So, for some reason, Captain Goblinbeard is in a play. And it’s funny because he usually talks like a pirate, but now he’s talking like a… Shakespeare.
© J.B. Norman — Published by Emona Literary Services™
“Ahoy, Miss Hawkins,” Captain Goblinbeard declares, carrying two stacks of bound papers. “I be havin’ a role in a play put on by the Royal Porthavenian Community Theatre Society.”
Billie blinks at the captain.
“Why is it called Royal? Porthaven is a merchant republic,” she notes. “And Porthavenian isn’t even a word!”
Captain Goblinbeard shrugs. “They be wantin’ to sound more dignified and impressive, I’m thinkin’.”
He holds up one of the stacks of paper and Billie can now see that it’s a copy of the script.
“I be needin’ someone to run me lines with,” he says. “I was hopin’ ye’d be willin’ as to help me.”
“Um, okay?” Billie answers.
“Excellent, Miss Hawkins. I’ll be owin’ ye for this,” he says.
He cracks open his script.
“We’ll be startin’ with Scene 1,” he says. “O’ the Prologue. O’ Act III. The play itself bein’ a separate interquel occurin’ contemporaneously to the second play in in the primary series o’ four.”
Billie blinks in silent confusion.
“Just read the lines, Miss Hawkins,” he says. “That’ll be help enough for me.”
Billie nods and opens her copy of the script.
“Now, I be playin’ Hamfast o’ Letlsburgh, the doomed Duke o’ the city o’ that name, as what be doomed to be, well, doomed on account o’ Duke Hamfast’s hubristical ambitions and general not-niceness, as what ultimately comes back to him as fate and numerous literal conspirators conspirin’ alike against him.”
Billie face lights up with recognition.
“Oh, is he the guy who talks to the skull?”
“Yes, Miss Hawkins. That be he. But that scene’s not in this play,” Captain Goblinbeard says. “But now, step lively, Miss Hawkins, and let us begin.’
Billie clears her throat and glances down at her copy of the script.
“Ahem: A room in Letlsburgh Fort. Thunder & Lightning. Enter Duke Hamfast,” she begins.
“Those be the stage directions, Miss Hawkins,” he tells her. “Ye’ll not be needin’ to read those. Now, as were sayin’. I’m Duke Hamfast. Ye’ll be… well, ye’ll be everyone else.”
He glances down at the script.
“And, of course, I be havin’ the first word in this scene.”
He clears his throat and adopts a tone of voice Billie has never expected coming out of her captain. She’s so used to hearing him talking like every pirate ever, that, frankly anything else is bewildering. But this is so unlike anything else she’s ever heard.
“Oh, aye,” he recites in a deep, velvety voice, “alas and alack! Many are the fallen and dark is hour at day’s ending. Alas, grim was the day and copious the smiting didst I visit upon the burghers of yon country. Be a villain, or merely a man of ambition?”
He hangs his head dramatically. And for a long moment, Billie just stares in silent awe. This is, perhaps, the greatest thing Billie Hawkins has ever witnessed.
Captain Goblinbeard coughs unsubtly. “It be yer line, Miss Hawkins.”
“Oh, sorry, Captain,” Billie mutters, flinching as she’s brought back to reality.
She glances down at her script.
“Enter, a Messenger.”
Now, I’m pretty sure I didn’t write that in proper iambic pentameter, but I’ve never been able to make sense of how metre is supposed to work…
If anything, ‘Many are the fallen and dark is hour at day’s ending.’ sounds more like Anglo-Saxon poetry than Shakespeare.
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