娌冨皵澶紙1882-1941锛変笉浠呬互鍏舵澃鍑虹殑鎰忚瘑娴佸皬璇村鍙椾笘浜烘帹宕囷紝鍚屾椂濂硅繕浠庝簨鍑虹増宸ヤ綔锛屽垱浣滅煭绡囧皬璇达紝鍙戣〃璇勮鏂囩珷锛屽啓浜嗗ぇ閲忔檽鐣呫�佹兂璞″姏涓板瘜鐨勬暎鏂囥�備綔涓轰竴鍚嶅コ鏉冧富涔夎�咃紝濂瑰己鐑堝湴鎰熷彈鍒帮紝濡囧コ鍦ㄧぞ浼氫腑鎵紨鐫�鎶氬吇瀛╁瓙鍜屽姪闀跨敺鏈富涔夌殑鏃㈠畾瑙掕壊锛屽洜姝ゆ墠鍗庢朝鐏�傛湰鏂囬�夎嚜娌冨皵澶�婅嚜宸辩殑鎴块棿銆嬩竴涔︼紝濂瑰湪璇ヤ功涓鏄庝簡濂虫�ф垚灏卞皬浜庣敺鎬х殑鍘熷洜銆?BR>It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare. Let me imagine, since facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us say. Shakespeare himself went, very probably鈥攈is mother was an heiress鈥攖o the grammar school, where he may have learnt Latin鈥擮vid, Virgil and Horace鈥攁nd the elements of grammar and logic. He was, it is well known, a wild boy who poached rabbits, perhaps shot a deer, and had, rather sooner than he should have done, to marry a woman in the neighbourhood, who bore him a child rather quicker than was right. That escapade sent him to seek his fortune in London. He had, it seemed, a taste for the theatre; he began by holding horses at the stage door. Very soon he got work in the theatre, became a successful actor, and lived at the hub of the universe, meeting everybody, knowing everybody, practising his art on the boards, exercising his wits in the streets, and even getting access to the palace of the queen. Meanwhile his extraordinarily gifted sister, let us suppose, remained at home. She was as adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school. She had no chance of learning grammar and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Virgil. She picked up a book now and then, one of her brother's perhaps, and read a few pages. But then her parents came in and told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew and not moon about with books and papers. They would have spoken sharply but kindly, for they were substantial people who knew the conditions of life for a woman and loved their daughter鈥攊ndeed, more likely than not she was the apple of her father's eye. Perhaps she scribbled some pages up in an apple loft on the sly, but was careful to hide them or set fire to them. Soon, however, before she was out of her teens, she was to be betrothed to the son of a neighbouring woolstapler. She cried out that marriage was hateful to her, and for that she was severely beaten by her father. Then he ceased to scold her. He begged her instead not to hurt him, not to shame him in this matter of her marriage. He would give her a chain of beads or a fine petticoat, he said; and there were tears in his eyes. How could she disobey him? How could she break his heart? The force of her own gift alone drove her to it. She made up a small parcel of her belongings, let herself down by a rope one summer's night and took the road to London. She was not seventeen. The birds that sang in the hedge were not more musical than she was. She had the quickest fancy, a gift like her brother's, for the tune of words. Like him, she had a taste for the theatre. She stood at the stage door; she wanted to act, she said. Men laughed in her face. The manager 鈥?a fat, loose-lipped man鈥攇uffawed. He bellowed something about poodles dancing and women acting鈥攏o woman, he said, could possibly be an actress. He hinted 鈥?you can imagine what. She could get no training in her craft. Could she even seek her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets at midnight? Yet her genius was for fiction and lusted to feed abundantly upon the lives of men and women and the study of their ways. At last鈥攆or she was very young, oddly like Shakespeare the poet in her face, with the same grey eyes and rounded brows鈥攁t last Nick Greene the actor-manager took pity on her; she found herself with child by that gentleman and so鈥攚ho shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?鈥攌illed herself one winter's night and lies buried at some cross-roads where the omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle.
That, more or less, is how the story would run, I think, if a woman in Shakespeare's day had had Shakespeare's genius.
