Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories

by Leon Garfield

  While he had waited in the hawthorn brake, listening for his cue, Puck had touched his broad brow and made it harsh and hairy, had touched his nose and made it a muzzle, and had touched his ears and made them grow. In short, he had clapped upon the shoulders of the unsuspecting Bottom, the sickening head of an ass!

  “I see their knavery,” said Bottom, by way of a dignified reproof to his departed companions; “this is to make an ass of me . . .” He walked up and down and began to sing in a loud voice to keep up his spirits. He was divided between mystification and anger over the behaviour of his friends; for he, no more than any man, could see that he had a donkey’s head.

  Puck watched with rare delight, and guided the weaver’s steps nearer and nearer to the bed of the Fairy Queen. Suddenly she awoke, and opened her anointed eyes.

  “What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?” she cried, hearing Bottom’s braying voice and then seeing him in all his hairy, long-eared glory.

  Bottom acknowledged the greeting of the Fairy Queen, and then continued with his song, for he was not a man easily amazed.

  “I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again!” begged Titania; and, helpless with admiration, confessed to the donkey-headed Bottom that she loved him at first sight.

  “Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that,” said Bottom in all honesty; and went on to express a wish to find his way out of the wood. But that was not to be.

  “Thou shalt remain here,” commanded Titania, “whether thou wilt or no. I am a spirit of no common rate,” she declared, rising from her couch in all her strange beauty and majesty. “And I do love thee; therefore go with me.”

  Bottom bowed his long-eared head in courteous assent, and bright Titania awarded him four gossamer sprites to tend upon him and supply his every want. So Bottom, whom nothing could surprise—for, though he had an ass’s head, he had a rare soul—went affably with the Fairy Queen, while the four sprites waited on his smallest command. He bore himself like a monarch . . .

  These matters Puck reported to his master, who nodded, well-pleased by the grotesque punishment that had been visited on his disobedient Queen.

  “But hast thou,” he asked, “yet latch’d the Athenian’s eyes with the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?”

  “I took him sleeping,” promised Puck, “that is finish’d, too.” Even as he said it, Demetrius and Hermia came into the glade.

  “Stand close;” murmured Oberon, dissolving into a kind of mist, “this is the same Athenian.”

  “This is the woman,” agreed Puck, thinning by his master’s side; “but not this the man.”

  Puck had blundered. Demetrius still loved Hermia, who still loved Lysander, who now, by reason of Puck’s mistake, loved Helena who, therefore, must still love where she was despised.

  “See me no more!” cried small dark Hermia, wearied and distressed by the unwanted Demetrius. And she plunged away in pursuit of her lost Lysander. Demetrius gazed after her in despair.

  “There’s no following her in this fierce vein,” he sighed regretfully; and, overcome with weariness from the chase, lay down to rest.

  “What hast thou done?” demanded Oberon, vexed by his servant’s error. “About the wood go swifter than the wind, and Helena of Athens look thou find!”

  The goblin vanished and Oberon softly approached the sleeping Demetrius.

  “When his love he doth espy, let her shine,” he whispered, anointing the sleeper’s eyes with the liquor of the purple flower. “When thou wak’st, if she be by, beg of her for remedy.”

  Even as this was done Puck returned, leading in his invisible wake the melancholy Helena who, in her turn, was followed by the eye-bewitched Lysander. Demetrius awoke, opened his charmed eyes, saw Helena and straightway fell madly, wildly in love with her! No sooner had he declared himself, than Hermia returned and there followed a scene of such frantic confusion, such anger, such reproach, such accusation and denial, such brandishing of fists and flashing of eyes, such wounding with words and breaking of hearts, that, had there been mortal eyes to watch, they would have made a waterfall of tears, instead of glinting with merriment at love’s calamity.

  “Lord what fools these mortals be!” chuckled Puck, as the four lovers raved and ranted and wept in the moonlit glade.

  “You juggler! You canker-blossom!” shouted Hermia, maddened by the very sight of Helena, once without a lover and now the undeserving possessor of two. “You thief of love!”

  “Have you no modesty, no maiden shame?” wondered Helena, tottering like a stricken willow before the injustice of Hermia’s reproach. “You puppet, you!”

  “Puppet?” shrieked Hermia, mortified by so unkind a reference to her brevity of inches. “Thou painted maypole!”

  “Let her not hurt me!” screeched Helena, skipping, like a timid doe, behind Demetrius and Lysander, as Hermia flew at her with upraised nails. “She was a vixen when she went to school!”

  The quarrel leaped and blazed. Spiders, beetles, serpents and distracted birds fled from the heated scene; and the passions of the four lovers could no longer be confined within the pressing limits of the glade. Demetrius and Lysander, unable to endure each other’s existence for an instant more, reached for their swords and rushed away in search of plainer ground where they might make fountains with each other’s blood.

  The two ladies thus abandoned in the moonlight, and panting from their recent exertions, eyed each other with strong dislike and deep distrust. Then first one, and then the other, retreated and vanished into darkness, to seek kindness and security among the less wild beasts that might inhabit the wood.

  “This is thy negligence,” accused Oberon, coming out from leaves and regarding his henchman with disfavour. “Still thou mistak’st, or else committ’st thy knaveries wilfully.”

  “Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook,” protested Puck, whose goblin heart had, nonetheless, been gladdened by the sight of the crossed and crossing lovers. The four-fold enmity that had sprung from a single misplaced love had furnished him with much salty delight.

  But now it was to be ended. Oberon commanded Puck to prevent the coming battle between Lysander and Demetrius, and then to undo the harm that magic had done with magic again. While Puck was so employed he would find the donkey-doting Titania and gain his chief object which was to take her Indian boy.

  “Up and down, up and down,” cried Puck, who foresaw as much confusion in undoing confusion as in making it, “I will lead them up and down!”

  Away he sped into the wood where first he found Lysander, baffled by thicket, ditch and moonshine, shouting for his enemy and waving his sword wherever there was space to do so.

  “Where art thou, proud Demetrius?”

  “Here, villain, drawn and ready!” answered Puck, in Demetrius’s voice.

  “I’ll be with thee straight!” swore Lysander and went off as roundabout as Puck could lead him, fighting with bushes, branches and shadows every step of the way.

  Next he taunted Demetrius with Lysander’s voice; then back to Lysander, then Demetrius again, then with goblin speed, to furious Lysander. He was here, he was there, he was in front, he was behind, he was everywhere, he was nowhere!

  “Follow my voice!” he called; and follow it the maddened lovers did, until the wood was filled with shouts and cries and grunts and gasps, and the glitter of swords as they slashed at moonbeams and pierced the dark. Then, little by little, the passionate enemies grew slower in their motions. Their limbs ached and their bright swords, no longer flashing, helped them, like sticks or crutches, on their weary way. At length first one and then the other tottered into the very glade from which they’d set out; and, unaware of each other, thankfully lay down and went to sleep.

  “O weary night, O long and tedious night!” wailed Helena, straying upon the scene and seeing nothing but her own sadness. Her heart was broken. She sighed and sank down upon the grass and prayed for sleep.

  “Yet but three?” cried Puck, examining with int
erest the unconscious contents of the glade. “Come one more, two of both kinds makes up four!”

  “I can no further crawl, no further go;” sobbed Hermia, shredded alike by misery and briar. “Here will I rest me till the break of day!”

  And she joined the three sleepers to make up the goblin’s four.

  “Sleep sound!” whispered Puck and, darting forward, squeezed the fateful juice into Lysander’s dreaming eyes. “When thou wak’st,” he promised, “thou tak’st true delight in the sight of thy former lady’s eye!”

  He vanished, leaving the four strewn upon the grass, like fallen warriors on love’s battlefield.

  “Come sit thee down upon this flowery bed,” begged the Fairy Queen, marvellous in the moonlight, “while I thy amiable cheeks do coy . . . and kiss thy fair large ears . . .”

  Bottom, sturdy, donkey-headed Bottom, brayed with pleasure and with dignity, submitted himself to Titania’s embrace.

  Crowned and wreathed and stuck all over with admiring roses, Bottom laid himself down upon Titania’s couch, while his attendant sprites scratched him and tickled him and supplied his every want. Presently, the weariness of endlessly fulfilled desires overcame him.

  “I have,” he declared with a yawn, “an exposition of sleep come upon me.

  “Sleep thou,” murmured the Fairy Queen. “O how I love thee! How I dote on thee!”

  So Bottom slumbered, and his loud snores made a thunderous lullaby that soon lulled Titania and her court into sleep. Sleep! The glade was filled with it, and the very moonlight seemed to dream. Bushes nodded and flowers turned and dozed, as Oberon and his henchman came softly among them. The king of shadows, having obtained the Indian boy, looked down with pity on his bewitched queen.

  “I will undo this hateful imperfection of her eyes,” he whispered; and doing so, with the juice of another herb, bade Titania wake.

  “My Oberon!” she cried, “What visions have I seen! Methought I was enamoured of an ass!”

  “There lies your love,” said Oberon; and Titania gazed appalled upon the vision of flowery, snoring, donkey-headed Bottom.

  “How came these things to pass?” she demanded; but Oberon smiled and shook his head. Then, bidding Puck restore Bottom to his human state, he took Titania by the hand and led her, dancing, from the sleeping scene.

  The sounds of hounds and horn came winding through the wood. Duke Theseus and his future queen were out upon the morning’s hunt.

  Presently the Royal riders entered the glade and gazed down in wonderment upon the sleepers.

  “My lord, this is my daughter here asleep!” cried Hermia’s father, who was of the company. Seeing how things were, he demanded that the full rigour of the law should be visited directly on his truant child.

  But when the lovers were awakened, all could see that, either by magic, witchcraft, or merely by true love finding out true heart (which must be magical enough!), each now loved where he should, and each was beloved by whom she would. So the angry father was overruled. It was a day of forgiveness; it was Duke Theseus’s wedding day.

  “In the temple, by and by with us,” he decreed, “these couples shall eternally be knit.”

  So Hermia and Lysander, Demetrius and happy Helena, winding arms and linking looks and smiles, followed the Duke and his company out of the glade, all spite and anger, all tears and heartbreak having faded into the semblance of a dream.

  “When my cue comes, call me and I will answer.”

  Bottom awoke. He was alone. He scratched his head and, to his great relief, found that it was the proper head for Bottom. He shook it. It was indeed the self-same head he’d had for as long as he could remember. And yet there was a difference. There was a dream inside it, a dream of such brightness that Bottom, when he thought about it, shone like a star in boots. He smiled, and it was a rare smile, for Bottom, of all mortals, had walked, waking, in the kingdom of dreams.

  “I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream,” he decided. “It shall be called, ‘Bottom’s Dream’, because it hath no bottom.”

  With that he went back to the town where his companions greeted him with relief and joy. Now the play could go forward, for Bottom was come among them again; and none but Bottom could ever have played Pyramus. Their pensions were certain and, for bully Bottom, as Flute the bellows-mender put it, “sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing.”

  That very day the Duke and his queen, and the two pairs of lovers, were married with due solemnity; and that night the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe was enacted before them with all the delicacy, wit and grace that Peter Quince and his company could command. Snug the joiner played the Lion to perfection, and Snout the tinker rose to great heights as the Wall. Starveling the tailor shone in the necessary part of the man in the moon; and Flute was a Thisbe to wring all hearts. But bully Bottom the weaver was best of all. He lived Pyramus, he died Pyramus, and lived again to take his bow, so powerfully that there was not, as they say, a dry eye in the house . . . although whether the tears shed were of grief or laughter, none could say.

  The play done, the married lovers went their ways to bed. For a little while the hall was empty; then Puck and Oberon and Titania, with all their gossamer train, came with glow-worm lamps to bless the house and bid goodnight.

  Macbeth

  Three old women out in a storm. But what old women, and what a storm! It banged and roared and crashed and rattled. The sky was quick with sudden glares, and the earth with sudden darknesses, darknesses in which wild images of rocks and frightened trees, like scanty beggars in the wind, leaped out upon the inner eye! And the old women! Ancient hags with backs hooped like question marks and their shabby heads nesting together, like brooding vultures . . .

  “When shall we three meet again?” howled one, above the shrieking of the wind. “In thunder, lightning or in rain?”

  “When the hurly-burly’s done!” came an answer, lank hair whipping and half muffling the words. “When the battle’s lost and won!”

  “Where the place?”

  “Upon the heath.”

  “And there to meet with Macbeth!”

  The sky stared, then shut its eye . . . and when it looked again, the old women had gone. Had they been real or had they only been fantastic imaginings made up out of strange configurations of the rocks? Yet their words had been real enough. There was a battle being fought, and there was a man called Macbeth.

  Macbeth! A giant of fury and courage, his sword arm whirling and beating like a windmill as he fought for his king against the treacherous enemies who sought to overturn the state. So tremendously did he fight that he made killing almost holy, and they say his blade smoked with traitors’ blood.

  A soldier from the battlefield, a gaudy, staggering patchwork of blood and gashes, came stumbling into the royal camp to tell the King of Macbeth’s mighty deeds, of how he had come face to face with the worst of the King’s enemies and, with one blow had “unseamed him from the nave to the chops, and fixed his head upon our battlements”.

  Amazed, good King Duncan listened to the eager account of his general’s almost supernatural bravery and success; and, while he stood wondering how he might justly reward such service, news came of yet another victory. The treacherous Thane of Cawdor had been captured. The King sighed. The price of victory was high. He had once loved and trusted Cawdor.

  “Go pronounce his present death,” he commanded sombrely; “and with his former title greet Macbeth . . . What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.”

  He sent two messengers post-haste to greet the great general with his new title and with the heartfelt gratitude of his King.

  The King’s messengers travelled swiftly, but even before they had set out, other messengers were on their way to meet Macbeth, messengers who travelled as fast as thinking, messengers whose purpose was as dark as the King’s was bright: the three old women of the storm.

  It was towards evening. There was thunder in the air and little lightnings, like bright adders, w
riggled across the sky. Here and there on the open heath naked trees seemed to hold up their hands in fear and dismay; and the three old women crouched and waited, still as stones. Presently there came a rolling and a rattling, as if a small thunder had lost its way and was wandering in the dark. The three old women nodded.

  “A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come!”

  The drummer was Banquo, friend and companion-in-arms of Macbeth. The drum he carried had been salvaged from the battlefield, taken, perhaps, out of the cradling arms of some dead drummer-boy. Cheerfully he thumped it as he and mighty Macbeth strode on through the gathering night, their kilts swinging and their heads held high.

  Suddenly they halted and the drum ceased like a stopped heart. Their way was barred. Three old women had appeared before them, three hideous old women who crouched and stared. For an instant, an uncanny fear seized the two warriors; then Banquo recovered himself. Imperiously he thumped on his drum and demanded:

  “What are these, so withered and so wild in their attire?”

  Silence. He thumped again.

  “Live you?”

  Their silence remained unbroken.

  “Or are you aught that man may question?”

  At this, the old women’s eyes glinted, and slowly each raised a finger to her lips. Thus they crouched, like crooked answers awaiting only the right question, and the right questioner. They turned to the great, battle-stained figure of Macbeth. For the smallest moment, he hesitated; then commanded:

  “Speak if you can! What are you?”

  The right questioner. One by one they rose and greeted him.