Ruled Britannia (62 page)

“See, Heaven,

O, see thy showers stol'n from thee; our dishonours—

O, sister, our dishonours!—can ye be gods,

And these sins smother'd?”

 

An attendant lit a fire on the altar before which the Druid stood. Boudicca said, “It takes: a good omen.”

As Caratach, Richard Burbage took a step forward and drew his
sword to pull everyone's eye to himself. His great voice would have done the same when he declared,

 

“Hear how I salute our dear British gods.

Divine Audate, thou who hold'st the reins

Of furious battle and disordered war,

And proudly roll'st thy swarty chariot wheels

Over the heaps of wounds and carcasses

Give us this day good hearts, good enemies,

Good blows o' both sides, wounds that fear or flight

Can claim no share in; steel us with angers

And warlike struggles fit for thy viewing.

A wound is nothing, be it ne'er so deep;

Blood is the god of war's rich livery.

So let Rome put on her best strength, and Britain,

Thy little Britain, but great in fortune,

Meet her as strong as she, as proud, as daring!

This day the Roman gains no more ground here,

But what his body lies in.”

 

“Now I am confident,” Boudicca said. They exited to the wailing of recorders.

But for that music, vast silence filled the Theatre as the players left the stage. Into that silence, someone from the upper gallery yelled, “Treason! Treason most foul! You—!” A scuffle broke out. With a wild cry, someone fell out of that gallery, to land with a thud amongst the groundlings. No one cried treason any more.

“Play on!” someone else shouted from that same gallery. “By God and St. George, play on!” A great burst of applause rang out. Awe prickled through Shakespeare.
They do remember they are Englishmen
, he thought.

On came the Romans for the second scene of the first act. When the audience took in their half Spanish helms and corselets, even the innocents and dullards who'd missed the point of the play up till then suddenly grasped it. And when one of those Romans said,

 

“And with our sun-bright armour, as we march,

We'll chase the stars from heaven, and dim their eyes

That stand and muse at our admired arms,”

 

the hisses and catcalls that rose from all sides told just how admired Spanish arms were.

Back in the tiring room, Burbage said, “It doth take hold.”

“Ay, belike.” Shakespeare dared a cautious nod.

“It doth take hold
here
,” Burbage amended. “What of the city beyond the Theatre?” Shakespeare could only shrug, hoping Robert Cecil and his confederates had planned that as well as this. Burbage had no chance to stay and question him further; he was on again in the next scene.

As it had in real life more than fifteen hundred years before, the great rebellion of the Iceni against tyrannical Roman rule built on the stage. A legionary officer cried on in despair,

 

“The hills are wooded with their partizans,

And all the valleys overgrown with darts,

As moors are with rank rushes; no ground left us

To charge upon, no room to strike. Say fortune

And our endeavours bring us into 'em,

They are so infinite, so ever-springing,

We shall be kill'd with killing; of desperate women,

Neither fear nor shame e'er found, the devil

Hath ranked 'mongst 'em multitudes; say men fail,

They'll poison us with their petticoats; say they fail,

They have priests enough to pray us to nothing.

Here destruction takes us, takes us beaten,

In wants and mutinies, ourselves but handfuls,

And to ourselves our own fears paint our doom—

A sudden and desperate execution:

How to save, is loss; wisdom, dangerous.”

 

Swords, pikes, and halberds clashed against one another. Led by Burbage/Caratach, player-Britons chased player-Romans from the stage. How the crowd roared!

And Boudicca cried out, too, in exultation:

 

“The hardy Romans—O, ye gods, of Britain!—

Rust of arms, the blushing shame of soldiers!

These, men that conquer by inheritance?

The fortune-makers? these the Julians,

That with the sun measure the end of nature,

Making the world one Rome, one Caesar?

How they flee! Caesar's soft soul dwells in 'em;

Their bodies sweat sweet oils, love's allurements,

Not lusty arms. Dare they send these 'gainst us,

These Roman girls? Is Britain so wanton?

Twice we've beat 'em, Caratach, scattered 'em;

Made themes for songs of shame; and a woman,

A woman beat 'em, coz, a weak woman,

A woman beat these Romans!”

 

Before Richard Burbage could deliver Caratach's answering line, someone said, not too loudly, one word: “Elizabeth!” The name raced through the Theatre. Excitement raced with it, as if the mere mention of that name, for ten years all but forbidden, could remind everyone of what England had been before the Spaniards came—and what she might be again. Shakespeare nodded to himself. He'd hoped for that. To see what he'd hoped come true . . . What writer could ask for more?

And Burbage, as Caratach, let Elizabeth's name echo and reecho before saying,

 

“So it seems.

A man, a warrior, would shame to talk so.”

 

Boudicca asked,

 

“My valiant cousin, is it foul to say,

What liberty and honour bid us do,

And what the gods let us?”

 

“No, Boudicca.” Caratach shook his head.

 

“So what we say exceed not what we do.

You call the Romans fearful, fleeing wights,

And Roman girls, the lees of tainted pleasures:

Doth this become a doer? are they such?”

 

“They are no more,” Boudicca said. “Do you dote upon 'em?”

Caratach shook his head again.

 

“I love a foe; I was born a soldier;

And he that in the head on's troop defies me,

Bending my manly body with his sword,

I make a mistress. Yellow-tress'd Hymen

Ne'er tied a longing virgin with more joy,

Than I am married to the man that wounds me:

And are not all these Romans? Ten battles

I suck'd these pale scars from, and all Roman;

Ten years of cold nights and heavy marches

(When frozen storms sang through my iron cuirass

And made it doubtful whether that or I

Were more stubborn metal) have I wrought through,

And all to try these Romans.”

 

Boudicca wouldn't listen to him, of course. There lay the tragedy: in her overreaching herself, in thinking she could drive the mighty Roman Empire from Britain's shores.
And do we likewise overreach ourselves with the Spaniards?
Shakespeare wondered. He shivered.
An we do, we die harder than ever the British Queen dreamt of dying
.

The play went on. The Romans, hard pressed by the Iceni, went through agonies of hunger. Will Kemp's Marcus did a clown's turn to make light of it. He said,

 

“All my cohort

Are now in love; ne'er think of meat, nor talk

Of what provender is: hearty
heigh-hoes

Are sallets fit for soldiers. Live by meat!

By larding up our bodies? 'Tis lewd, lazy,

And shows us merely mortal. It drives us

To fight, like camels, with bags at our noses.”

 

He capered comically before resuming,

 

“We've fall'n in love: we can whore well enough,

That the world knows: fast us into famine,

Yet we can crawl, like crabs, to our wenches.

Fall in love now, as we see example,

And follow it but with all our salt thoughts,

There's much bread saved, and our hunger's ended.”

 

Hands to his own large belly, he left the stage.

Shakespeare hurried up to him. “Well played!”

“How not?” Kemp said. “Belike, when I'm up on the gibbet, the hangman'll give me the selfsame praise. May you stand beside me to hear't.”

“An you go to the gallows, am I like to be elsewhere?” Shakespeare asked.

“An
you
go to the gallows, I should like to be elsewhere,” the clown replied.

Poenius, the officer who would not send his legionaries to help Suetonius, cried out in despair as the Britons advanced against his fellow Romans:

 

“See that huge battle coming from the hills!

Their gilt coats shine like dragons' scales, their march

Like a tumbling storm; see them, and view 'em,

And then see Rome no more. Say they fail, look,

Look where the arm'd carts stand, a new army!

Death rides in triumph, Drusus, destruction

Whips his fiery horse, and round about him

His many thousand ways to let out souls.

Huge claps of thunder plow the ground before 'em;

Till the end, I'll dream what mighty Rome was.”

 

Still more combat crowded the stage. Now, instead of Iceni routing Romans, the Romans, reviving, routed in their turn the Britons. The groundlings—yes, and the galleries, too—wailed in dismay as Boudicca and her daughters and Caratach mured themselves up in a last fortress to stand remorseless, relentless Roman siege. Poenius fell on his sword for shame.

In the fort, Boudicca raged against the soldiers who had failed her, shrieking,

 

“Shame! Wherefore flew ye, unlucky Britons?

Will ye creep into your mothers' wombs again?

Hares, fearful doves in your angers! Fail me?

Leave your Queen desolate? Her hopeless girls

To Roman rape and rage once more? Cowards!

Shame treads upon your heels! All is lost! Hark,

Hark how the cursed Romans ring our knells!”

 

From the balcony above the tiring room, which did duty for the battlements of the fort, Epona spoke to the Roman general, Suetonius:

 

“Hear me, mark me well, and look upon me

Directly in my face, my woman's face,

Whose sole beauty is the hate it bears you;

See if one fear, one shadow of terror,

One paleness dare appear apart from rage,

To lay hold on your mercy. No, you fool,

Damned fool, we were not born for your triumph,

To follow your gay sports, and fill your slaves

With hoots and acclamations. You shall see—

In spite of all your eagles' wings, we'll work

A pitch above you; and from our height we'll stoop,

Fearless of your bloody talons.”

 

She cast herself down to death. When Shakespeare heard groans, when he heard women weep—yes, and some men, too—he knew that, regardless of what happened outside the Theatre, he'd done all he could in here.

Meanwhile, among the Romans who besieged the Britons' stronghold, Will Kemp's Marcus declared,

 

“Love no more great ladies, is what I say;

No going wrong then, for they hold no sport.

All's in the rustling of their snatch'd-up silks;

They're made but for handsome view, not handling,

Their bodies of so weak and soft a temper

A rough-pac'd bed'll shake 'em all to pieces;

No, give me a thing I may crush.”

 

He illustrated, with great lascivious gestures. The crowd, which had mourned the death of poor ravished Epona, now laughed lewdly at a soldier relishing more rape.