Shakespeare in Love Page #4

Do you intend to marry, my lord?

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.

How your mind hops about.

Your father was a shopkeeper.

Your children will bear arms,

and I will recover my fortune.

That is the only matter

under discussion today.

You will like Virginia.

-Virginia?

-Oh, yes.

My fortune lies in my plantations.

The tobacco weed.

I need 4,000 pounds to fit out a ship

and put my investments to work.

I fancy tobacco has a future.

We will not stay there long, 3-4 years.

-But why me?

-It was your eyes.

No, your lips.

Will you defy your father

and your queen?

The queen has consented?

She wants to inspect you.

At Greenwich, come Sunday.

Be submissive, modest,

grateful and brief.

I will do my duty, my lord.

"Master Will,

poet dearest to my heart...

I beseech you

banish me from yours.

I am to marry Lord Wessex.

A daughters duty...

and the queens command".

Gentlemen upstage, Ladies downstage.

Gentlemen upstage, Ladies downstage.

Are you a lady Mr. Kent?

Im very sorry, sir.

Were gonna have to do it again.

You did not like the speech?

No, the speech is excellent.

Oh, then I see Queen Mab

hath been with you.

Excellent and a good length.

But then he disappears

for the length of a bible.

There. You have this duel.

A skirmish of words and swords

such as I never wrote, nor anyone.

He dies with such passion

and poetry as you ever heard.

A plague on both your houses!

He dies?

-Ohh!

-Will!

Where are my pages?

Did you give her my letter?

And this is for you!

Oh, Thomas, she has cut my strings.

Im unmanned...

unmended and unmade...

like a puppet in a box.

-Writer, is he?

-Row your boat!

She tells me to keep away.

She is to marry Lord Wessex!

What should I do?

If you love her,

you must do as she asks.

-And break her heart and mine?

-It is only yours you can know.

-She loves me, Thomas!

-Does she say so?

No, and yet she does where

the ink has run with tears.

-Was she weeping when she gave you this?

-Uh...

-Her letter came to me by the nurse.

-Your aunt.

Yes, my aunt.

But perhaps she wept a little.

Tell me how you love her, Will.

Like a sickness and its cure together.

Oh, yes.

Like rain and sun.

Like cold and heat.

Is your lady beautiful?

Since I came here from the country,

I have not seen her close.

Tell me, is...

is she beautiful?

Thomas, if I could write

with the beauty of her eyes...

I was born to look in them

and know myself.

-A-A-And her lips?

-Her lips?

The early morning rose would wither

on the branch if it could feel envy.

And her voice,

like larks song?

Deeper, softer.

None of your twittering larks.

I would banish nightingales from her

garden before they interrupt her song.

-Ah, she sings too?

-Constantly.

Without doubt. And plays the lute.

She has a natural ear.

And her bosom.

-Did I mention her bosom?

-What of her bosom?

Oh, Thomas, a pair of pippins...

as round and rare

as golden apples.

I think milady 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... can a lady of wealth

and noble marriage...

love happily with

a bank side poet and player?

Yes, by God!

Love knows nothing

of rank or riverbank.

It will spark between a queen and

the poor vagabond who plays the king...

an 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?

For one kiss I would defy

a thousand Wessexes.

Oh, Will.

Thank you, my lady.

Lady?

Viola De Lesseps.

Known her since she was this high.

Wouldnt deceive a child.

Strangely enough,

Im a bit of a writer me self.

It wouldnt take you long to read it.

I expect youd know all the booksellers!

Can you love a fool?

Can you love a player?

Wait!

Youre still a maid...

and perhaps as mistook in me

as I was mistook in Thomas Kent.

Are you the author of the plays

of William Shakespeare?

I am.

Then kiss me again,

for I am not mistook.

I do not know how to undress a man.

It is strange to me too.

Go to.

Go to.

I would not have thought it.

There is something

better than a play.

There is.

Even your play.

Oh?

And that was only my first try.

Will.

You would not leave me.

I must.

Look how pale the window.

Moonlight.

Mmm, no.

The morning rooster woke me.

It was the owl.

Come to bed.

Oh, let Henslowe wait.

Mr. Henslowe?

Mmm, let him be damned for his pages.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

There is time. Mmm!

It is still dark.

-Its broad day. The rooster tells us so.

-It was the owl.

Believe me, love, it was the owl...

You would leave us players

without a scene to read today?

My lady?

The house is stirring.

It is a new day.

It is a new world.

Good pilgrim,

you do wrong your hand too much...

which mannerly devotion

shows in this.

For saints have hands

that pilgrims' hands do touch...

and palm to palm

is holy palmers' kiss.

Have not saints lips,

and holy palmers too?

Aye, pilgrim.

Lips that they must use

in prayer.

Oh, then, dear saint,

let lips do what hands do.

They pray.

Grant thou,

lest faith turn to despair.

Saints do not move,

though grant for prayers' sake.

-Its you.

-Suffering cats!

Then move not while

my prayers effect I take.

Thus from my lips,

by thine my sin is purged.

Then have my lips

the sin that they have took.

Sin from my lips? Oh, trespass

sweetly urged. Give me my sin again.

Yes, yes!

Um, not quite right.

It is more...

Let me.

Then have my lips

the sin that they have took.

Sin from my lips? Oh, trespass

sweetly urged. Give me my sin again.

-You kiss by the book.

-Well, Will!

It was lucky you were here.

-Why do not I write the rest of your play...

-Yes, yes!

Uh, continue. Now the nurse.

Where is Ralph?

Madam, your mother

craves a word with you.

-What is her mother?

-Marry, bachelor,

her mother is the lady of the house,

and a good lady...

and a wise and virtuous.

I nursed her daughter

that you talked withal.

I tell you, he that can lay hold of her

shall have the chinks.

Is she a Capulet?

Oh, dear account!

My life is my foes debt.

Away. Be gone.

The sport is at the best.

Aye, so I fear.

The more is my unrest.

Come hither, nurse.

What is yon gentleman?

The son and heir of old Tiberio.

Let it be night.

Whats he that follows

here that would not dance?

-I know not.

-Go ask his name.

If he be married, my grave is like

to be my wedding bed.

No, do not go.

I must. I must.

-The only son of your great enemy.

-Terrible.

Simply... terrible!

But soft, what light

through yonder window breaks?

It is the east,

and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun,

and kill the envious moon...

who is already sick

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