“Choose first words from one of the plays we will be discussing, and write about them some of your own first words.”

         Two households, both alike in dignity

~ Romeo and Juliet

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour / Draws on apace

          ~ A Midsummer Night’s Dream

I learn in this letter

~ Much Ado About Nothing

MASTER Boatswain!
BOATSWAIN Here, master. What cheer?

~ The Tempest

“Don’t fret about whether you’ve read the rest of the play or not. Take the words “at their word,” so to speak. What do they mean to you? What do they make you think of? Do the words create pictures in your mind? Do the words appeal to your senses of smell and touch and taste as well as to sight and sound? If so, which senses are activated in you by these words? Where do they send your imagination? What kind of excitement, trepidation, or confusion do they unfurl in you?”

First words… First words hold unbelievable importance, whether they are the first words of a first chapter, in which you make a snap, almost subconscious, decision to read that book or place it back on the shelf, or whether they are the first words a young child speaks. Such emphasis! So much to live up to. How does the blank page ever become filled when we cannot decide on the perfect first words? Yet, Shakespeare not only conquers this fear – he is renowned for his selection of words, his mastery of language, his ability to manipulate, postulate, confuse, excite… the list goes on and on.

So, for my first words about Shakespeare’s first words, I choose “I learn in this letter”. I confess, I have not yet read Much Ado About Nothing so I have no frame of reference for this quote. Perhaps that is a good thing. I was drawn to this quote because of the word, “letter”. I immediately pictured in my mind’s eye a piece of old parchment with a flowing script that was scratched onto it by a quill dipped in an inkwell. As a writer, how could I not be drawn to these words? The imagery of days past, when we wrote in beautiful calligraphy on golden parchment to communicate great ideas or to simply invite a relative for a stay at our humble abode. Now people write by way of technological resources, which certainly have their place in society, but they are cold, uncaring. The clickety-click of typing on a keyboard is so far removed from writing furiously with pen and paper until your hand begins to cramp because you can’t get your ideas out fast enough. There is magic in paper. Perhaps because, in some small way, we are still connected to nature. After all, that paper once came from a tree. It had a life, even after death, as pulp (I learned to make paper from a craft kit as a child, and I still hold that experience dear), and eventually it came to us, crisp and blank. The blank page can be scary, but it also represents freedom. Anything is possible in that moment. Paper is also fragile. If left out in the sun, the paper yellows. The sign of a good book is a wrinkled, worn spine. Imagine how miraculous it is that any books have survived over centuries of war, strife, fires, rain, or other ruinous events. Some works are simply lost to the ages. Have you ever smelled an old book? Walked the stacks of an enormous library until you became lost among the books? I have. Those experiences are endangered. I don’t need to know right now what is in that letter of Shakespeare’s. I appreciate its existence.