Robert Nye - The Late Mr Shakespeare

Upon the Effigies of my worthy Friend,

the Author Master William Shakespeare,

and his Works

S pectator, this life's shadow is. To see

The truer image and a livelier he

Turn reader. But observe his comic vein,

Laugh, and proceed next to a tragic strain,

Then weep. So when thou find'st two contraries,

Two different passions from thy rapt soul rise,

Say (who alone effect such wonders could)

Rare Shakespeare to the life thou dost behold.

* King Lear , Act III, Scene 4, lines 74-5.

Chapter Eighty-Three In which Mr Shakespeare plays a game at tennis

William Shakespeare and John Florio enjoyed a game at tennis. They played in a walled and roofed court belonging to the Earl of Southampton. This court was 110 feet long by 38 feet and 8 inches wide, though the floor measured but 96 feet long by 31 feet and 8 inches wide, the difference being the width of a roofed corridor, the 'penthouse' which runs along the two end walls and one of the side walls of all such arenas.

Across the middle of the court a tasselled rope is stretched, and I will tell you that the first object of the game is to strike the ball over this with a bat called a racquet. The rope is five feet high at the ends, and three feet six inches high in the middle, and divides the floor into two equal parts, the 'service' side and the 'hazard' side.

Sometimes I stood in the 'dedans' to watch them play. The dedans is an opening in the end wall on the service side, under the penthouse, where provision is made for spectators, who are protected by a net.

The game is very fierce. It goes like this.

The players decide who shall serve by spinning a racquet on its head. Mr Shakespeare would spin and Mr Florio would call 'rough' or 'smooth', the 'rough' side of the head of the racquet showing the knots of some of the lower strings. The winner takes the service side, service being an advantage.

The server may serve from any part of the court, and in any way that he thinks best to serve. (Mr Shakespeare would spin the ball high with his fingers and then hit it hard with his racquet as it came down.) The ball must then fly over the rope, and strike the side penthouse, and fall into the service-court. The opponent (or 'striker-out') tries to return the ball over the rope before it has touched the ground a second time. He may volley it if he can, or he may half-volley it. For a stroke to be 'good' it must be made before the second bound of the ball, and the ball must go over the rope (even if it brushes it), and the ball must not strike the wall above the play-line, nor touch the roof or rafters. The first point to be attained is thus to be sure of getting the ball over the rope, and the next to do so in such a way as to defeat your opponent's attempt to make a 'good' stroke in return.

It often happens that a player, either intentionally or from inability, does not take or touch a ball returned to him over the rope. In this event, a 'chase' is made, the goodness or the badness of which depends upon the spot on the floor which the ball touches next after its first bound. The nearer this spot is to the end wall the better the chase. Strokes into the galleries and doors count as chases. The making (or as they call it, the 'laying down') of a chase does not immediately affect the score: it has to be won first, i.e. the other player tries to make a better chase; if he fails, the original maker wins. The winner of the chase scores a point. A point is scored by that player whose opponent fails to make a good return stroke, or who strikes the ball into a winning opening, or wins a chase, or to whom two faults are served in succession. A player loses a stroke who strikes the ball twice, or allows it to touch himself or his clothes.

The game is marked, 15, 30, 40 (or advantage), equality of numbers, and then victory. The players wear felt shoes for play on the smooth, tiled pavement, with caps held on by a band which goes under the chin. The balls are small and hard, being made of whitleather and stuffed with dog's hair and other such stubble.* The racquets are woven from strings such as might otherwise be found on a six-stringed lyre.

Mr Florio was an excellent player at tennis, with a subtle understanding of all the game's finer points. Even if you had never seen him in action on Rizley's court, you might deduce as much from his Second Fruits (1591), where the value of chases is discussed at length.

Mr Shakespeare was an altogether wilder sort of performer. He struck the ball well and he was agile in his volleying and his bandying, but when it came to the chases you could tell his mind was somewhere else. This did not bother me as his spectator. In fact, what I liked best was the stream of invective which would flow from his lips when he was losing . I never heard anything to match it, not even among the tinkers and mountebanks busy at Bartholomew Fair.

One morning when the game went all Florio's way, I took paper and jotted down some of the choice names which my master called his opponent as each point was lost. Here is that riot of insults:

You drone! You slug! You patch! You punk! You clog! You bubble! You sprat! You sot! Dog-ape! Odd worm! Garbage! Fishmonger! Unpaved eunuch! Jack-sauce! Miscreant! Mouse! Spongey officer! Fire-drake! Mongrel! Chewet! Libbard's head! Rash wanton! Detested kite! Lack-love! You mere gypsy! You gibbet! You foul blot! You thing! Notable lubber! Coistrel! Gross lout! Camel! Such a snipe! Botchy core! Sir knave! Cuckold! Minion! You drone! Malt-horse! Shrike! Coxcomb! Boggler! Carbonado! Toad! Mechanic slave! Serpent's egg! Dullard! Popinjay! Capering fool! Foolish cur! Silly dwarf! Hulk! Whoreson zed! Rebel's whore! Sly divel! You chaos! You ronyon! You polecat! You baggage! You bead! You saucy friar! You prodigal! You Lucifer! Thou cat!

There were other choice phrases of abuse also, more in the nature of complete sentences, which Mr Shakespeare uttered when he had his breath back. Amongst these I noted:

'You very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow!'

'You wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy!'

'You logger-headed and unpolish'd groom!'

'Red-tailed bumble-bee! Foul indigested lump!'

'You are the son and heir of a mongrel bitch!'

'You dainty dominie! You stretch-mouthed rascal!'

'You minimus, of hind'ring knotgrass made!'

'Mad mustachio purple-hued maltworm!'

'Thou little better thing than earth!'

'Foolish compounded clay-man!'

'A dog-fox not proved worth a blackberry!'

'King-Urinal! Monsieur Mock-water! Thou finch egg!'

'Thou idle immaterial skein of sleeve silk!'

'Thou green sarsanet flap for a sore eye!'

'Thou bright defiler of Hymen's purest bed!'

'You bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!'

'Thou disease of a friend!'

'Thou thing of no bowels!'

And so on, and so forth. Mr Shakespeare was a master of this craft or sullen art. He could go on for minutes on end, insulting Mr Florio without ever repeating himself once.

I remember one game where Mr Shakespeare kept on serving what they call double faults. Of course, he blamed his opponent for this small deficiency. John Florio, he said, was a KNAVE. Then, standing at the tasselled rope, racquet in hand, which he waved above his head to punctuate each verbal thrust, he gave it as his opinion that John Florio was not just a KNAVE, but a foul-mouthed and caluminous KNAVE, and not just a foul-mouthed and caluminous KNAVE, but a wrangling KNAVE, a poor, decayed, ingenious, foolish, rascally KNAVE, a KNAVE that smelt of sweat, a shrewd KNAVE and unhappy, a sly and constant KNAVE, a lousy KNAVE, a bacon-fed KNAVE, a counterfeit cowardly KNAVE, a crafty KNAVE, a subtle KNAVE, the lying'st KNAVE in Christendom, a beastly KNAVE, a stubborn ancient KNAVE, a muddy KNAVE, a whoreson beetle-headed, flap-ear'd KNAVE, a base notorious KNAVE, a KNAVE very voluble, a pestilent complete KNAVE, a KNAVE fit only to be beat into a twiggen-bottle, an arrant, malmsy-nose KNAVE, a KNAVE most untoward, a muddy KNAVE, a ruddy KNAVE, a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking KNAVE. In short, a villain .