A short extract from a place not a million miles away from where I'm recording - Bury St Edmunds. It was found on the back of a scrap of paper with details of Rickinghall in Suffolk, at one time owned by the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds - hence it's name.
There are two extracts, dating from the early fourteenth century, in theory of the same speech by a King, one in Latin and Anglo-Norman and the other in English. The two speeches are similar in content, but not direct translations of each other. The Anglo-Norman version is slightly longer than the English, and gives more context and stage direction. The King is a tyrant, a Herod figure or something similar, who is speaking to this court and there is a direction for a messenger, who doesn't speak.
I've recorded just the English version, for obvious reasons, using this slightly modernised version of the text below. I've tried not to change too much, leaving words that have no easy modern equivalent as writ. I hope this makes the speech more understandable, without losing too much of the original.
Lordings
Withouten lessing
[falsehood]
Ye witten well that I am
King
Here of all this land.
Therefore I will that mine
baronage
Ye that been of great parage
[parentage – high birth]
That he come in to mine
will;
For all that arn in burw
[burgh] or town
I will he witten my resoun [understands
my account]
And that is right and schil.
[reasonable]
For this recording the King was played by Malcolm Hollister, with thanks.
From the earliest drama in English, to the closing of the theatres in 1642, there was a hell of a lot of drama produced - and a lot of it wasn't by Shakespeare. Apart from a few noble exceptions these plays are often passed over, ignored or simply unknown. This is a blog about what exists beyond Shakespeare, about the plays, fragmentary and extant, that shaped the theatrical world that shaped our dramatic history.
