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

The three stages of man

Ask Will

My beloved Baird,

My query be simple. Dist thy truly love kind Lady Hathaway?
Signed,
Curious Cat
...
Dear Curious,

‘Tis a question for the ages you ask. Will understands that there is much curiosity about beds and babes, and the dark lady, and whether his love can transcend the distance ‘twixt London and Stratford. I am loathe to quash the mystery, my sweet Curious Cat, but I shall let thee muse on these lines:

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken…
And mine sonnet 145:

Those lips that Love's own hand did make,
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',
To me that languished for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom;
And taught it thus anew to greet;
'I hate' she altered with an end,
That followed it as gentle day,
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
'I hate', from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying 'not you'.

Eternally Yours,
Will

Dear Young Will,
To be or not to be that is the question.

Signed,
Wavering

Dear Wavering,

Let your epitaph show that while life was yet in thee, thou didst “be,” that thou were not scoured to nothing in fleet passing sadness. Let not Death brag that he hath lead thee too soon under his shade. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,/So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Eternally Yours,

Will

Dear Young Will,

Wherefore doth Juliet ask "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" Be the problem not with his name being Montague?

Signed,

The Devil is in the Details

Dear Devil,

‘Tis an honest fair question, to be sure, young Devil. The answer is not so difficult since young Romeo was one of twelve Montagues: Filippo, Niccolò, Franco, Marco, Antonio, Matteo, Tomaso, Leonardo, Bartolomeo, Iacopo, and Piero. Had Juliet but cried for a Montague, how quickly would her bright love have fallen to confusion.

Eternally Yours,

WillSee More

A gift for thee

If thou be'est like Will, thou hast precious few enemies, but many flies that swarm about thee and test thy patience. For Will, these are those fustian knaves Ben Jonson and Robert Greene. For such milk-livered men or women, I give thee this glove, crafted by mine own father John, and an insult worthy of a king's fool. Have your Gower or your Caxton to print it for thee, so ye may avoid all violence but swat at the insects that torment thee.

ASK YOUNG WILL: The Untamned Shrew

 

Dear Young Will,

Whether Padua or Mantua,
Elsinore or Rome,
In England or in Scotland
... wherever one calls home.
And even tho Love's Labor's Lost
or Nothing's Much Ado,
just tell now, O youthful Will
what writeth next will you?

~An eager fan

Dear Eager,

As't happens, Will was at the Boar's Head Saturday with Kit and that fusty nut Ben Jonson. The gentle mistress of the house, that noble vessel Eleanor, was with her mallet at the tap. When I tell thee she hath continents on the globe that is her back end, Will does not lie. As she bent over, poor John Brewer, her noble lord, played the jest and pinchéd her somewhere near India. How she did howl with fury! All the shades of hell ne'er sounded so enraged. John leapt out of the tavern and ran, his legs a-flurry, whilst his goodwyfe did scramble right behind with her mallet. How we did howl! Even Ben could not suppress his amusement. 'Twas a merry sight, one that makes Will want to write about how shrewish these damnable dames can be.

Eternally Yours,
Will