Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1916-08-26
When Shakespeare
Was a Boy
T.ouise Manning Hodgkins)

| for an hour. Following the StratforC
| church register, the town RECORDS, III.
London traditions, and the wording o'
| his will, his life story might Do com
pressed into a single paragraph; We,
every large library on either side o,
The sea such has been his crescent
fame. could show long shelf OF Docks
merely about Shakespeare. Like hls
| own Mark Antony he was "a chlld o.
the time and wrote his own life botr
in and between the lines Of his thirty
= seven plays more than hundreu aii'
fifty sonnets, and few other poems
If one wonders what the boy could
have been who made this man, MS PIC
lures of youth and countless illusions
to the sports Of his day are falr an
swer to the question. The lads or mis-
time played games and played truant
So doubtless did the boy William. me
Elizabethian folk liked noisy pleasures
and rough pastimes: and their tradi'
ton. usually more refined, has so come
down to us that one might llberaliy
| paraphrase Milton and say, AS l1er XII
| good boy as good game.
Who has not played hide and seek ?,
So did Shakespeare, but he calls II
hoop and hide" Hamlet reproaches his
mother for preferring his uncle to her
nobler husband, and tells her she plays
"hoodman blind game we all kno"
under the name Of "blind- mans bun.
Handy dandy" may not sound quite
familiar to us. but Button, button
who's got the button?" Is only It's mod
ern name "Loggats" Is more than once
mentioned in the plays and Is unques-
tionably but another form OF our ring
toss'' though played with sticks. Hamlet
in the grave digger's scene says "Dld
these bones cost no more the breeding
but to play at loggats with em?" Pris-
oners' base, baseball and football were
all old games in Shakespeare's day.
Dromio tells Adriana in COMEDY or
Errors if he is to be used like foot
ball" she must case him In leather
while Kent in king Lear" calls Os-
valid a "base football player That
there was undue roughness in the sport
is evident from the fact that James l.
forbade football, declaring it was
"meeter for tanning than for making
able,' and he wished his people to be
liable and durable"
Morris is a we'll known game to us as
parlor table amusement, but Shakes
peare must have played it on the
greensward, the table cut out in the
turf. When Titania and Oberon in "A
Midsummer Nights Dream had their
falling out and things went wrong In
IIldHy ways, OIle VI LILO Il OIL y
Queen is that:
1.-THE nine mems morris is f1ll'd up with
And the quaint mazes in the wanton
For lack of tread are undistinguish-
able.''
The "nimble morris prancing" is yet
popular game in rural England.
Falconry in our day of finished fire.
arms has gone entirely out, and were
it attempted the Society for the Pre-
vention of Cruelty to Animals would
soon have the boy in hand who, like
human shrike. trained big birds to de-
stroy little ones. Even at that time guns
of clumsy make we're in use for more
than century. and Falstaff says OF
his cowardly "food-for- powder" recruits
that they are worse than a struck fowl
or hurt wild duck at the sound of the
guns report.
Wrestling is for all time, but in
Elizabethan days it had boxing quail
ity so pugilistic that LIE Beau in LAS
You Like It" tells Rosalind and Celia
that they lost much sport in missing a
wrestling match. Touchstone observes
in his ironic fashion 1T is the first time
that ever I heard breaking of ribs was
good sport for ladies': but archery was
fine sport for them, and it's refinement
and skill is often revived. So anxious
was the Court to have expert archers
that man Of twenty-four was not per-
mitted to shoot at less than two hun
dred and twenty yards, while an expert
would take twice the. number
Bear-baiting was the circus of Eliza
bethan days and court: clergy and
people flocked to the Bear Gardens.
Complaint was entered against the par
sons for hurrying through the service
not to be late at the amusement and
pawned or even sold to provide funds
for the cruel pastime. 1t is to be re-
membered that few individuals owned
Bibles in the sixteen century and ear
lier. When Luther was a grown man he
had his first sight Of a Bible. When
Elizabeth would entertain her royal
sister Mary at Kenilworth she pro-
vided more than dozen bears for the
ring and as the theater threatened to
supersede the bear-baiting she protest.
ed and declared the dates set must not
conflict The serious Commonwealth
gave this sport and the playhouse short
shrift. but both reopened with the
Merry Monarch. to be stopped only by
an act of Parliament early in the nine =
teenth century.
Shakespeare often mentions the sport
of fishing, as
"The pleasant'st angling is to see the
fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver
stream
And greedily devour the treacherous
bait;
but fishing belongs to all times and
peoples.
Shakespeare must have been fond of
dogs, for he let them run in and out his
plays and feel perfectly at home in
| them. There is Silver in THE Tanning
of the Shrew" of whom his master says,
"I would not lose the dog for twenty
pounds" and Shallow in Merry Wives
remarks Of Pages dog, Hes a good
dog and fair dog: can there more be
said?" But Launces dog Crab, who
leaves much to be desired in manners,
and was "the sourest- natured dog that
lives" "a stone, a very pebble stone
for heart who would not shed tear at
leaving home. is the wise dog Of
Shakespeare's dogs, by the wagging of
whose tail opinions were to be formed
Shakespeare loved a good horse and
has given many word picture Of a
noble steed; but here is his thorough
bred Of Elizabeth's time so excellent
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