A/N: After watching Shakespeare in Love, I became very interested in Shakespeare…his life and his writing and all of that. I had read several plays by him before, but never really realized how beautiful they were until I had seen them acted out. I went to a book store and bought a book of sonnets, and when I arrived at Sonnet 36, I couldn't help but think how completely perfect it was in relation to SiL. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Shakespeare in Love, nor do I own Shakespeare's 36th sonnet.
A comedy.
The Queen wanted a comedy?
Will Shakespeare tore up his latest attempt at anything humorous and sat back in his chair, defeated. Impossible. How could he write anything with even a tinge of humor after the woman he loved and adored--
--his muse--
--was gone? How could he write anything without thinking of his beloved Viola De Lesseps? She was his essence, his Juliet, his Aphrodite. His reason for living.
He gazed down at the ink stained paper below him and winced. Though it wasn't terrible, it would never do. Kit Marlowe, God rest his soul, would've spat on the paper had he read it.
He banged his fist on the table and ran a hand through his short hair. Letting out an exasperated sigh, he let his mind wander back to his Viola. How she had to leave and how, no matter how many times he had said goodbye, it would never do. He would've given anything for her to stay with him forever, to hold her in his arms and to stroke her golden hair. No one, not even himself, had captured the emotions of his Romeo as Viola had on the stage of the Rose.
Crumpling up the paper in front of him yet again, he pulled out a fresh sheet and began to write.
'Forget The Queen', he thought bitterly. 'She can wait.'
He wasn't scribbling a comedy or a tragedy, but a sonnet. Tears fell from his hazel eyes and he dabbed them quickly before they smeared the ink.
As his thoughts came to close, he let the quill fall, ink splattering on the table and on his tired hands and wrists. Reading over what he had written, he held a beaten hand over his heart and clutched to his tunic. It was unlike any sonnet he had written before. It wasn't sugary sweet or glazed with lies of 'true love' or 'happy endings'. It was real…and for the heart-broken playwright, it was the most tragic thing he had ever produced.
36
Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.