Just before the country went into its first lockdown, Amanda and I went to Stratford in January 2020. It is interesting to reflect now on how Shakespeare himself was impacted by different kinds of lockdown during visitations of the Black Death. The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet was partly shaped by a messenger being unable to pass on a letter because of being forcibly quarantined. We enjoyed visiting all the Shakespeare-related sites and the tour of his schoolroom was particularly moving. If Shakespeare had ‘small Latin and less Greek’ then I have no Latin and less then no Greek. But conjugating the verb ‘amare’ was a fun thing to do with the quill and ink the tour supplied. This is a Shakespearean sonnet (a 14 line poem, ending with a rhyming couplet) based on that experience.
The Schoolroom, Stratford
for Amanda
This is the schoolroom where we would have sat
for hours to learn the tenses of ‘to be’,
and then been punished after all of that,
if person and the verb did not agree.
Outside, it’s 2020, but we choose
to practise quill and ink at wooden desks.
The room is quiet now. The others lose
all interest and go to see what’s next.
Downstairs, we hear another tour begin,
but we’re absorbed, playing the schoolchild’s part,
in writing out our names and conjugating
forms of a verb already learned by heart.
And even when expressed a different way,
they still ring true: te amo, amas me.
3 February 2020