One night, Pericles and I got into a talk: he squatted by my bed and we went over the business of writing for a living... He said the market was poor. He said my plays were very wordy. He said he had it tough before I took him on and suggested I see if I couldn’t buy stock in a Company, one that was really enduring, he said. “No use getting in with one that is here today and gone tomorrow. Wisdom,” he snuffed, “is a thing you get when they crowd you off the dock into deep water, or when you grab for a mutton bone and it isn’t there.”
Our talks were not long as a rule. Pericles could drop asleep when I was in the midst of telling him something interesting or trying out a few lines on him. If I offered him a chunk of bread his interest quickened, and there was tail action too. He could listen attentively to a stanza, let’s say, if I held the bread (or piece of cheese, preferably cheddar) above his head, just out of his reach. I sometimes did this to improve his mind. However, a week or so later there seemed no sign of improvement. Perhaps dogs, like some people, are impervious to poetry.
Shakespeare, Stratford sleepwalker, walks about his bedroom,
stumbles, tries door handle, raises window:
Ann, in clumsy breasty gown, wakes him angrily:
“What on earth were you trying to do?”
“I was listening to Burbage and Alleyn
recite lines from my plays.”