Musings on a plague year in Stratford upon Avon

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

During an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1592, when London theatres were closed for 6 months, Shakespeare used the time to write two long narrative poems and quite possibly this Sonnet XXIX.

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Could those be the words of man fed up with lockdown? Shakespeare’s whole life was overshadowed by the plague. A few months after he was born in April 1564, a serious outbreak swept through England and killed nearly a quarter of the people of Stratford upon Avon. The plague was again rife in the 1590s and Shakespeare’s only son Hamnet died in 1596 aged 11; the cause of his death was not recorded but the plague was not ruled out. The plague returned in force to London in 1603 and again in July 1606 when theatres, including Shakespeare’s Globe, were once more closed; in fact, London playhouses were intermittently closed for 78 months of the following decade (60% of the time). A preacher at that time thought that “The cause of plagues is sin, and the cause of sin is plays”; fortunately we now know better: if was fleas, not sin. Theatre-goers today, perhaps, should take heart from the fact that Shakespeare’s company managed to keep the show on the road throughout those troubled times. 

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

He certainly sounds as though he’s “got the hump” as my mother used to say, although during  her low moments she was more like a nervous sheep than a camel. The currrent pandemic is so widespread across the world, afflicting “all conditions of men and women”, that it is hard to think  with envy of anyone “more rich in hope”. Perhaps our son who now lives in London might wish he were back in New Zealand again, or I can feel grateful for another son who lives in Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido and has not seen a single case of covid-19 in his coastal town of Shiranuka.

Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Among the diversions of my years of retirement, I have noticed recent changes in “what I most enjoy”. For example, I have stopped drinking and watching films. Living alone since the pandemic began has made me realise these are social activities and no longer so satisfying in my outcast state. All my life I have struggled for inspiration with the tricky art of watercolour, but the muse has lately completely deserted me. My small local group of fellow greying artists has started meeting again (in the garden, of course) but now seem to gas as much as draw. I have enjoyed Zooming or WhatsApping to stay in touch and have dug up old friends from home and abroad, I have also enjoyed keeping this blog alive with commentary on the pandemic and cryptic crossword clues. I get a weekly Mindbender for the Quarantined from the New York Museum of Mathematics and spend hours writing small programs to search for solutions; off and on I append a new paragraph to my memoir (for family consumption only, I hasten to add).

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Aha, at last, a welcome change of mood, a happy memory, a ray of light to banish his gloom. Begone dull care! There have been better days and there will be again. Put way introspection and melancholy, stay “Looking on the bright side” as my old maths teacher called his memoir.

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

Praise be the Lord! Heaven is not entirely deaf to his bootless cries; the lark has interceded.

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

       That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Yes, I can relate to that. For the past three months my wife has been locked away in Penzance, without a pirate in sight as far as I know. But we will soon be braving public transport to meet up in London to celebrate four family birthdays. Things are not so bad after all, for me, and even for Stratford. Sure, the RSC is closed, but they have been streaming their past productions, and their cast of actors, hopefully only temporally out of work, have been reading Shakespeare’s sonnets. Anthony Sher reads Sonnet XXIX and this reminds me that only a year ago I watched him and John Kani give an outstanding performance of Kani’s moving South African play, Kunene and the King. They will be back, the RSC will return, and then I shall scorn to change my state with kings.