"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
"To be or not to be, that is the question."
That's right, folks. William Shakespeare. The man penned a great many phrases which influence our speech even today and his plays have entertained the masses since he caught the acting bug in his hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon all those years ago. As a self-proclaimed Bardophile, I couldn't pass up the chance to visit the home of Anne Hathaway, his wife, the birthplace of ol' Billy himself, and his gravesite at Holy Trinity Church.
Anne Hathaway's cottage is situated just a few miles outside of Stratford-Upon-Avon on a charming little farm one can easily imagine dating back centuries. The little cottage with its thatched roofs and tudor architecture squats cheerfully amidst bounteous gardens and winding pathways, with orchards and outbuildings cozying up to the perimeter.
This photo, probably taken in the Autumn, does not do the gardens justice. The house itself is quaint inside, furnished as it would have been when Anne and her famous husband were alive (although he never lived there). Fun fact of the day: in Anne's day, farmers would clean their chimneys by typing the legs of two chickens together and lowering them down the chimney. The chickens would flap around to get free, knocking the soot down the chimney where it belongs. Nifty little idea, eh?
After Anne's cottage, we headed into Stratford-Upon-Avon itself, where we glimpsed the outside of Shakespeare's birthplace and the location of his father's glovemaking business. I had been inside on previous trips, and it's also worth a visit, although we didn't have time this go-round.
Shakespeare factoid: he left his wife his second-best bed upon his demise. Many people take this as a slight, but it would actually have been a sign of love and devotion. The best bed would have been reserved for guests and company, and the married couple would not have slept in that one. The second-best bed was the intimate, familiar one where the couple would have spent their nights (assuming they were wealthy enough to have more than one bed in the first place). Therefore, Shakespeare leaving his wife the second-best was more familiar, more loving than pushing her off into the best one, like a guest in her own house.
Moving on. We hopped back on the bus after a quick photo-op for Holy Trinity Church, a charming English place of worship dating back to 713. The building itself only (only!) dates to 1210, so it's in its infancy as far as European churches are concerned. Here, Shakespeare was buried in the church because he had bought a share in the property, making him what was known as a "lay rector." That earned him the right to be buried there, not his famous stature.
The inscription on the plaque reads:
Good friend for Jesus sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here
Blest be the man that spares these stones
And curst be he that moves my bones
In those days, a high mortality rate meant lots of bodies, which led to very full churchyards. When the churchyard got too full, they would dig up the bodies already interred there and burn them to make room for new ones. This poem was a request by Shakespeare to leave his alone. As you can see, they did.
And thus my now-yearly pilgrimage to Shakespeare's gravesite is complete. I came, I saw, I paid homage to the great man whose work I've read, seen and admired since I can remember. Not a bad way to finish off the last weekend before classes begin: a little inspiration from the Bard, and hopefully, a little luck to go along with it.
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