尹世雅
Unit Three Young William Shakespeare
　                                      By Jennifer Bassett
Everyone knows the name of Shakespeare but not much about his personal life. How did this great, probably the greatest playwright and poet live before he went to London? What were his dreams and ambitions? What about his family? What did he do when he first came to London to try his fortune? The following covers this part of Shakespeare’s life. It is taken from The Life and Times of William Shakespeare written by Jennifer Bassett, 清朝皇帝顺序who uses Toby, Shakespeare’s countryman and life-long friend, as the narrator of the story.
It was a sunny day in October 1579 when I first met Will, just outside Stratford, near a big orchard. I saw a boy up in one of the trees. He had red hair and looked about two years older than me.
“What are you doing up there?” I called.
“Just getting a few apples,” he said, smiling.
“Those are Farmer Nash’s apples,” I said, “and he’ll send his dogs after you if he sees you.”
“Mr. Nash has gone to the market,” the boy said. “Come on! They’re good apples.”
The next minute I was up the tree with him. But Will was wrong. Farmer Nash wasn’t at the market, and a few minutes later we saw his enraged red face above the wall on the far side of the field.
Will and I ran like the wind and only stopped when we reached the river. We sat down to eat our apples.
Will was fifteen, and lived in Henley Street, he told me. His father was John Shakespeare, and he had a sister, Joan, and two younger brothers, Gilbert and Richard. dilirebaThere was another sister who died, I learnt later. And the next year he had another brother, little Edmund—the baby of the family.
“I go to Mr. Jenkins’ school in Church Street,” Will said. “Every day, from seven o’clock un
til five o’clock. Not Sundays, of course.”
I was sorry for him. “Isn’t it boring?” I asked.
“Sometimes. Usually it’s all right.” He lay back and put his hands behind his head. “But we have to read and learn all these Latin writers. I want to read modern writers, and English writers, like Geoffrey Chaucer. Can you read?” he asked.
“Of course I can read!” I said. “I went to school.”
Will sat up and began to eat another apple.淘宝红包专区在哪 “I want to be a writer,” he said. “A poet. I want that more than anything else in the world.”
We were friends from that day, until the day he died. We met nearly every day, and he taught me a lot about books and poetry and writers. He was always diligent in his studies.
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When Will left school, he worked for his father. John Shakespeare was a glove-maker, and he had other business too, like buying and selling sheep. But Will wasn’t interested.
“What are we going to do, Toby?” he said to me one day. “We can’t spend all our lives making shoes and gloves!”
“Well,” I said, “we could run away to sea and be sailors. Explore the world, like Francis Drake.”
Drake sailed back to Plymouth in 1581, after his three-year expedition round the world, but we were still in Stratford. We made lots of plans, but nothing ever came of them.
Will was still reading a lot and he was already writing poems himself. He sometimes showed them to me, and I said they were very good. I didn't really know anything about poetry then, but he was my friend.
Will was not happy with his writing. “I’ve got so much to learn, Toby,” he said. “So much to learn.”
Will had a lot to learn about women, too. One day in October 1582, he came to my house with a gloomy face.
“I’ll never leave Stratford.” he said. “I’m going to be married in a few weeks' time. To Anne Hathaway.”
Will married Anne Hathaway in November, and she came to live in Henley Street. Families cost a lot of money, and John Shakespeare was having a lot of money troubles in those days. Times were hard in Henley Street.
Susanna was born the next May. 包贝尔 虎扑Will was very pleased with her.
“Look, Toby, she’s got my eyes,” he said happily. “She’s going to be as beautiful as the Queen of Egypt, and as clever as King Solomon.”
I didn’t see much of Will’s wife. She came from a very serious, Puritan family. Lots of church-going, and no singing or dancing.
Soon there was another baby on the way, and one evening in February 1585,I hurried round to Henley Street to hear the news. Will’s sister, Joan, opened the door, and then Will came running down the stairs.
“It’s two of them!” he said. “Twins! A girl and a boy. Isn’t that wonderful?”