Listen what I'm telling you!
From Will Kempe I'm telling, Will Kempe, the greatest comical theatrical talent, the greatest stage Fool from all times to now I'm telling!
William Kempe, however who was never so prideful of himself he ever insisted to be called William—always Will! Unlike a certain personage (God rest his soul since passed sudden in '16) whose name was William Shakespeare, who not only insisted once he got to be such a somebody with the mavens from theater and also the machers from Court and also got the gelt to buy himself land and also houses out by Stratford, he insisted not only you should call him William but also Master William Shakespeare on account of he was not your gentle English with even a coat of arms he had made up for him when his father was only a glover by Stratford.
Who once he got such a somebody called me not only Jew but also sirrah like I was a servant, and once also boy he called me, which is insult flouts. But I'm not telling from me or Master William, except as it's part, so I don't kvetch from flouts which I've had since young and still to now when I'm an alter kocker old man telling this.
From Will Kempe I'm telling. Not only he greatest comical talent of all times to now when I'm telling this, but also a mensch he was! And my friend from when I first knew him from back when, who never insulted me ever except when it was a gleek, joking to make us merry. From Will Kempe the most famous jig-dancer and also a mensch I'm telling because it needs I should because since, God rest his soul, he passed, and since so many years ago, nobody knows nor cares, such a shame. Needs telling is why I do!
Will Kempe. A talent! A dancer first and mostly, like you never saw before or ever since. I should know! Also an actor—in 1599, Dogberry in Master William's Much Ado, as great a performance in comical acting ever before or also since! Also a jig-maker, the best (better even!) since Dick Tarlton who danced once on command for Queen Bess herself, God rest his soul, he passed way back in '88, same year as the Armada sank in such a storm off the coast of Ireland, thanks God!. And also I knew him personal. Who, shame to say, in his bequest left his parti-colored motley to Bob Armin, not my Will, which was injustice.
Jig-maker Will Kempe was, created skits performed after the plays, they were so good the playgoers paid up—groundlings a penny, enough to buy a quart of good beer, the two-penny galleries, private room boxes, the machers and noble gallants making a show with seats right on the stage, all! They paid I'm saying as much if not more to see Will Kempe's jigs than Master William's plays they followed after performance of.
The comic jigs he made: classic shtik—the one of the broom-man, the kitchen-woman one, the one from the soldier and the miser, the one from Sym the Clown, the one from the rake and the milkmaid, the one from the fop carpet-knight who has to go to a war suddenly and he's afraid, the one from the merchant who got horns from his wife shtupping the apprentice boy! I'm talking take-offs from every type from the true-life English foibles, so funny the playgoers is struck in the spleen where they don't know if it's fits of laughter or grief they feel, laughing so their eyes run rheumy tears, they're giving hands in applause, crying out Aim! And you never heard the serpent's hiss from heckling at a jig my Will Kempe made and performed.
But first and mostly Will Kempe the dancer. Anything he could comic dance! I'm talking not only from the old days before he came to London with me, I'm who brought him out from the country counties where he danced on the morn of May for the Maypole, and also the Country Hay. He danced your basic gambols and measures, was excellent when the musicians played the trumpet tucket for “Hit It,” and of course also the antic French brawl and Bergomask both, and naturally the lively coranto and your hot canary he danced excellent. Your Galliard complete with back tricks and the fifth-step caper he danced funny, and such a flouting mock he made mincing the cinq pace and also your passy pavan they did at Court so solemn.
1