SHAKESPEARE'S FUNERAL. Place.-STRATFORD-ON-AVON. Time.-THE 25TH OF APRIL 1616. SCENE I.-The Taproom of the Falcon Tavern in the High Street, kept by Eleanor Comyng. Hostess. KIT HOSTESS and SLY. IT SLY, Kit Sly, dost thou hear? There be guests alighting in the yard; run thou and help Robin ostler hold their stirrups, and so do somewhat for the ale thou ne'er pay'st for. Sly. If I do, wilt thou let this one day slip without rating and prating of thy score that I owe thee? Hostess. Yea, good Kit, if thou run quickly. Sly. But wilt thou bid Francis draw me what ale I may chance call for? A Hostess. Nay, that will I not, or thou wouldst empty my great tun. Thou wouldst serve me as thou didst the ale-wife of Wincot,1 who says, poor soul, that she ne'er had cask in cellar these twelve years but thou wert more fatal to it than a leaking tap. By these ears, I heard her say so when the deputy's men were seizing her goods. Thou shalt not cozen me as thou didst Marian. Sly. Hold stirrup thyself then. I'll not budge. I'll to sleep again by the chimney till it please God send me drink. Enter DRAYTON 2 (the poet) and YOUNG 3 RALEIGH (son of Sir Walter). Drayton. Sly, said she! Didst thou not hear, Walter, yon varlet's name? but 'twas scarce needful. The sodden face, the shaking nether lip, the eye watery and impudent, the paunch ale-swelled, the doublet liquor-stained, the hat 1 “Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not," says Kit Sly in the "Taming of the Shrew." Wincot is a village about three miles from Stratford. 2 Michael Drayton, a Warwickshire poet of great repute in his day, was about a year older than Shakespeare, and had known him long and familiarly. 3 Young Walter Raleigh was Sir Walter's eldest son, and was now twenty-two years old. He accompanied his father, soon after, to South America, as commander of one of the companies that formed the military part of the expedition, to prepare for which was the express condition on which Sir Walter was released from the Tower in January 1616. |