And I'm not telling yet from the very best, the old country Morris of which I'm such a part myself, which I'll tell.
Will Kempe, I'm saying no end or bottom to his talent, so much he had. As in your basic gleeks, merry jokes he could tell, even if mostly indecent, better than any in Joe Miller's book or your Hundred Merry Tales, whatever occasion—in the tavern's open room where the fire is, your Tom Tapster burning the sherry ready for quaffing, at your Lord Mayor's feast he tells a ribald gleek just before he jumps in the huge custard pie, even idle rallying some kurveh jade whore in some stews in Southwark—Will Kempe I'm saying was a tummler!
And I don't forget some smaller shifts he could do, with the hoop decorated with streamers, and also juggle some and also sing a good catch, and also sleight-of-hand he could do like a Lapland sorcerer!
And I ain't even said yet from asides—how he played on the lines he conned written by such a much as Master William. Asides, extemporaneous he could do, playing to the penny-price groundlings—which is now it's time to say a big part of why I'm telling this, how Master William Shakespeare with his land and also houses by Stratford and macher friends from Court—even if Southampton fell out with Queen Bess because of being in cahoots with Essex)—and his own scutcheon he made for himself when his papa was only a glover, it's time to say he threw my Will Kempe out from the Chamberlain's Players only because he was hitting too much the spleen's laughter mixed with tsoris griefs. Which is why I got my Will to sell his part from the Globe and go on our famous dare-journey. Because Master William was envious of my Will for the laughing and also tears from tsoris he did with ad libs and asides and funny takes like you never saw since or ever before then. Such a momzer, a bawdy wit was my Will Kempe!
Once I'm remembering now for an example, I said to him when it was the time he couldn't decide on the London to Norwich dare-journey was my idea for him and us, I said to him, “Will, bubee, listen to me. Will you not leave off swilling and chasing after laced mutton kurveh whores in Southwark, risking a pox, listen, I'm telling you we'll make us a rich fortune on this, Master William himself will be asking us back for more cross-marked coin that we seen before or since, nu?”
To which he says to me—and he's at this moment fap drunk on sherry with lime in it to make it sparkle, drinking from a leather cup they call a jack holds half a quart!--he says:
“Fol de rol and fiddle dee dee,
This guileful Jew, he galleth me!”
Which if I didn't know him from when would be a flouting insult to me, but I know, so it's a gleek, off from the top of his head when even he can't speak straight for the staggers from his quaffing sherry with lime in it from a leather jack—I'm showing from his spontaneous wit without a playscript or a jig he wrote to speak from!
Will Kempe I'm telling from—horst du? Who God rest his soul passed in '03, the same as when Queen Bess died and we got Scotch James to the throne, and Master William to be such a much somebody at Court while my Will Kempe was only because of me not buried at a crossroads for a suicide, which I know he wasn't.
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