Even that your pity is enough to cure me.”
Another sonnet, in a similar strain, is numbered 110; the first two lines unmistakably refer to his profession as an actor:
“Alas ’tis true I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view.”
The first line refers to acting at different places in the Metropolis, and also touring in the provinces, an event common to all theatrical companies of the period. Whether Shakespeare had really played the fool’s part can only be conjectural. It may be simply a synonym for an actor, who in various costumes acted different parts.
In an edition of Shakespeare’s poems, published by John Benson in 1640, there is an elegy addressed to Shakespeare, with the following heading: “An elegy on the death of that famous writer and actor, William Shakespeare.” The author eulogizes Shakespeare as a poet, but makes no reference to him as an actor, beyond merely stating in the heading that he was an actor.
The remarks that Shakespeare let fall from his pen, in connexion with his profession as an actor, need not surprise us if we consider the drastic measures imposed upon actors during the reign of Elizabeth, and the contempt with which certain sections of the public regarded the actors’ calling, together with the scanty recognition they received from the literary world. Under these circumstances, it is little to be wondered at that he half despised his own vocation, but in his secret heart he cherished a deep love for the stage, otherwise he would have retired years previously to his final farewell, which only took place at the close of his life, in reality about the year 1610, six years before his death. Anyone reading the interview with the players and the play-acting scene in “Hamlet” cannot doubt for a moment that Shakespeare derived intense satisfaction and happiness from his theatrical life; there is a ring of enthusiasm in all those scenes in which he alludes to the theatre, and revels in everything connected with the art of the theatre. Being an actor may have barred him from any great social success, and he may have written the lines in the sonnets when in a moody humour, or at some insult levelled against him at the common playhouse.
I should like to point out that with the exception of Davies’ epigram, in which he remarks that Shakespeare played “kingly parts,” there is no authentic notice of his having acted any particular character, and all accounts written about the parts he played are purely fictitious. Even Rowe, the earliest biographer of the poet, gives no authority for stating that the part of the Ghost in “Hamlet” was the top of his performance as an actor; all such statements are misleading, and writers on Shakesperean matters should be careful in stating whether their remarks are founded upon facts or are of an imaginary character.