I held him minutes there in Nat Weaver's shed in the poor village Aldensmill, and weeped tears from my eyes, from rachmones pity, and I tried to think from the Kaddish prayer I got teached in cheder in my shtetel in the land from Poles and Moscovies where I come from years gone, to pray for his neshoma soul I tried, but all I could do was hold him, starb, close to me in my arms and weep tears.
And this is how starb Will Kempe the greatest comic vitz and jig-dancer and comic playactor in all from Queen Bess's realm, in midsummer from 1601 it was, like I told. And then I did to bury my Will. And felt such tsoris griefs because even rats and cur dogs and even fleas was alive but my Will Kempe wasn't no more.
And then I went to the village church to see from a burial, while Nat Weaver he watched over my Will in his shed, his chin tied with a cerement cloth and pennies on his eyes, to get my Will a grave in hallowed ground I went. Which I had to pay monies, an offering from my purse it was now my Will was starb. This church parson, he said to me, “Ye be the Jew young Walter speaks of came to your master a-dying here, from London says young Walter.”
To which I said, “It's true I'm a Jew, but Will Kempe wasn't not my master, and I ain't his man, he was my freund, like blood brothers born we was, and he was the most famous and great Fool ever in England, and I was his impresario, and I need a grave in hallowed ground to bury him by your church.”
“And did he your friend they say's a great mummer and minstrel die in his Christian faith truly?” he asked me, his name was Richard Sykes, this village parson.
Which I said Will Kempe was, a good Christian, which he wasn't, so lied and didn't care I did. So he asked a offering, for which I got a hallowed grave, and also this paid a gravedigger who was also the sexton, he said his name was Hal, he also rang the church bell, which English do when a person starb and gets buried from a church.
So this Hal digged a grave in the little churchyard and we put my Will Kempe, his eyes stayed closed now, which the gravedigger and sexton Hal took the pennies from my Will's eyes for a tip, and with his shovel put back dirt in the grave on top my Will. And I stood by his grave, where the parson prayed something and I tried to remember from the prayer Kaddish, but couldn't.
Which is how I buried my Will Kempe, and also got with my offering from our purse this parson Richard Sykes to write his name in a register. This parson Richard Sykes I think was not fine lettered or much schooled because I seen him write in the register William Kempe England's Most Renowned Fool, which I told him what to write, and a date for his starb, but I couldn't give no date for his birthing because I didn't know, which my Will also didn't. The parson he wrote this slow with his quill, so poor a hand I almost couldn't read.
“I think thee a noble brave friend e'en if a Jew to bury so your friend this mummer,” Richard Sykes said to me.
Which I said, “He was a mensch, Will Kempe, the same as me.”
And then I went to Nat Weaver's hovel daub and wattle poor-thatched cottage and paid from my purse his reckoning for all, and took back from his pawn my Will's motley, and from my hired gelding's fodder and stable I paid also the reckoning, and I went on my horse back to London.
The lout swain Walter said to me, “An' will you pay me yet another sixpence to see you to London, Master Jew?”
I answered him, “Not. My way I know now from when you did.”
And he said to me when I rode away on my hired horse with my Will's motley packed in a bag I tied on the saddle, “Then Godspeed you e'en you're a Jew can curse a Christian man with spells.”
And Nat Weaver with my monies I paid all his reckonings in his hands said, “An' if I'm asked, Master Jew, I'll warrant you an upright honest Jew, for you did pay your reckoning all,” and he also said me a Godspeed, to which I said to them both they was true gonifs goys, thieving Christians, and when they asked me what I said I said gonif was how a Jew says someone Godspeed, which was a mean gleek like my Will could have said himself. And I rode my hired horse away to London.
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