player-Romans from the stage. How the crowd roared!
And Boudicca cried out, too, in exultation:
'The hardy Romans-O, ye gods, of Britain!-
Rust of arms, the blushing shame of soldiers!
These, men that conquer by inheritance?
The fortune-makers? these the Julians,
That with the sun measure the end of nature,
Making the world one Rome, one Caesar?
How they flee! Caesar's soft soul dwells in 'em;
Their bodies sweat sweet oils, love's allurements,
Not lusty arms. Dare they send these 'gainst us,
These Roman girls? Is Britain so wanton?
Twice we've beat 'em, Caratach, scattered 'em;
Made themes for songs of shame; and a woman,
A woman beat 'em, coz, a weak woman,
A woman beat these Romans!'
Before Richard Burbage could deliver Caratach's answering line, someone said, not too loudly, one word: 'Elizabeth!' The name raced through the Theatre. Excitement raced with it, as if the mere mention of that name, for ten years all but forbidden, could remind everyone of what England had been before the Spaniards came-and what she might be again. Shakespeare nodded to himself. He'd hoped for that. To see what he'd hoped come true. What writer could ask for more?
And Burbage, as Caratach, let Elizabeth's name echo and reecho before saying,
'So it seems.
A man, a warrior, would shame to talk so.'
Boudicca asked,
'My valiant cousin, is it foul to say,
What liberty and honour bid us do,
And what the gods let us?'
'No, Boudicca.' Caratach shook his head.
'So what we say exceed not what we do.
You call the Romans fearful, fleeing wights,
And Roman girls, the lees of tainted pleasures:
Doth this become a doer? are they such?'
'They are no more,' Boudicca said. 'Do you dote upon 'em?'
Caratach shook his head again.
'I love a foe; I was born a soldier;
And he that in the head on's troop defies me,
Bending my manly body with his sword,
I make a mistress. Yellow-tress'd Hymen
Ne'er tied a longing virgin with more joy,
Than I am married to the man that wounds me:
And are not all these Romans? Ten battles
I suck'd these pale scars from, and all Roman;
Ten years of cold nights and heavy marches
(When frozen storms sang through my iron cuirass
And made it doubtful whether that or I
Were more stubborn metal) have I wrought through,
And all to try these Romans.'
Boudicca wouldn't listen to him, of course. There lay the tragedy: in her overreaching herself, in thinking she could drive the mighty Roman Empire from Britain's shores. And do we likewise overreach ourselves with the Spaniards? Shakespeare wondered. He shivered. An we do, we die harder than ever the British Queen dreamt of dying.
The play went on. The Romans, hard pressed by the Iceni, went through agonies of hunger. Will Kemp's Marcus did a clown's turn to make light of it. He said,
'All my cohort
Are now in love; ne'er think of meat, nor talk
Of what provender is: hearty
Are sallets fit for soldiers. Live by meat!
By larding up our bodies? 'Tis lewd, lazy,
And shows us merely mortal. It drives us
To fight, like camels, with bags at our noses.'
He capered comically before resuming,
'We've fall'n in love: we can whore well enough,
That the world knows: fast us into famine,
Yet we can crawl, like crabs, to our wenches.
Fall in love now, as we see example,
And follow it but with all our salt thoughts,
There's much bread saved, and our hunger's ended.'
Hands to his own large belly, he left the stage.
Shakespeare hurried up to him. 'Well played!'
'How not?' Kemp said. 'Belike, when I'm up on the gibbet, the hangman'll give me the selfsame praise.
May you stand beside me to hear't.'
'An you go to the gallows, am I like to be elsewhere?' Shakespeare asked.
'An you go to the gallows, I should like to be elsewhere,' the clown replied.
Poenius, the officer who would not send his legionaries to help Suetonius, cried out in despair as the Britons advanced against his fellow Romans:
'See that huge battle coming from the hills!
Their gilt coats shine like dragons' scales, their march
Like a tumbling storm; see them, and view 'em,
And then see Rome no more. Say they fail, look,
Look where the arm'd carts stand, a new army!
Death rides in triumph, Drusus, destruction
