“An' I'm your man for a bout of drink and a mouthful of meats!” said my Will. “And I'll love the man pays my reckoning as well as I love any, yet do I wake come morn suffering a blue eye ache o'er all my bones, why then I'll as like curse the patron knave paid the tapster for a devil if not a cruel Turk for all my hurts!” Which was a gleek the gallants laughed from, and they drank some from a wineskin and was eating some oranges the Orange Moll sold.
I said, “Will, don't go. You got to play again tomorrow, I don't want I should have to come bring you home blue-eyed from a stew!”
To which he said, “Why, Pinky pearl, an' if you fear I'll fail the day, then come ye with this night and you may watch me like a hen her chicks to see no fox snares them, thus insure no evil befalls William Kempe.”
“No,” I said.
He said, “Thou'rt too dour, Pinky sweet! What you lack in your sour nature we'll find beyond the Southwark end of London Bridge I warrant, and myself I vow I'll not tread a board nor dance nary a step on the morrow save you come with like a good fellow and share this good company's cheer, and there's my oath on it!” And “What say you all?” he said to these several gallants was in the tiring room with us after the play and jig, and they all said a hear! hear! and clapped me on my back and called me gentle Jew and sweet Jew and good Jew, I should accompany on this carous, and if I wouldn't it was my fault and dishonor if Will Kempe didn't play the next day, and they'd cry me up in the city for the whoreson Jew caused Will Kempe to stay off the stage a day so there wasn't merriment for playgoers. Which I think they would have if I didn't accompany, or maybe it was just they was already half-fap and said anything like shikkers do.
But Will said, “And forget you the ten shillings you'd then needs must gift our Master Shakepen, as sure as I were too deep in my cup to speak his lines?” Which I think he truly would, not play the next day if I didn't accompany, and I didn't want to pay ten shillings again the fine to W.S.
So this is how this once, in 1599 I think, I went with my Will Kempe on a carouse with some several gallants to Southwark across the bridge of the Thames, which is the only time I did, but which my Will did so much, the shikker and also wencher after kurveh whores!
These gallants what treated the cost of this carouse I went with once, so at least I didn't have to pay nothing from our common purse I kept, there was three or maybe four, I can't remember exact from then. What I remember is all was Essex men, which Earl Essex the most favorite of Queen Bess, he was in Ireland then, making a campaign against Irish was like always rebelling, but these gallants didn't go with to make this war because they was what English call carpet knights who Essex made knights from lots of his men after he won the big battle from Cadiz in Spain in 1596. What I didn't know then was Essex was probably already getting men to himself for his rebellion against Queen Bess, which he did in '01, for which he got his kopf chopped off also.
So these carpet knight gallants, they attired themselves in fashion to make a big show at Court and in theaters and inns and bawdy tippling houses where they did gaming and wenching and drinking. They all dyed their hairs and barts red, the same color Queen Bess did her hairs even when she was alt and hard-favored without much teeths left in her jaws, she didn't look in a mirror Court people said because she was so vain from her punim and also her fair bosoms since she was first so long before a young queen.
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