lampblack crushed into powder, gum of Arabic or galls of oak, and wine or vinegar, maybe a drop of rainwater, let it stand, stir, then . . .”
“Then?”
“Dip the quill, of course, then think, then write. Or write before you think. Lampblack is best for darker paper.”
“Darker paper?”
“Not everyone in this land has linen the color of clotted cream. Perhaps if you are Sir Philip Sidney’s scribe you do, but we common folk are used to making our marks on murky sheets of brown or gray, the color of the Thames.”
There again was the swift current: his mind traveled from the nib of a quill to the color of the Thames.
“You found them!” she exclaimed.
“Ahhhhh!” He handed her the finished black quill, picked up another feather and started whittling. “To be rich and to be a writer is a blessing, never a curse, to make riches on words is a chest of gold few stumble upon.”
“You have the Sidney!” she said.
He jumped to his feet. “Sounds like an ague when you word it thus. The pox, the plague, the gout, the Sidney.” He held out his arm. “Doctor, I am ailing, leech me, call for the cupping glasses . . .”
“May I have them back? I had but only started when you interrupted—”
Then he interrupted her again:
“Queen Virtue’s court, which some call Stella’s face,
Prepar’d by Nature’s choicest furniture,
Hath his front built of alabaster pure;
Gold in the covering of that stately place . . .”
He grimaced. “Furniture? To write words in rhyme is an art, madam; to rend them, beat them into submission, is a sin.”
Katharine crossed her arms, a nurse scolding a child. “He’s done no violence. His words are beauty. His feeling pure. What right have you to mock him?”
“‘In truth, oh Love, with what a boyish kind . . .’” he recited. “‘Yetof that best thou leav’st the best behind.’” He grinned. “Is he musing on his fair Stella’s behind? I should hope, after he compared her features to nature’s furniture, he has at least the grace to praise her buttocks.”
She could have sworn, with a movement as quick as a cut to a quill, he peeked at her backside. This fellow’s rudeness had no bounds.
“I’ll not listen to you dismantle one of the world’s most gifted poets,” she lectured, “who if he had not died so young—”
“Aye, the mantle of such greatness hangs heavy upon his poor soul. What he hath writ, my dear, stands separate from pity. Another poet down. A playwright dies every week, it seems, yet one Sir Poet takes lead in his leg and the whole world stands still. I cannot weep because I cannot follow where this poet leads. A maze of language, with trees scarce cut to fit, stops me at every turn.”
“‘Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show . . .’” She recited the first sonnet in the cycle. “His path is easy. You cannot follow it?”
“You are more nimble than I. Perhaps you’ve not read far enough to get lost in his woods. I read all. The songs, too. A woman, it seems, by your fair example, is not the weaker sex with Sidney.” He waved his hand in mock surrender. “Yet a man must have stamina, perseverance and strength to couch with him.”
“And you are not such a man?”
“With him? I have tried and I have failed.”
“You are jousting with a dead man because you cannot come close to his wit, nor his rhyme, nor his meter, and that angers you. I don’t pity Sidney. I pity you!”
He smiled, keeping her eyes in check with his, and declaimed,“‘But with your rhubarb words you must contend,’” and then in a melodramatic voice, “‘To grieve me worse, in saying that desire / Doth plunge my well-form’d soul even in the mire / Of sinful thoughts, which do in ruin end’? Many a sugar’d sentence doth your fair Sidney pen. The sweetness, I suppose, counteracts the rhubarb, or perhaps counterattacks it.’Tis not his ‘sinful thoughts’ that ‘do in ruin end,’ but ’tis his insufferable
“Then?”
“Dip the quill, of course, then think, then write. Or write before you think. Lampblack is best for darker paper.”
“Darker paper?”
“Not everyone in this land has linen the color of clotted cream. Perhaps if you are Sir Philip Sidney’s scribe you do, but we common folk are used to making our marks on murky sheets of brown or gray, the color of the Thames.”
There again was the swift current: his mind traveled from the nib of a quill to the color of the Thames.
“You found them!” she exclaimed.
“Ahhhhh!” He handed her the finished black quill, picked up another feather and started whittling. “To be rich and to be a writer is a blessing, never a curse, to make riches on words is a chest of gold few stumble upon.”
“You have the Sidney!” she said.
He jumped to his feet. “Sounds like an ague when you word it thus. The pox, the plague, the gout, the Sidney.” He held out his arm. “Doctor, I am ailing, leech me, call for the cupping glasses . . .”
“May I have them back? I had but only started when you interrupted—”
Then he interrupted her again:
“Queen Virtue’s court, which some call Stella’s face,
Prepar’d by Nature’s choicest furniture,
Hath his front built of alabaster pure;
Gold in the covering of that stately place . . .”
He grimaced. “Furniture? To write words in rhyme is an art, madam; to rend them, beat them into submission, is a sin.”
Katharine crossed her arms, a nurse scolding a child. “He’s done no violence. His words are beauty. His feeling pure. What right have you to mock him?”
“‘In truth, oh Love, with what a boyish kind . . .’” he recited. “‘Yetof that best thou leav’st the best behind.’” He grinned. “Is he musing on his fair Stella’s behind? I should hope, after he compared her features to nature’s furniture, he has at least the grace to praise her buttocks.”
She could have sworn, with a movement as quick as a cut to a quill, he peeked at her backside. This fellow’s rudeness had no bounds.
“I’ll not listen to you dismantle one of the world’s most gifted poets,” she lectured, “who if he had not died so young—”
“Aye, the mantle of such greatness hangs heavy upon his poor soul. What he hath writ, my dear, stands separate from pity. Another poet down. A playwright dies every week, it seems, yet one Sir Poet takes lead in his leg and the whole world stands still. I cannot weep because I cannot follow where this poet leads. A maze of language, with trees scarce cut to fit, stops me at every turn.”
“‘Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show . . .’” She recited the first sonnet in the cycle. “His path is easy. You cannot follow it?”
“You are more nimble than I. Perhaps you’ve not read far enough to get lost in his woods. I read all. The songs, too. A woman, it seems, by your fair example, is not the weaker sex with Sidney.” He waved his hand in mock surrender. “Yet a man must have stamina, perseverance and strength to couch with him.”
“And you are not such a man?”
“With him? I have tried and I have failed.”
“You are jousting with a dead man because you cannot come close to his wit, nor his rhyme, nor his meter, and that angers you. I don’t pity Sidney. I pity you!”
He smiled, keeping her eyes in check with his, and declaimed,“‘But with your rhubarb words you must contend,’” and then in a melodramatic voice, “‘To grieve me worse, in saying that desire / Doth plunge my well-form’d soul even in the mire / Of sinful thoughts, which do in ruin end’? Many a sugar’d sentence doth your fair Sidney pen. The sweetness, I suppose, counteracts the rhubarb, or perhaps counterattacks it.’Tis not his ‘sinful thoughts’ that ‘do in ruin end,’ but ’tis his insufferable
Similar Books
