And on his Gravestone, this Insculpture.
“Here lies a wretched Coarse, of wretched Soule bereft,
Seek not my name: A Plague consume you, wicked Caitifs left:
Heere lye I Timon, who alive, all living men did hate,
Passe by, and curse thy fill, but passe and stay not here thy gate.”
ALCIBIADES
Dead Is Noble Timon, of whose Memorie
Hereafter more. Bring me into your City,
And I will use the Olive, with my Sword:
We have learned that gold’s a poison serpent
And must poorly profit from our losses
Make war breed peace; make peace stint war, make each
Prescribe to other, as each others leach.
Let our Drummes strike.
Exeunt.
* * *
Cry ‘God for Rassilon! Gallifrey and Time Lords!’
* * *
HAMLET’S SOLILOQUY
The earliest known copy of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy from Act III Scene i in its final form is handwritten, but annotated with comments in the same handwriting. There has been some speculation that Shakespeare dictated the text, and the annotations were added by whoever took down his words. Earlier drafts of the text, with rather different wording, do exist – and indeed the annotations refer to these. But whatever the source, this is surely the earliest example of a critique of what is arguably the Bard’s greatest work.
To be, or not to be1 – that is the question:2
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows3 of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,4
And by opposing end them. To die – to sleep –
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir5 to. ’Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d.6 To die – to sleep.
To sleep – perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come7
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,8
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.9
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,10
The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels11 bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death –
The undiscover’d country,12 from whose bourn
No traveller returns – puzzles the will,13
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?14
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus15 the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,16
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action . . .17
ACADEMIC NOTES
As scholars are aware, the ambitious ‘Shakespeare Project’ set out to provide unrivalled academic notes and insight into each and every extant text by the great playwright. However, the project was abandoned under mysterious circumstances. The only work to have been completed seems to be this draft of the notes for a scene of Julius Caesar.
JULIUS CAESAR ACT II, SCENE II
CALPURNIA1
Caesar,2 I never stood on ceremonies,3
* * *
The mind probe’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
* * *
Yet now they fright4 me. There is one within,5
Besides the things6 that we have heard and seen,7
Recounts most horrid sights seen8 by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped9 in the streets;10
And graves have yawn’d,11 and yielded up their dead;
Simonides’12 fair warning has not been heeded13
Those who worry least have most to fear14
The strange and shapeless ones15 draw hungry near
Fierce fiery warriors16 fought upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,17
Which drizzled18 blood19 upon the Capitol;20
The city shook as though eternal lost,21
The dome22 quite crack’d asunder. Time was lock’d;23
The noise24 of battle hurtled25 in the air,26
* * *
Rassilon, the Master and the Doctor are of imagination all compact.
* * *
Horses did neigh,27 and dying men did groan,28
And ghosts29 did shriek30 and squeal31 about the streets.
All time has come,32 to grab the prize, pay the price.33
O Caesar! these things are beyond all use,34
And I do fear35 them.
* * *
Hast thou forgot the alien Sycorax, who with blood and thunder was thrown into the duel?
* * *
SMITH’S SYLLABLES & SONNETS (Appendix 4)
Practical exercise: Rearrange the following into both blank verse and sonnet form:
Young Lady, you are in the most dreadful trouble.
The book that we spoke of I dare not touch.
If you leave its leaves then you can never leave.
It is printed on tragic paper. Paper that wefts and weaves
Around the reader’s soul. It once was simply
Psychick paper, but it read too much of its
Owner’s heart, and cream vellum blacken’d.
The writer is long dead, but enough of his dread
Soul is stored within those pages, hidden in lines
Waiting in words. Studying it is like
Turning on a tap to his black soul
Pouring it out into the world.
It was never meant to come into his hands
But now it is never meant to come into anyone else’s.
Gentle reader, if this you see, my meaning now you know.
* * *
Once more unto the TARDIS dear friends, once more; or dose the time breach with our Time Lord dead.
* * *
YE UNEARTHLY CHILDE
One of the stranger texts to have been discovered in recent years is what purports to be an account of a lost Shakespeare play titled ‘Ye Unearthly Childe’, although it seems unlikely that this was the title accorded the work by Shakespeare – if indeed it was written by him. The account is part of a set of diaries, badly damaged in the Great Fire of London (1666) and with no clue as to the identity of the author. The diaries were then lost until they were rediscovered in the 1960s. Even then, it was another fifty years before the possible importance of the text described was realised.
Sadly, the text is incomplete – there are just a few fragments with brief explanatory notes linking them. It seems likely that the sequences were transcribed during a performance, but unfortunately the earlier pages that probably explained where and when this performance took place were lost to the flames.
A ROOM OF LEARNING
Enter CHESTERTON and MISS WRIGHT
MISS WRIGHT
She is a most unearthly child, methinks.
CHESTERTON
Who, Susan Foreman? Aye, methinks ’tis so.
That girl knows more than I will ever know
Of Science: all I teach she knows.
It is all child’s play to her, no more.
MISS WRIGHT
In hist’ry too, Ian, she knows so much
Of ev’ry period, like she were there.
I wonder how it is she knows so much
And yet so little by the same d
egree.
CHESTERTON
So little, Barbara? What knows she not?
MISS WRIGHT
How many pennies in a shilling are
Nor shillings in the pound.
CHESTERTON
Can it be so?
’Tis strange, I’m sure, but is not sinister.
I know not whence your worry for her stems.
MISS WRIGHT
’Tis not in that, though strange it is, I know
My worry from another aspect grows.
So far ahead of her classmates is she
That I offered to tutor her at home.
As soon as I suggested such a thing
She grew afear’d, and said her Grandfather
Would not approve of it.
CHESTERTON
Well, he might not.
MISS WRIGHT
But why grew she afear’d? It worried me
So went I yesterday unto her home.
CHESTERTON
You did what, Barbara?
MISS WRIGHT
I found her home,
The Secretary gave me the address,
But when I got there, all that I did find
Was just a junkyard, nowhere was a home.
CHESTERTON
Perhaps you simply mistook the address.
MISS WRIGHT
I checked it, Seventy-Six Totters Lane.
No home is there, this junkyard all there is.
CHESTERTON
Well this is strange and worrysome indeed.
What purpose you to do about it now?
MISS WRIGHT
She waits outside . . .
Here the extract ends. A brief note states that Chesterton and Miss Wright speak with the girl, Susan, and then follow her to the mysterious junkyard.
The following extract appears to take place within the junkyard:
MISS WRIGHT
We saw her enter in, where has she gone?
CHESTERTON
She can’t have left; there’s only one way in.
MISS WRIGHT
But why should she come in here anyway?
In this junkyard, which she, it seems, calls home?
This muddied throne of junk, this rubbish isle,
This mound of majesty, this seat of trash,
This cluttered Eden, rodent’s paradise,
This fortress built by clutter for herself,
Against inspection and the will to search,
This realm, this I.M. Foreman’s little world,
Discarded stone set in an urban sea
Which keeps within the circle of a wall
Which acts as moat against the scavengers,
This storage lot, this earth, this realm, this Junkyard?
CHESTERTON
Such clutter here there is would o’erfill
The wildest dreams of hoarding clutterers.
No purpose for this clutter can I see
Save as objects of curiosity.
See here, an ancient pram sits all alone.
MISS WRIGHT
The baby once within it now has grown.
CHESTERTON
Look here a lamp that once gave out great light.
MISS WRIGHT
And now, poor lamp, sit here through darkest night.
CHESTERTON
And here an organ, music came from this.
MISS WRIGHT
To hear music in this wasteland were bliss.
CHESTERTON
This vase held flowers once, and watched them bloom.
MISS WRIGHT
It now sits, barren, waiting for its doom.
CHESTERTON
This clock still ticks, its hands still keep good time.
MISS WRIGHT
Oh that its hands could Susan Foreman find.
CHESTERTON
You’re right; we must for Susan seek straight’way.
No more distractions, no, no more delay.
MISS WRIGHT
We cannot find her! Oh, where can she be?
CHESTERTON
I know not. Wait! Do you see what I see?
It’s a Police Box. What’s it doing here?
Again, it is unfortunate that the extract stops here – the pages badly burned – as the use of the term ‘police’ seems on the face of it somewhat anachronistic, as indeed do other terms such as ‘junkyard’. Indeed, some academics claim the use of these anachronisms as sufficient to cast doubt on the validity and authenticity of the whole text.
The transcription resumes with a short extract depicting the entrance of a strange Physician, who hears Chesterton knocking on the ‘police box’ as he searches for Susan:
PHYSICIAN
A knocking? And my hearts are filled with fear.
The Sound of Drums is sounding in my ear.
The drumming calls my oldest, closest friend
And with him come the deaths of countless souls,
The massacre of millions, and much worse.
His coming and the drumming are a curse,
A shadowy conflux of evil kinds,
And death will stalk to ev’ry place he finds.
4 knocks.
He knocks 4 times
Nor slow’r, no faster.
I pray it be some man, and not the Master.
CHESTERTON
No sound within, and yet a sound without.
Someone approaches, Barb’ra, hide yourself.
PHYSICIAN
Who’s there? Come out? Hmmm. I know that you’re there.
The diarist’s notes describe the next, missing section only briefly:
‘Chesterton doth demand access to the Physician’s strange cabinet, and when refused determines to fetch a constable of the watch.’
There is clearly some missing explanation as the next extract then takes place within, as the diarist has it, ‘a realm of mystery and dimension of wonder’.
MISS WRIGHT
What majesty and wonder lies within?
PHYSICIAN
Now quickly, Susan, back and shut the doors.
SUSAN
What are you doing here?
PHYSICIAN
You know them, child?
SUSAN
They are my schoolteachers.
CHESTERTON
What is this place?
It’s bigger on the inside than without,
But that’s impossible, it cannot be.
MISS WRIGHT
And yet with our own eyes this sight we see.
It’s like a bush where roses bloom in snow
Or lightning hangs from trees like monstrous fruit.
It is hot ice and wondrous strange snow
This techno-Eden in a cupboard.
From outside all of this fits in four walls,
A tiny space, a cupboard in the street,
Yet here the walls are distant, shining white
With roundels on, and rising up so high
That they might stand above the highest trees.
This central console, on which controls gleam
Contains a central column grown from glass
And covered is with switches, lights and dials.
And if this gleaming cavern weren’t enough,
I can see doors that would lead further in
Into the wilderness of this mad place,
The corridors of this strange powerhouse,
This techno-jungle, Eden of science.
PHYSICIAN
Yes all of that we see, well noticed, hmmm.
And further I would add to what you see
This is the dematerialiser,
Over yonder the horizontal hold,
And up there lies the scanner, these the doors
And that a chair with a panda upon’t.
Sheer poetry, my dear, now do be quiet.
CHESTERTON
But it’s impossible, I walked all round
And saw its size, o
r rather lack thereof.
It cannot fit within that small space.
PHYSICIAN
And yet it does, hmmm? Wizardry perhaps?
Following this, there are just two more short extracts, with no explanation for how either fits into the overall narrative. The first seems to depict the Physician – although he is evidently more like a magician – describing himself and his travels:
PHYSICIAN
If you could the touch the alien sands, and hear
The cry of strange, and wondrous monstrous birds
That wheel through an undiscovered sky,
Then would that satisfy you, Chesterfield?
CHESTERTON
But say you speak true? Why would you be here?
What drew you to this place and to this year?
PHYSICIAN
Do you know what it’s like to be exiles?
Cast away from your home? Your life? Your world?
My granddaughter and I are wanderers,
Across the fourth dimension do we roam
To whereso’er we please, except our home;
That once discovered country, to who’s bourn
We one day shall return. Yes, one day shall!
One day we once again will see those suns
And walk between the silver leaféd trees
And climb the snow-capped mountains of our home
The Wild Endeavour continent to see.
We’ll talk with hermits of the daisy flow’r,
Of time and tide and webs of history,
We’ll run with friends across the golden sands
And dive into the shining crystal sea.
We’ll stand again upon that blessed plot,
That sacred star set in the firmament
As though it were a diamond in the sky,
The burning eye within Kasterborous,
(As unto you that constellation’s known)
That well-kept garden of eternity,
That Ancient seat of Kings and Lords of Time,
That throne of Rassilon and Omega,
That Temp’ral jewel, that Gallifrey, that home
To which we shall return one fateful day.
Until that day we wander where we can