“A sad tale’s best for winter”
On November 23, 1986, I wrote to my mother: “Last weekend, Keble had a field trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. I went with some of my friends. We saw Shakespeare’s birthplace and walked half a mile down a footpath to Anne Hathaway’s cottage. In the evening, we saw The Winter’s Tale performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company.”
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is actually quite a small town (its population in 1986 was around 20,000). The field trip was to see the play not to tour the town, so we arrived late in the afternoon. When I say that we saw Shakespeare’s birthplace, I mean that we walked by the building, which was already closed for the day. We hoped that Anne Hathaway’s cottage might still be open but underestimated how far away it was (1.5 miles). As the daylight waned, we gave up on reaching the destination and returned to town where I parted company with my friends who were going to eat dinner at a pub. The truth is I did not have enough money to eat out. I walked along Bridge Street and found Greggs (a cheap sandwich shop chain), where I purchased a plain bread roll that I ate standing up in front of the shop. Bridge Street is the main road coming into Stratford, so I pretended to be waiting for a bus.
The financial difficulties of my first term at Oxford were extreme. The Home Office prohibited me from working, unless I had permission from my college to do so. Given the number of lectures that I needed to attend in preparation for the exam in the spring, I did not think the college would approve. So, I had quietly found a childcare situation where I earned about £10 a week. I would take the footpath called Willow Walk to North Hinksey Primary School (1.8 mi.), where I collected Dan Goldey and then took him home to Osney Island. His parents, who were dons at Exeter College, did not get home until five. So, I made tea for Dan, helped him with reading, and watched Blue Peter (a BBC children’s show). I actually enjoyed this weekday break from academia into normal family life, and the long walks were my only exercise.
After I finished eating, I wandered along the river Avon until I came to a large medieval church called Holy Trinity.
Everything about Shakespeare paled in comparison to this mysterious church. I circled its entire perimeter. There was something about the dark, rough-hewn stone that evoked feelings of longing and attraction, as if to an earthbound magnet. When I went inside, I learned that Shakespeare had been baptized, married, and was buried in the church.
The Winter’s Tale
I rejoined my friends at the Swan Theatre to see Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (1611), which is both a tragedy and a comedy. The king of Sicilia plots to poison his boyfriend best friend, the king of Bohemia, because he suspects that Bohemia is having an affair with his now-pregnant wife. He imprisons his wife and orders the newborn daughter to be abandoned in the wilderness. By the middle of the third act, the king’s son and wife are both dead. A sad tale, indeed.
Shakespeare’s plays are wonderfully weird. When the king of Sicilia looks at his young son, he says, “How like, methought, I then was to this kernel, this squash, this gentleman” (Act I, scene i). Is that any way to talk about your child? Or is this just a typical Royal family attitude? And, in the same scene, a lord of Bohemia says to a lord of Sicilia that when the Royal court comes to visit, “We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us.” Apparently, they are going to give drugs to their guests, so they won’t notice that the Bohemian castle is a bit shabby. I wonder if this is the origin of our notions about the uncouthness of Bohemian lifestyles.
The wintery beginning of the play is set in Sicilia, but at the middle of the third act, the scene shifts to Bohemia, where the newborn daughter, Perdita, has been found by shepherds. The shift is not only seasonal but also marks the transition from tragedy to comedy, as the scene has moved from the suspicions and plots of the Royal court to the pastoral innocence of nature. At the start of Act IV, a figure called Time announces that sixteen years have passed. The shepherds are preparing for a spring sheep-shearing festival of which Perdita will be the Queen of the Feast. The king of Bohemia’s son, who has fallen in love with Perdita, disguises himself as the shepherd Doricles. Likewise, the king, who has become curious about his son’s frequent visits to the countryside, disguises himself to attend the festival. As may be expected, things do not go well. After Doricles proposes to Perdita, his father throws off his disguise and threatens to disown him. The couple is forced to flee to Sicilia, where the truth of Perdita’s identity is revealed, her mother is miraculously brought back to life, and the couple are happily married.
And so the sweeping gestures of stories carry us along . . . past the sadness of winter tales.
Thanks for the continuing "enchantment". As you reveal, understanding Shakespeare (as least for me) can sometimes require the focused consideration of each word one-at-a-time.....