A letter to Herb, semi-Shakespearean

Cafe Society
1

My friend Herb is an old-school letter-writing guy, and when he heard that the wife and I were going to the Ashland Shakespearean Festival this summer, we received an appropriate newspaper clipping in the mail a bit later. While driving in to work this morning, I got to thinking, and when I got to work, I banged this out as a reply:

(A couple are seen at their dinner table.)

SIR S, a minor noble of Issaquah:
Dearest, had you noticed
that buried ‘neath
the clutter at
your end of the desk
lies a message from
our good friend Herb?

LADY L, his wife:
I had not; and in passing
I should mention that
my clutter ‘mounts to naught
compared to thine.

S: Tis not clutter, but
a system carefully
designed and carefully
refined, but stay! Ope’
the letter and read it to me;
The postman always brings
bemusement when
Sir Herb takes pen in hand.
A certain whimsy
hath he, not the norm
for one residing in
the realm of engineers.

L: He sends a quiz torn
from the Times, purporting
to test our knowledge
of the Bard; pray tell, who
was “of infinite jest and fancy”?

S: Shemp, perhaps, or Moe;
my youthful education,
fine though it was,
perhaps had scanted somewhat
the minor poets of
our good Queen’s youth.

But this foolish
ignorance can be rectified;
off, then, to the Library, and
those excellent Notes
compiled by Cliff!
(exit, pursued by a BEAR)

2

Act I, Scene II

SIR S, enters, panting:
But, soft, I nearly
failed to snatch my feet
from the slavering jaws of
such a vicious beast.
Porter, fetch me some mead
to calm my hands
so they wouldst not tremble
overmuch.

LADY L:
I had not realized,
dear husband, that thy legs
could hie thee in such manner.
Methinks thou able to grasp
the heel of Mercury and to pluck
the feathers from his cap
or to steal from him
his vip’rous caduceus.

S:
From whence did the she-bear
arrive within these walls?
Was she conveyed here by gypsies,
or p’rhaps even tramps and thieves
or was she conjured from the ether
by the wickedness of a crone
within her coven?

L:
Nay, m’lord, the bear
was but a gift from
Sir Osis, a token of
his affection and affinity
for thy liver.
Or 'twas the mad effects
of thine own love for
laudanum and other
quaffs which thou has sought
from yon apothecary;
the self-same potions which tie
thy bowels into
the Gordian knot,
able to withstand even Alexander.

S:
Nay, to be our knot –
To be –
What was the question, m’lady?
Art thou saying, then,
that I strutted my hour upon the stage,
chased by my imaginations which,
to mine ears,
were full of sound,
and furry?

3

:smiley:

4

By the way, Rocketeer, I believe the name you were looking for was “Yorick”.