The Diary of a Shakespeare Groupie

April 2nd, 1600

Dear Diary,

'Tis another night spent at The Globe. They've charged us working men two pennies to see the first performance of His play Richard III. Two pennies is a day's wage at the tannery, which means that I haven't eaten since yesterday morning, but 'tis worth it to see another play from England's greatest playwright. 'Tis only my mind that needs sustenance, and tonight my mind has amply supped on language so beautifully spoken by the stage's finest players. Aye, what was language before him?

I shan't pretend that I fully grasp the words of villainous Richard's opening soliloquy:

Now's the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this son of York.

Though not a poet, there's something in these lines that my soul understands. How all my days feel like winter though it's spring. Rise do I before the crow of the cock to put on my brother's clothes that I may toil in the tannery, scraping the fat and hair from the piss-soaked hides of cattle sent by the butcher, from dark 'till dark. Only is "the winter of my discontent made glorious summer" when I can leave the tannery and spend the evening at The Globe. I go every night there is a play and languish if there is none to be seen.

Waiting in line for this first performance of Richard III felt like the passage of an entire winter. We workers had to wait for the nobles to be seated in the upper tiers before we could be let into the pit down below. I could hear women behind me giggling about getting the chance to see Richard Burbage on stage. They were holding copies of his portrait they hoped to have autographed after the performance. I remember how my dear friend Cecily had that same portrait hanging on her wall, the lips worn because, Cecily confessed, she practiced her kissing on Sir Burbage's lips.

My dear Cecily—she wouldn't know me now.

I still remember how her notebook was covered with protestations of love like "Mr. & Mrs. R. Burbage" and "I <3 Richie." I laughed at this girlish, over-the-top familiarity Cecily pretended to have with the stage actor.

"Hast though no interest in Sir Burbage at all?" She asked me once.

"The only man who could ever tempt me is the one who writes the words Sir Burbage recites night after night," I told her. "The man everyone knows as The Bard."

The Bard reveals not his true name, and who can blame him when accusations of heresy are leveled at playwrights and actors all the time. Just look at the interrogations of Marlowe and Kyd.

I confess that I have not just been coming to The Globe every night since it opened last year to take in some culture. You'd laugh at me if you could laugh, Diary, for harboring such a girlish fantasy, but each night that I come to see a performance I cannot help but hope that I might see...The Bard. Though no one's really sure who he is or what he looks like, I've heard people speculate that he looks like a pirate. My heart is in blissful agony at the thought!

You know, I could almost swear I saw such a figure one night, peeking out from behind the curtain during a performance of Julius Caesar. Our eyes met for a brief moment and— Oh, stop being stupid. The Bard it could not have been. And even if it were, what man could look at me now that I look and dress like my late brother Rinaldo?

If only I could be Margaret again, but she is dead. It was she who died from the plague seven years ago, not Rinaldo. Rinaldo who survived his younger sister, and mother and father, too. Rinaldo who must find a way to survive on the pennies a day he earns at the tannery.

I'm more Rinaldo than I am Margaret now. In playing this part, I've come to embody the man he was. No one at the tannery or that we know has ever suspected that I am not Rinaldo—I am lost.

I thought Margaret was gone for good, but The Bard has happened to me. His plays have brought me back to her; fantasies about him have reminded me that I am a woman.

Yours,

Margaret

....

Early morning, April 3rd, 1600

Dear Diary,

I must try to get at least a few hours of sleep before I begin my day at the tannery, but every time I close my eyes I keep reliving the excitement of the evening.

Who do you think I met after tonight's performance? The Bard himself. His name is William Shakespeare, and I can tell you that the rumors of his appearance are true. A pirate. A dark and dangerous pirate. If only I could have met his as Margaret, not Rinaldo.

Yet he doth notice me at The Globe every night. He could also recall the night of Julius Caesar when our eyes did meet. 'Twas him behind the curtain after all! Oh Diary, I was so tempted to tell him who I truly am so that he might see me as a woman he could love—or, at least, have his way with. Propriety be damned!

But I couldn't share my secret there and then. I have caught my reflection in a looking glass often enough to know that no one could believe me to be Margaret.

At least I can go to sleep tonight dreaming of the real Bard, not some fantasy.

Yours,

Margaret

....

July 16th, 1600

Dear Diary,

How awful it is to be in love! And I'm not in love with just anyone—Shakespeare. If the stars foretold that I was to meet and fall madly in love with The Bard, mine eyes were blind to this prophesy.

These three months passed have been spent always in each other's company, save when we (much to my disappointment) retire to our beds. Though, sometimes, I do wake to find him sitting in my chamber, just looking at me. While I remain in disguise, Shakespeare could never look at me as a lover; he looks at me as a brother.

Since I last wrote The Bard has taken me into his charge, forcing me to leave behind the cottage I once shared with my brother and parents. I even left Rinaldo's job at the tannery. A spare room Shakespeare had, and money enough to afford me three meals a day and a wardrobe meant for a finer man than I'll ever be.

Now that I no longer have to pretend, I have tried to tell Shakespeare several times that a man I am not. I lose my courage when he starts to speak of my beauty, composing poetry on the spot:

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,

Now is the time that face should form another;

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother,

For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb,

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

If only Shakespeare knew how his words break my heart. So much beauty he sees in the face of Rinaldo—so much so that he wants me, no, I mean Rinaldo, to pass on his beauty before it's too late. And as Rinaldo loses his bloom each day that doth pass, so, too, does Margaret grow closer to becoming an old spinster.

He so relies on Rinaldo's companionship that I fear't will break him to know that Rinaldo exists no more. I overheard that full-of-himself Burbage and my darling Shakespeare talking one night, not long after I'd come to stay in Shakespeare's spare room.

"I see thou hath found theeself a young man," Burbage seemed to be suggesting something more between us than companionship.

"Nay, he is mine apprentice. He inspireth my writing."

How many people can say that they inspire greatness in someone? But Shakespeare hath inspired greatness in me as well, for never would I have considered myself a writer before I began helping him revise dialogue and better develop the female characters in his latest play about a Danish prince who must avenge his father who was killed by his own brother. Shakespeare is always impressed by how well I seem to know how to write women. He doth never know what to do with them. The character Queen Gertrude had no complexity until I suggested she be the cleverest person in the play, deceiving everyone about which side she's on.

"Women can be very good at deceiving men," I told him. The Bard doth not seem to understand women at all.

How many more plays we shall write together? I believe I've found my calling. Perhaps one day we'll both be known as the greatest playwrights of all time.

Yours,

Mrs. William Shakespeare

....

July 31st, 1600

Dear Diary,

'Tis opening night of our Hamlet, and I shan't be watching from a pit of vulgarity and debauchery. I hath my own box, alongside friends and family members of the actors. Shakespeare, of course, must stay behind the curtain, feeding lines to actors who cannot remember them despite days of rehearsal.

Diary, my heart longs to believe that he knows my secret, that any day he'll declare that he knows I cannot be Rinaldo and that he must have Margaret.

Last night he composed such beautiful words about me. And when he looked into mine eyes while reciting his poem, I could tell that he was unraveling my pretend identity the way he would my corset:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

I've decided that after tonight's performance, mine own performance will come to an end.

Yours,

Margaret Shakespeare

....

Later in the evening, July 31st, 1600

Dear Diary,

Embrace me he did after the final curtain call. After everyone left The Globe in celebration, I took Shakespeare aside so that I could reveal my secret. We faced each other on the stage where the actors played Hamlet's final scene only moments before. He took my hand as he's done many times before.

"The thing is, my name is not Rinaldo. I am not Rinaldo, but his sister Margaret." I moved his hand to my breast so that he could feel that I am a woman.

Shakespeare was silent. I continued my story just the same. When I was through, he paced the stage for hours until, finally, he turned to me.

"To remain my apprentice, you must remain Rinaldo."

Dearest Diary, for the love of Shakespeare I must forever be the man that was my brother.

Yours,

Rinaldo