Stratford-upon-Avon, a must-visit spot for Shakespeare aficionados who thrill to the countryside that spawned his work, also throws light on the Elizabethan origins of many words and phrases in the English language, discovers Alpana Chowdhury

Volumes have been written on the revered bard of Elizabethan times. With each new generation, fresh attempts are made to de-mystify the man and his works. But few enthusiasts of William Shakespeare know that he was just 18 when he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior. Or that she was already three months pregnant with their first child when they took their marriage vows.

This and other such nuggets are gleaned only when you visit that most celebrated of tourist spots — Stratford-upon-Avon — where William was born and spent the first 23 years of his life. Much of his poetic genius can be traced back to his birthplace for it was here that he was first exposed to the wonders of nature and to simple folk from everyday life. The former provided him with much of the rich metaphorical language that seemed to spill out of his nib so effortlessly; and the latter helped him to people his plays with loveable, plausible characters.

Peppy tours conducted through carefully preserved houses of the time give you an intimate glimpse into Shakespeare’s early years. To begin with, the humble house on Henley Street where the poet and his seven siblings were born: it includes a glovemaker’s workshop, as William’s father, John, was an ordinary glovemaker. It is interesting to discover that both, John and William, married women far richer than themselves and both, father and son, seemed to be sharp, upwardly-mobile careerists. Not surprisingly, ‘vaulting ambition’ is a recurring theme in the playwright’s repertoire!

Craftsmen and traders also feature often in his plays. Stratford was an important trading centre — some of the streets like Sheep Street and Wood Street still bear witness to the trades that were practised here. Students of A Winter’s Tale might recall the sheep-shearing festival that the playwright recreated in lively detail in this play. William, himself, got a first-hand knowledge of a trader’s life when he gave up his studies midway to help his father through a bleak financial period.

From his simple house to his wife’s maternal home was a leap in lifestyle. Anne Hathaway’s thatched cottage, perhaps better known than William’s father’s house, is a storehouse of information. It was here that William courted Anne in 1582 and the cottage has, among other things, the straight-backed, hard bench on which he wooed his bride-to-be. Who knows, the passion and young love of his romantic plays might have had their genesis on this most unromantic bit of furniture!

Apart from giving a glimpse into landed gentry’s comfortable home, the beautiful timber-framed house, with creeper roses adorning its front, is a veritable fount of words and phrases. Hot bacon, for instance (you are informed when being shown the multi-faceted fireplace) was served only to very important guests. The rest were given the cold shoulder of the animal. Thus, to be ‘cold-shouldered’ came to mean being ignored because you weren’t regarded too highly by your host.

Then, an over 400-year-old, four-poster, roped bed (a grander version of our khatiyas) tells you how the practice of wishing one another ‘Sleep tight. Don’t let the bugs bite’ evolved. Since a regular tightening of the ropes was required for a comfortable sleep, it became common to wish one another in this manner. Also, the canopy on top of the bed (called a tester) prevented bugs from the thatched roof from falling into a snoring mouth!

And what did it mean to put ladies on a pedestal? Literally that. Sanitation in those days left much to be desired with night soil being tipped out onto the streets. To avoid their gowns from trailing in this muck, the women slipped their daintily-clad feet into metal pedestals that raised them a few inches off the ground. Samples of this footwear in the Hathaway cottage stand testimony to not just a quaint and practical solution to a mucky problem but also recall a time when women were treated more chivalrously. The charming cottage is replete with such objects that explain the source of many a commonplace saying and it is easy to spend several stimulating hours here. Parts of its original structure dates back to the 1460s. When the Hathaways moved in, in 1543, they expanded the house from a two-room one to a 12-room habitat and their descendants continued to live here till the 19th century.

From the Hathaway cottage to William’s mother’s house is a picturesque drive through verdant landscape. His mother, Mary Arden, lived in the countryside of the forest of Arden before her marriage to John and a visit to her large farmhouse tells you where the poet drew some of his powerful imagery from… strong oaks, falcons, hawks, owls, cows, horses…. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust that owns this house and several others has tried to preserve as accurately as possible the character of Arden as it was during Shakespeare’s time and thereafter. (It was a working farmhouse till the 1960s.) The Duke’s observation in As You Like It, when he is exiled to the Forest of Arden, rings in your ears as you walk around its sprawling grounds. And this our life exempt from public haunt/Finds tongues in trees, books in brooks/Sermons in stones and good in everything/I would not change it.

The murky politics of London may have made the bard look back with nostalgia on the idyllic holidays of his childhood at his grandparents’ home. Are not these woods/More free from peril/Than the envious court? he asks elsewhere.

Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s contemporary and friend, once joked that ‘Shakespeare had small Latin and less Greek’. Since then, much research has been done on the veracity of his authorship because some scholars have felt that Shakespeare was not educated enough to write the kind of plays he has been credited with. But, a visit to the grammar school where the seven-year-old William started learning both, Greek and Latin, puts all such doubts to rest. Guides tell you of the hard regime they were put through. Beginning at six in the morning in summer and seven in winter, the school curriculum was an eleven-hour ordeal, daily. An ordeal that Shakespeare recalled so graphically in As You Like It: …the whining schoolboy with his satchel/And shining morning face, creeping like snail/ Unwillingly to school.

Escape from Greek, Latin and the schoolmaster’s cane came in the form of visiting theatre groups. During a period of prosperity, William’s father rose to the position of High Bailiff of Stratford and one of his civic duties was to license visiting players. Thus, he and his family got privileged front-row seats to performances at the Guildhall. William’s appetite for the performing arts was, therefore, whetted early. What must have sealed his choice of a career was Queen Elizabeth’s visit to the Earl of Leicester’s castle when stunning performances were staged over three weeks. For, by the time he was 23, William could no longer resist the lure of the Elizabethan court. Leaving behind his wife and children, he ventured forth to start a lucrative career as a poet and playwright in London.

Contrary to one popular notion, he did not desert Anne. (Having a mistress in those days, points out one of the English guides, was an accepted practice.) Records in Stratford show that he visited his family regularly and even invested 60 pounds in property — New Place, considered the finest house of its time. Unfortunately, the house doesn’t exist today as it was demolished in the 18th century by a harassed owner — a clergyman who got tired of gaping tourists descending on him in hordes.

Shakespeare continued to be prolific even in the time of James I, but in 1611 he left London and returned to Stratford for good. His daughter Susanna, married to Dr Hall, had by now presented him with a granddaughter while his second daughter Judith, had married a wine-shop owner. Sadly, his son Hamnet did not live beyond his eleventh year.

A retired life in Stratford seemed to suit the now quite rotund, balding celebrity. But a visit by Ben Jonson in 1616 had dire consequences. A night of merrymaking, when the two ‘drank too hard’ to bring in Shakespeare’s 52nd birthday, led to a high fever from which he failed to recover. He was buried on his birthday at the Holy Trinity Church where he had also been baptised. Seven years later, Anne was laid to rest next to him.

No visit to Stratford can be complete without catching a play at either The Royal Shakespeare Theatre or The Swan. To hear the iambic pentameter as it was meant to be heard (not recited by rote in classrooms) and watch the shrew being tamed as she must have been in Shakespeare’s time (feminists might have reservations about the play) is a pleasure that one can experience only in the ambience of Stratford or at the Globe in London.