Idioms of the Hathaway Cottage
Today was a pilgrimage to Stratford On Avon. Five houses, only one without rain--stuffed on a little coach with a Polish driver, we made our way south to Cotswolds and I had the best sleep I'd had yet, dreaming as an accompanist for the MoTab.
Anne Hathaway's Cottage was first. Charming flowers all out--the end of September, and the cottage gardens here are still stunning. Elizabethan houses still standing in the charming little outskirts. We entered and found an enthusiastic tour guide who told us some cute stories about Shakespeare's courtship with this particular woman, as well as everyday happenings:
1. Before going to bed, people would tighten the braided bed-ropes (before springs) underneath the mattress as much as possible, because the tighter the ropes, the better the sleep. Good night, sleep tight.
2. When guests came to visit, bacon was usually offered as succor after a long journey (unless they were REALLY unwelcome, in which case, nothing was offered). If you got hot, sizzling bacon, you were an honored guest and the host took extra care to make sure it was hot when you arrived. The uneaten bacon was stored in a little ceiling box, saved for later...if you got this cold bacon, consider yourself snubbed. Tis the cold shoulder.
3. When guests stayed for the night and there weren't enough beds, the top of the table could be taken off and flipped over as a substitute. Room and board.
4. Speaking of tables, the dinner table for a house of 14, like the Hathaways, comprised a long rectangular dining table with benches for everyone in the family. The father (head of house), however, got his own chair and sat at the head of everyone. Chairman of the board.
5. Bread was baked in a lovely oven, much like artisan bread today, except that the bottom wasn't often cleaned, and the loaf was cut horizontally, rather than diagonally. The bottom slice, which was covered in cinders and splinters and ash, was given to dogs or children or servants, while the top slice was given to the head of house. Uppercrust.
It was really cool to walk on the same stone floor that Shakespeare walked on. Could we feel the literature oozing out? Not really. The gift shop was cool though; Sister Seely bought me a new wallet with a Merry Wives quote: "There's money, spend it, spend it!" I thought it appropriate.
Tudors Amok
Our next stop was by far my favorite place. Shakespeare's mum was named Mary Arden, and her property is still a working farm. The cool part was that all the workers dressed in 1500s garb and talked to us like they thought we had the Plague. Little schoolchildren dressed in Tudor clothes were being taught to thresh and milk and make cider, and we walked through like it was some kind of theme park. I was grateful for the irreverent manner that was permitted; but less heavy than all those Great War sites.
The best part? Pigs, cows, goats, chickens, geese, and other period animals (big shaggy draft ponies that attracted the sympathy of every girl due to their rocker hair and sad countenances) were so used to tourists that they let us pet them. The pigs Amy and Liz were small and red with little curly tails and a soccer ball, eager for attention. Smart little buggers. It was at the farm that we missed out on the hawkers because rain started to come down.
The Grave and Other Archeological Events
The next three sites were Shakespeare's birthplace, his son-in-law's house, and the ruins of Shakespeare's own estate...some jerkface burned the place down. As a result, a crew of diggers have begun to search in the wreckage for items lost there and make people pay to see the place. Shame his mulberry tree was cut down too. Troubles with the town drunk and a rector, apparently. His daughter Susanna married an Elizabethan doctor and we visited his house; no thatch roof, and glass in the windows made him a rich man. We tried to invent a Facebook quiz: Which of your humors is out of balance? Blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile results.
Charles Dickens found the birthplace in the 1900s and put in a lot of work to preserve the place. I loved seeing the panes of glass with graffiti and signatures dating back to the 1700s. I learned that Shakespeare was dressed as a girl when he was a toddler to chase away the devil...we're glad to learn he survived the year Bubonic Plague took over the town. Like his father, who paid fines out the wazoo for illegal trading and tannering, he seemed to be a bit of a rebel who married an older woman three years earlier than consent age because she was definitely pregnant. I would expect nothing less from the man who penned Much Ado About Nothing as well as King Lear.
The grave is entombed within a Holy Trinity Church, alongside his wife, Susanna and a few other children. We were able to get in for 50p and didn't feel bad about it; the grave was unremarkable compared to tombs of the Black Prince and Lord Nelson that we'd seen--just a slab of granite, like a large flagstone, with a wreath of flowers recently placed. The far more interesting thing beside it was a 1611 edition of the King James Bible, a beautiful book open to Psalms 23. Just calm, simple devotion to a literary past of the town; whether Shakespeare liked going to church is another matter, but he uses Biblical passages everywhere in his plays, the most of whom refer to Cain. How very Hamlet and Macbeth of him.
We left Stratford about four oclock, soaking wet in the English rain and huddled together in the bus to sleep again, looking out the window at a bronze statue of Yorrick in jester apparel. I slept fitfully, thinking that I would catch some good internet time without the mob of girls headed to dinner.
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