An insult, from Will

By the gods! It be'est only Wednesday? If thou, like poor Will, doth feel the need to strike a fool, know that I do have thee cover'd. Thou canst share this insult or send the blackguards this image.

Words, words, words...

As thou likely knows't, Will hath been progenitor to countless words and phrases ye moderns use to this day. The word "aerial" -- meaning airy or sky clear -- I didst first write in mine tragedie of Othello: "As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello,/ Even till we make the main and th' aerial blue..."

A pox on thee, spring pox!

O, confound these blastyd fevers o' th' hay! Groundlyngs, your dear Will has been accoasted on all sydes by the vexations of the spring winds & the bright sun. I sought to compose some verses for my newest historie under the shade of a greening tree, but retreated within the publike house after sneesing some dozen times and expending my rag to empty my nose! The spring pox it is!

Have at thee!

Ask Young Will

Dear Young Will,

Since twelfth night is upon us... I must ask you that has plagued my mind for near a score of years... Does eating beef really harm the wit? Or did it lack of beef make Sir Agucheek a twit?

Sincerely,

Cookey Monster

Dear Cookey Monster,

The consumption of flesshe, especially beef, can have many effects, or so my physician friend suggests. According to Doctor Helmut von der Frosch:

--I hadde a man named Ricardo who possessed all of the signes of erotomania (or erotic melancholia, amorous fever, love syckness). Ricardo sighed, wrote bad poetry in the imitation of Petrarch--comparing his beloved to the chaste moon on a cloudy night while mixing his metaphors and mangling his metre--and his humors were imbalanced. He would wax angry and then excitable and then sad and then lazy before growing angry again.

As I told Ricardo, "You have too much black bile--and you have too much heat without outlet for it." The consumption of flesshe can, when combined with other factors, dull the wyt. Of course, with yet other factors, too lyttle beefe will harm the soul of a rational man.

For one who possess'd an excess of heate, one should avoid hot climes, avoid spicy foodes and an excesse of wine, avoid music and love poetry and playes and other ydle entertainments. In regards to dining, one should engage in temperance and vary what flesshe and fishhe one consumes. Avoid softe beds and take up activity that will release pent up heat safely or rouse it if one is too cool in the bloode: hunting is the best recourse, medically speaking. Those who suffer an excess should also have a rigorous course of bleedyng, as Galen and other authoryties rightly recommend.--

Sadly, I am no master of physic myself. I suspect the answer to the question of beef lies in fynding the balance between too little and too much combined with a dose of reflecion upon one's nature. But not too much reflecion, nor too little.

Eternally Yours,
Will

Old tricks, New Year

 

Greetings, fair groundlings! Will hopes that thou hast a wondrous fair New Year.

Will passed the eve with Richard Burbage, that sour toad Ben Jonson, and Kit Marlowe, who did not drink sack after sack with us in celebration this night but poured as he were Bacchus. 'Twas passing strange, methought, until we stumbled us out of the Mermaid as Phoebus raced his chariot from the East.

For there stood Kit, with a plate of eels steeped in cheap port for us, what ye moderns might call a "hair o' the dog." Poor Burbage took sick at once and disembowléd him in the nearest barrel. Ben turned away and heaved mightily. "Similia similibus curantur!" Kit bellowed, meaning "Like cures like." I do but think that cur Marlowe planned this outcome and worse, called us eels.

:-/

Ask Young Will

Dear Young Will,

I'm suffering from early onset male pattern baldness.
Toupee or not toupee, that is the question.

Signed,

Baldilocks

Dear Baldilocks,

Hast gazéd upon the image of Will?  Thou dost ask this of a man whose pate couldst bear the imprint of the Old Testament?  Will advises thee not to fret if many leaves, or none, or few do hang upon those boughs.  ‘Tis also shrewd that thou observest how the vain French fops do scratch about their wigs.  If thou wouldst toupee, thou will find thy head is home to more lice than any hairs thou once had upon thy head. 

Eternally Yours,

Young Will

Dear Young Will,

Will, I have been struck forthwith by Puck's arrow, so to speak. A young lady hath caught my fancy, and I inquire: which of thy works would be most helpful in th' process of wooing said strumpet?

Signed,

Lysander

Dear Lysander,

If thy lady-to-be be strumpet, and if by “woo,” thou meanst to lie with, Will knows of no better words than these: “Methinks thy friend Emily is beauteous.  Canst get me her digits?”

Eternally Yours,

Young Will