I'm
always working on something. My plan for this particular page is to put
excerpts of things I'm working on and leave room for feedback. Here's the
latest. The working title is See More Jane and it’s another epistolary with my co-writer, Wendy MacIntyre.
March
Dear Jane Seymour
Okay, I know
there’s no Jane Seymour in the play and we’re supposed to write letters to any
of the characters asking questions as if they are real people and telling about
ourselves too, but how can a play called Henry VIII not have you in it?
Huh? (Not to mention the other wives who aren’t mentioned either.) I mean,
there’s all kinds of poop with Katherine and Anne Bullen
(Shakespeare was a lousy speller – it’s supposed to be Boleyn) and their maids or whatever, but no Jane, and she was next in Henry’s
list of wives.
The only reason I
know the score here is because I did an essay on Henry VIII for history class—which
is what Shakespeare should have done too. Then he wouldn’t be missing all those
people in his story. It’d be like writing a history of hockey and saying that Canada only has
three teams. (Oh, wait, The CBC does that every week.) Anyway, it was a pretty crappy play and the sounds of yawning coming from the
audience wasn’t only me. No wonder they burnt down the theatre when it played
in back in London
four hundred years ago. The Globe, right? Must have been a dissatisfied
customer who torched the place and I can’t blame him. Although now that I think
of it, maybe burning down the theatre is a bit much just because you don’t like
the play. So even though it was long and boring, I
don’t think anyone in class is going to run over to the theatre and toss a
Molotov cocktail through the window. Not with the price of gas anyway. So you’re safe.
Jfjfjfjfjfjfjfjf
The real reason I’m writing this (and the whole class is here in the computer
lab right now writing these letters) is because I don’t have to worry about
getting an answer, like the guys who are writing the actor who played Henry (he
was kind of a dickwad and wasn’t fat enough) and
Wolsey, the Cardinal all decked out in his red dress (I can’t believe people
dressed that way—and that real cardinals today still do! Not the baseball team, but the guys who get to be pope), and the
girls who are writing to Anne Boleyn (I admit she was hot—as long as she didn’t
talk) and Katherine (who wasn’t great looking but at least the words came out
of her mouth sounding real) THEY might all get answers after our teacher Mrs.
Lehman collects these things and drops them off at the theatre where we went
yesterday—assuming nobody is going to burn it down.
So, yeah, I’m
sitting here typing this letter (we took keyboarding in grade nine) and even
when we run out of things to say, like now, we’re supposed to keep on writing or
keeping our fingers moving like this fjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfj
till we think of something else to say. It’s supposed to be free
wheeling or something
like that—free anyway, like who’s going to pay for it? It’s kind of fun in an empty-minded sort of way but I’ll be glad
when this class is over and I can go get some lunch because I made my own today
of leftover pizza which I like eating cold, and a box of chocolate milk to help
keep my teeth from rotting, although maybe the sugar in it’ll have the opposite
effect.
Oh yeah, and we’re
supposed to ask a question about inside the theatre, like how things work, not
that I give hooey (we’re not supposed to use certain words and hooey isn’t one
of them so insert your own expletive if hooey doesn’t do it for you like it
doesn’t do it for me). My question is this: How does an actor bring a character
to life? I think it happened once during the play for a minute or two. It was
when Wolsey was saying farewell to all his greatness that I forgot I was in a
theatre, but somewhere else, maybe out of time, in the presence of a really important man who suddenly became a nobody.
Jfjfjfjfjfjfjfjfjf f Okay, class is just about done and I can honestly say that I
hope never to hear from you again, not that I heard from you in the first place
and that if I was going to write a play about Henry VIII, you’d be in it
because if you say your name backwards, it’s Seymour Jane (See More Jane, get
it?) and you’re the only one of Henry’s wives who didn’t lose her head and is
actually buried with him, and not only did we not see more of you, we didn’t
see any. So flffjfjfjfjfldkd dkdkd done.
Sincerely Bored
Out of My Skull,
Richard Allen Corbet
***
Dear Youth of another
Time:
I am so deeply moved that someone in this vast whirling bowl
of space has remembered me. Dear Heart, I want to call you because you have
taken the pains to write to lonely Jane Seymour, who was once Queen of England.
Shall I tell you
how your letter reached me – the first I have had in so long – in centuries
perhaps of Earth Time? It was through the little notes you played upon your
keyboard (jfjfjfjf). These came to me in the shape of
flute music that entered my ear so prettily. As I listened, charmed and quieted
(for I am restless often now and anxious), Lo! Your letter appeared in my hands.
And
such immaculate black print upon the white page: I was able to read every word,
although much that you say I am ignorant of. Who is this Shakespeare that he has
the temerity to write a drama that puts my dear Henry upon a stage, like a
common player for all to gawk at?
Nor do I grasp the
meaning of “dickwad”. But it strikes me this word has a nasty, awkward flavour, as
if to denote a bumpkin or a booby. I can assure you, dear Youth, that King
Henry was none of these. He was in all things mighty, noble
and majestic. Why his power radiated from his very eyes. His stare could make the
strongest of men tremble, and I will not deny he had a temper that could erupt
in most furious rages.
Did I fear him,
you may wonder? I cannot answer that, Dear Heart, for
some things between husband and wife are sacred and on these matters
I must keep my own counsel. When I married Henry, King of England I chose for
my motto, “Bound to Obey and Serve.” This is the role I willingly took on, one in keeping with my
retiring nature and my awareness of my duty. My duty was of course to
bow to the King’s will in all things and to give him a
son.
It was often said at court that I could not have been more unlike
the woman who preceded me as Henry’s wife. You say the actress
who played the part of Anne Boleyn was “hot”. I wonder if by this you mean
hot-blooded or lascivious. Anne had a reputation for flirtatiousness, and knowledge
of the arts of love she was said to have learned in
the French court. She had a laugh that was often too loud, and she was black-eyed and comely and quick and light in her movements.
I was none of
these things, but subdued, decorous in my dress, and kinder, I believe, than
was Anne. I grieve for her fate. They say she showed great courage in those
moments before the master swordsman from Calais
severed her head from her neck.
I will admit to
you, Dear Heart, it is no easy thing to be the third wife of a man who divorced
his first wife, and had his second beheaded. I was often made
uneasy by the burden of always keeping close guard of my tongue lest I arouse
the King’s wrath, and meet the fate of Anne, or of the devout Catherine of
Aragon whom he divorced. I will admit there were many times I longed to be a
girl again, at home in my family seat of Wolf Hall, roaming nearby Savernake Forest, or best of all, on horseback.
How I loved to ride, together with my brothers, with the wind in my hair. Those
were my happiest days – my girlhood days, even though it hurt to hear myself
described as plain.
Henry did not think
me so. On our marriage he gave me an emerald pendant
dripping with pearls, over 100 manors, five castles, and a goodly number of
chases and forests. When our child quickened within me, I believe it is true he
was the happiest man on earth.
I know I was able
to give him a son, and I managed despite my weakness from the birthing, to see
him christened. His name was Edward. I died soon after his christening. I had
been long, long in labour, and afterwards a fever took me that sapped my
strength and brought me so low. I do not recall much of those last days when I
was often in a delirium and perhaps it is best so.
I am sorry, Dear
Heart, to tell you of these things which are so sad.
Your little flute-notes that made your letter manifest are a great comfort to
one who thought herself forgotten.
So much in your
epistle is dark matter to me. I wonder if sometimes you jest. You say I was the
only one of Henry’s wives not to be beheaded. I know
this must be wrong. You tell me I am buried with him,
and this I did not know. His spirit, you see, is another place than mine and I
have no traffic with him now.
So much in your
letter is dark to me, as I say. What is hockey and where or what is Canada? What is
a Molotov cocktail? A cock out of Muscovy
perhaps? There was a mighty mage of Muscovy
called me once and brought me from this place to speak with him. But I could not understand his tongue which seemed to me
rude and barbarous. It was most bitterly cold where he lived. He had me peer
into a glass and I saw there shapes I would rather
forget.
Yet he is the only
the person who has ever been powerful enough to draw me out of my confinement
here. The attendants in this place are much like courtiers in that it is
impossible to know whom to trust. They are will-o-the-wisp, sometimes demonic
and cruel; at other times helpful and sympathetic.
It may be that one
of them will aid me in getting this letter to you. If that happens, I have a
request, Dear Heart, and that is that you send me the scent of a horse hot from
the chase and the touch of the wind on my face as I ride.
Your obedient
servant,
Jane Seymour
This has copyright so please don't use without my permission.