecrafts of the most perplexing ingenuity… you did not know that sir I think.”

S – “Indeed no.”

Mercer – “…And to you Master Shakespeare for the use of your good master of props.”

S – “ You are most welcome, I have not seen the Beast but know he will suffice.”

Mercer – “Oh, he will indeed sir, he is most fearsome….I do rightly pity the poor children for he shall fright ‘em half to death. Well, sirs if you are both ready our ‘worshipful company’s’ great dinner begins anon.

(Exit Mercer)

S – “Come, Master of Wisdom the children to their sport and we to our feast – ‘nunc est bibendum’ – and after I beg that you would come with me to the Rose, I have a new work being previewed ‘ A Midsummer Nights Dream’ wherein you shall see that I surely am the Ass – for spending my days bent over, squinting through my legs and communing with airy evanescent’s. But at least, I hope, an ass worthy of great Apuleius – and in the evening and in keeping with this theme – ‘Lord Strange’ will be presenting fireworks at the Swan, the Queen herself may even come, if she is not yet about her ‘progress’. Please say you that you will come and I will send forth a boatman to fetch your daughter Katherine, If you so desire.”

D – “I will sir, most happily.”

S – “Then bag a seat for me, close to you and I will make arrangements.”

D -”Indeed I will, after I have surveyed this pleasant scene a while.

(’S’ exits stage right)

John Dee looked across the square and wondered if he had somehow been transported to the ‘Land of Cockaigne’. Last years harvest had been poor and produce was generally scarce in England, but here today there was such a great abundance, of food and drink certainly, but also of Joy and conviviality and he thought that he had probably never seen London so gregarious and happy. He was gratified too, that of all the ‘Great Twelve Livery Companies’, his own – ‘the Mercers’ had persuaded the usually cautious Alderman of Guildhall to allow such an unrestrained vision of happiness to take place within their grounds. The old man dearly loved this day, he had seen the modern ‘Trinovantums’ going out ‘a-maying’ through the night in Mortlake and watched them walking back along the Thames in early morning – arms laden with branches, the girls fresh faces newly scrubbed with morning dew. He looked over the heads at the Maypole, the coloured ribbons still twisting frantically around the trunk and remembered his own childhood: circling the spindle at St Andrews Undershaft and compassing the grand august pole on the Strand, and he took some pleasure in thinking that the zealots had not yet managed to banish these simple pleasures from England. How far had they sunk the shaft here, he wondered? Could he possibly be wrong? His mind turning to speculation upon his own lengthy calculations and experiments in Cartography…surely the workmen would have found something when they had drilled the hole wherein the giant Maypole sits – no probably not in the middle of the site – he might still be correct. Could a Roman Amphitheater really hide beneath this bustling square? Had Gladiators died in bloody battle a few feet below where childrens feet now pranced? Had Lions hunted human flesh, inches from where his own fantastical Beast would soon creep in emulation? How deep he wondered had they prowled, deeper than the base of the spindle certainly – ten feet? Twenty? Guildhall was slowly sinking, getting swallowed by the Earth, and that was only a few hundred years old so….Guildhall…should he check to see if his invention was still working – no, he could not conceive of any error, and they would surely fetch him were he needed. He hoped the children would enjoy his efforts and thought about all the things he had wanted to allude to in his text but did not: about how the Dionysian Cults had met for their secret rituals and festivals deep underground and their wild abandon – and of how their own descent would plunge them deep into the city’s past, leading inexorably to King Lud or Brutus and the giants. He was annoyed to have neglected Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the Kraken by using the petrifying Gorgons Head, having instead favored the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, this being a spring festival. Then almost without noticing he was thinking about how Venus was said to have been born from the severed Sex Organ of Uranus, how She did ‘rise up from the sea’…and how he had even heard once that there were, in distant lands, statues that portrayed her still transforming – mid-state – before She rose above the waves, how strange the primitives were…and then his mind turned back to the undercroft and the symbolism of the Beast he had envisioned – a pale umbilical to an ancient past he knew he could never reach, however many egg hunts he mounted. And last he remembered the eloquent ancient Irish bard who came to him in his Dreams and spoke words to him that he had never before heard as they walked through the night time city of his dreams, a city of lights and sound as vivid and detailed as the one laid out before him now, but far greater and which shined – even in the Moonlight – like a thousand exploding fireworks, frozen in midair and which he was slowly learning to map within his minds eye – but a city that he longed to view with waking eyes. He looked towards the sky, and saw – he could not tell what – a cloud? A portent? There floating through the pale blue heavens was a frail and slender trail shaped like a ghostly dissipating ladder.

D – “Resurgam!”

(he exits stage right)

The Crypt of Guildhall, dates like the Great hall which stands above to 1411, and is divided into two parts of equal size by a thick stone wall, though the halves remain connected by an ancient pointed door placed centrally within that wall. Each of these two wings – the East crypt and the West crypt – is about 72 feet long, 50 feet wide and some 13 feet high. Both crypts are divided into three aisles by two rows of clustered columns, from which spring the stone-ribbed groins of the vaulting, with further clustered half columns positioned flush against each wall, all composed partly of chalk and aureate stone. The principal intersections of these are covered with carved bosses of flowers, heads, and shields. The north and southern aisles have mullioned windows, today so extensively protected from without, that only a very small amount of light filters through them.The space is dimly lit, the torches on the columns being cold. Instead large candles have been arranged with some difficulty within the mullions of the window with the advantage that they cannot be easily dislodged.

At the Eastern end of the Eastern crypt a large and arched compartment has been built from Oak and placed in line with the central aisle, this box being four feet wide, with a depth projecting three feet from the wall and seven feet in height. This whole box is painted in the deepest midnight blue and well adorned with many golden stars and silver bolts of lightning as decoration. Upon the forward side of the compartment a large and wheel-like disk is centrally attached, the diameter being slightly greater than the boxes edge and into which three triangular holes have been cut – those being equal to the supporting struts between them. This whole disk is painted with a symbol of the Sun. Although near perfect in construction – a great, though hidden light seeps out from behind this painted Sun, turning the edges of the struts a startling white.

The air is misty with incense – though not like that of use in churches – the pot-pourri of Popery – musty and more ancient – Delphic and intoxicating – into which rise like recherché pleached perfected trees the clustered columns from the flagstone floor, that carpeted by a thick and heavy fog to the height of a child’s waist which gently drifts and undulates with changes in the air – the effect being so cloudlike that those within the grotto might almost think themselves deep within a forest nestled high upon a mountains peak.

Two great – fiercely armed and wicker armoured Giants – Gog and Magog – stand either side of the thresh-hold to the upper World, guarding the only entrance and escape.

Between them now a line of trembling boys is by a Wizard downward led, each with wooden sword and makeshift leather helmet on his head, and then the ancient portal between the stony crypts is cracked, with that other bisected abyss presenting a scene of ambrosial Arcadian bliss. Within this other realm dwell all the daughters of this World, dancing and singing sweet songs amidst flower laden drays, heavy with fruit and food laid out on embellished silver trays. Then quick, before the knock-kneed boys can find their strength or have their fill of gaping – three men and equal women enter through that door, and each side stand abreast and there begin to sing:

“Good gentles welcome to this tenebrous realm of dappled shade,

and listen well for your instructions lay hid within this our serenade,

So too the morals and the purpose of these heroic escapades.

Now do not be afraid within this stony glade, but raise your trusty blades,

for truely ‘tis said – ‘faint heart ne’er won fair maid’. Thus starts our Masquerade.”

As these words are spoken, Magog stretches a royal blue silken rope across the entrance stairs, blocking retreat – while at the word “Masquerade” the old wizard begins slowly turning the sun-disk wheel, revealing – at the sextus of a turn – an identical, though fixed disk behind. So that when the foremost spins and the apertures in both coincide the blazing light behind these disks bombards the entire East crypt with great pulses of terrifyingly bright illuminating light. Now things become confused, the boys, who had all been huddled near that source of light begin to scatter through the lightning bursts of space whilst in the other crypt a long, pale and serpentine form glides past the arched stone door and stops blocking the view of that pastoral paradise. When the view is clear again something new is seen, within that Vitruvian sylvan bliss, a young girl stands trapped within a Crystaline Chrysalis.

“And now good sirs, you see the purpose of our play,

As half remembered dreams seek the light of day,

the fearful Winter Dragon, her prey has gleaned,

and hath with Crystal breath immured our Summer Queen,

in you now rests her only chance to get away,

so go brave lads for you now must the Dragon slay.

In Albion ‘twas ever thus upon Mayday.”

As the madrigal begins in earnest the small choir is joined by two musicians accompanying them on flute and silver bells. Magog remains at the threshold whilst Gog moves to guard the connecting archway, preventing any ungallant youth from escaping into the temptations of the Garden of Delights, before he’s earned the right.

Now through that ancient portal thrusts the fearful feathered head, pale as a gleaming moonbeam in the night, filling the small boys hearts with dread. Four feet long from horns tip to rostrum, with three inch snapping teeth, and eyes of glowing fiery red. If looks could truly kill the children would surely be already dead! The creamy serpents feathery head darts forth again, jerking unnervingly through the strobing crypt, a pale white throne of terror snapping playfully at excited, terrified baby knights, followed by a snakelike trunk of pale twisting plumage, that glides eerily just above the fog. Instinctively the children seek the extremities of the room, terrified but knowing they must not yet strike.

“Through the misty cavern, the Dragon winds her course,

And biting tail reveals she is both ending and source,

Now shrouded within her clouds she will transform,

‘tis but a lull, brave knights – the calm before the storm,

and a timely moment to relate to you the rules,

So hark, for Gog and Magog – dispatch all cloth eared fools”.

White – Dee had decided was the only appropriate colour for the basilisk, as the Tudors – tracing their lineage from the Welsh – as he himself had done – had chosen to adopt both the colours and the Dragon of Wales as their own. Therefore, the wise old man had reasoned – a regal red and female Dragon being slain would surely get somebody hung, probably himself, therefore – White! The association with Winter had followed quite naturally, with his ideas finally crystallizing on twelfth night whilst sliding over the frozen Thames at the frost fayre.

Now the glistening hoarfrost beast ripples gently to the centre of the undercroft and makes a circle of her own long body, taking her own tail into her mouth and lowering herself gently into the recently agitated billowing mass of fog which slowly settles around the feathered serpent – nestling her in mist. The wizard slowing and narrowing the bursts of light until only a dull pulsing twilight irradiates the low stone crypt.

“The ‘apples of joy’ hang within Hesperides,

and you must be as brave as heroic Hercules,

To free the lady faye from her luminous cocoon,

and taste Apollo’s Golden apples, and silver of the Moon.

The Dragons gnashing teeth my dears, your flesh will flay,

and all the ‘dead’ movers and shakers Gog drag away,

if at the fearful ‘Dragons scream’ you do not freeze,

‘til only one remains: The ‘primus inter pares’.

Dee had found a reference to ‘the Dragons scream’ shortly after his initial consideration of colour in an old and incomplete Welsh manuscript concerning a great battle between a red and a white dragon on the first day of May and had been so pleased by the relevance that he had incorporated ‘the Dragons scream’ into his version of what was by now a fairly ancient game, though one with many variations and which was sadly, he thought, increasingly rarely played – the Puritans frowning most formidably at such hair-brained pastimes. He had carefully secured the battered manuscript into the utmost safety, so that, should any of his over zealous enemies at court ‘kick up a ruckus’ he could argue his intention to highlight the red Dragons undoubted superior claim and strength. He had also been most intrigued by a reference on the sheet to ‘Caer Lludd’ and ‘the silver hand’…but the velum was too damaged for him to clearly comprehend either of these tantalizers – beyond what he already knew from Geoffrey of Monmouth (if that was anything at all). In the end he had concluded that – in an emergency – the Queen would probably appreciate any reference to her Welsh ancestry and show favor, with the usual lengthy persuasion. The Latin form of ‘first among equals’ was risky, but rhymed most sweetly, and so….had been included.

He had been unsure as to the Madrigal form, made so popular by Masters Byrd and Tallis and had asked the choir master responsible for the days singers to do what he could with his self penned lyrics and simple tune that, he felt, had been ‘Divinely’ inspired, and which he had written neatly out for this purpose – the melody having been refined on a virginal, in deference to the Queen – thus:

(generally ascending, but descending on last D)

A,D,DD,D,AA,A,G,GG,A,D.

A,D,DD,D,A,AA.A,GFGA,D.

A,D,DD,D,AA,A,G,GG,A,D.

A,D,DD,D,A,AA,A,GFDCD.

He was gratified at being able to end all the phrases on ’D’, but had not managed to fulfill his early desire to achieve a 12/13 12/13 structure, symbolizing the solar and the lunar yearly cycles – eventually deciding on a progression of notes that seemed natural to his ear.

 

© Kevin Barry Partridge 2018