Henslowe. Much written?
Shakespeare. Not a line.
Henslowe. Are you mad? We’re contracted. What shall I say to the Queen?
Shakespeare. What you please.
Henslowe. Are you well?
Shakespeare. Well enough.
Henslowe. Ill enough, I think!
Shakespeare. Write your own plays—bid Marlowe, any man That writes as nettles grow or rain comes down! I am not born to it. I write not so. Romeo and Juliet—I am dead of them! The pay’s too small, good clappers! These ghosts need blood To make ’em plump and lively and they know it, And seek their altar. Threads and floating wisps Of being, how they fasten like a cloud Of gnats upon me, not to be shoo’d off Unsatisfied—and they drink deep, drink deep; For like a pelican these motes I feed, And with old griefs’ remembrance and old joys’ Sharper remembrance daily scourge myself, And still they crowd to suck my scars and live.
Henslowe. Now, now, now—do I ask another ‘Juliet’ of you? God forbid! A fine play, your ‘Juliet,’ but—
Shakespeare. Now come the “buts.”