“Let’s go and get drunk!” Jonson said.
Later, Burbage told me it was a cannon, fired during my own play, that set fire to the Globe. We met in the street. Yanking his beard, swearing, he spat on the cobbles, and turned away.
Henley Street
1615 All Souls’ Day
Pain is gross companion, inducing lecherous thoughts, destroying temperance, stability, mercy, courage, fortitude. Craving release, I fought all day to remember better times. At night, with candles lit, blankets around me, I find ease... I remember...
I am in a lemon grove, naked stone pillars stabbing out of the tops of the trees, Greek pilasters by the sea. We are eating on a terrace overlooking the water, a lazy meal, with old wine. The moon rises, drunkenly, fat, water-distorted, closing in on us, in rhythm to the waves below. We hold hands. The moon spells urgency, urging us to the grove, where we lie side by side.
“Ellen...Ellen...”
The lemons are yellowish in the moonlight: there is something stage-like about their motionlessness: it is rather as though we were in a velvet box, facing the sea. Stars have something to do with the fragrance drifting about us, the only movement apart from the waves and rising moon. I suggest we go down to the beach, so inviting. Ellen says no and I forget everything but her fragrance and the fragrance of the lemons, her whispers, her kisses.