ANNE. Too well we know it, I and the child. You have well taught this fool That thought a heart of dreams, a loving heart, A soul, a self resigned, could better please Than the blind flesh of a woman; for God knows Your self drew me, the folded man in you, Not, not the boy-husk.
SHAKESPEARE. Yet the same God knows When folly was, you willed it first, not I.
ANNE. Old! Old as Adam! and untrue, untrue! Why did you come to me at Shottery, Out of your way, so often? laugh with me Apart, and answer for me as of right, As if you knew me better (ah, it was sweet!) Than my own brothers? And on Sunday eves You’d wait and walk with me the long way home From church, with me alone, the foot-path way, Across the fields where wild convolvulus Strangles the corn--
ANNE. --and still delay me talking at the stile, Long after curfew, under the risen moon. Why did you come? Why did you stay with me, To make me love, to make me think you loved me?
SHAKESPEARE. Oh, you were easy, cheap, you flattered me.
SHAKESPEARE. Why, did you not look at me As I were God? And for a while I liked it. It fed some weed in me that since has withered; For now I like it not, nor like you for it!
ANNE. That is your fate, you change, you must ever be changing, You climb from a boy to a man, from a man to a god, And the god looks back on the man with a smile, and the man on the boy with wonder; But I, I am woman for ever: I change not at all. You hold out your hands to me--heaven: you turn from me--hell; But neither the hell nor the heaven can change me: I love you: I change not at all.
SHAKESPEARE. All this leads not to London, and for London I am resolved: if not to-night--
SHAKESPEARE. As soon as maybe. When the child is born-- When will the child be born?
SHAKESPEARE. That’s May! It should be March.
ANNE. Stay with me longer! Wait till Whitsuntide, Till June, till summer comes, and if, when you see Your own son, still you’ll leave us, why, go then! But sure, you will not go.
SHAKESPEARE. Summer? Why summer? It should be spring, not summer--
ANNE. I’ll not bear These questions, like coarse fingers, prying out My secrets.
ANNE. Secrets? I? I’ve none-- I never meant--I know not why the word Came to me, “secret.” Yet you’re all secret thoughts And plans you do not share. Why should not I Be secret, if I choose? But see, I’ll tell you All, all--some other time--were there indeed A thing to tell--