Shakespeare
... The Complete Works of William
Hi, Peter, I hear you’ve been doing the letterbox circuit again.
It’s only a little stroll, in the fresh air. But I’ve been sitting, watching the TV coverage of events in Christchurch. There’s real trouble down there, a real disaster, after the earthquake. Some things you just have to cope with as it comes. You’ve got to be able to adapt to what the demands are. Most of the Leylands can adapt. We can do that.
So, how are you settling in?
Quite well. Family and friends are a great help. It’s a big asset, a big blessing to have help at a time like this. I’ve got a good bedroom, and I’m sleeping well.
I’m glad you’re sleeping well. Sleep is so important.
‘To sleep, to sleep, that knits up the ragged sleeve of care.’
What did you say?
‘To sleep, to sleep, that knits up the ragged sleeve of care.’
Is that a quotation from somewhere?
Shakespeare.
Did you learn that at school?
I dare say I may have picked up some quotations at school. Some teachers believed in that kind of thing. They tried to bring those old sayings and old knowledge out into the open. But for me, Shakespeare was just something that happened.
My father, when he left school, had a book presented to him. He was dux of the school, and the prize he got was a book, ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare’, and it was always around the house. I tried to read it. I tried as if it was ordinary literature. I’d never seen a book of plays before that, and I made the mistake of trying to read them like regular literature, which is hard going. I was looking through the wrong end of the telescope, you might say. When you read a play, the best way is to have different people read the different parts, but there was just me, trying to make sense of it.
‘In his time a man plays many parts.’ And it’s true, if you try to read a play by yourself, without watching it, you have to play those many parts yourself! In my young days it was good to ‘put on a play’. Different characters, costumes, props. But the verbal bit was most important. Then, of course, there are the directions –– entering and exiting and all that.
So, when I was young, I had my dad with his prize from school. It was a tremendous size. A huge book! ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare!’
It made me realise that ‘all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’ That’s one of the things I found out.
Fortunately my father was interested in literature, the better class of literature. Without trying, he made me realise you could get a lot of pleasure out of it.
My father had brains, but he was very competitive. If he played a game, he played to win. You could like it or lump it.
Did he play chess in those days? I played him in the 1970s and never beat him.
He played back in the old days, but I never did. I kept turning it down. He tried to get us three boys interested. He tried to teach us, but we were disinterested. Perhaps we were too dumb. It didn’t appeal at all. You see, Dad had a different mindset to us boys. He was really stubborn and had a different approach. Perhaps he wasn’t much of a teacher. He was dogged and dogmatic. His contention was ‘if you can’t work it out, then why should I bother.’ He was impatient, and couldn’t be bothered explaining things.
But, as Shakespeare said, ‘In his time, a man plays many parts.’
What happened to ‘The Complete Works … ‘
… of William Shakespeare. Well, I don’t know, but Dad’s second family had a tough time in the 30s — sometimes they were living in other people’s houses — all that sort of stuff was likely lost. It was a BIG book.