From his carouses my Will Kempe, which the once I accompanied him I'll tell.
Such a shikker and also wencher my Will was, so bad we paid from our common purse I kept the fine, ten shillings to the players' company which all had to pay if a player was too fap drunk cup-shot to play his part, or if he was slow of study so didn't learn his words to speak in a play, also a fine to pay. When this happened I sat him in the tiring room from the theater so he'd get sober, I'd throw water on his face. I'd say to my Will, “Will, you got to not drink so much, you can't walk nor dance nor say your words from the play, ten shillings again the fine we got to pay today!”
To which, fap, he would always make a gleek against me, my Will, beslobbring himself where I sat him on a stool to throw water on his face to make him sober, “Tra la and fiddle-dee-dee, methinks this arrant Jew, he galleth me!”
I said to him, “You want I should buy you a amethyst amulet could possible charm away your drunkenness?” This English believed, a amethyst could make you sober if you held it close in your hand and rubbed it on your head, the same they believed a garnet could cure you from sorrows, which I knew from when I sold amulet charms and the Wonder Books to country bumpkins from before I even met my Will Kempe, which I'll maybe later tell.
To which he always only made a gleek, “Tra la and fiddle-dee-dee, this nagging Jew, he shrew-like scoldeth me!”
This he did lots, made himself fap drunk before three o'clock in the day when it was time was a play we had to do, which not only costs the ten shillings fine, it also made vexed everyone, W.S. and the others our partners in shares from The Globe, also the other company players and also everyone who came to see Will Kempe playacting and his comic jigs we did when the play was done and groundlings looked to be made merry. The shikker!
But this once I'm telling, from a carouse, he did probably drink some before three o'clock, but he wasn't cup-shot, he played his part. It was Dogberry he did, from Much Ado About Nothing, a play W.S. wrote which all the playgoers loved. My Will he played Dogberry so good, said his words and also did his usual asides and cavorted so, which always made W.S. enraged, but it was all merriment from everyone, the groundlings and gentles in boxes and also gallants who paid to sit close on the stage. They all gave hands when it was done playing, and called out for Will's jig, which he did after I helped undress him from his Dogberry costume and put on his motley for his jig, which he did with the music from Jack Dowland wrote, which years after and probably still now this music they call Kempe's Jig, even with my Will years gone starb. This was I think 1599, this once on a carouse I accompanied Will Kempe and some gallants treated us.
Because it was custom for fashionable gallants wanted to make a name, the ones paid to sit close on the stage by the playacting, to treat players they loved to a carouse if they loved the play, which they did this Much Ado About Nothing, so they invited my Will to a carouse they'd pay all they said.
In the tiring room, where players dressed in costumes and we stored costumes, clothes mostly we bought from servants stole and sold us their masters' clothes when the master starb, after the playing and Will's jig we was, where I helped my Will undress from his motley and dress in his own, and it was several gallants there to make merry and be gay, and they invited him to a carouse.
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