Scholars have long speculated that William Shakespeare may have spent his ‘lost years’ working in a lawyer’s office. A manuscript discovered in Chancery Lane offers a clue.
We present: The Merry Twelfth Merchant’s Tempest (Part 1)
The Characters
Lady Chancellor, Cardenio an attorney, Will his clerk, Lords and Lady investors, Mistress Burgundie an innkeeper. Warden of the Tower, Messengers &C
Act I
Lady Chancellor:
Now, bold Cardenio, you have your chamber
With profit in fair Stratford established;
Oft of your eloquence in Bawdy Court
I have heard acclaim. Yet rich ambition
Tempts you more. By power of my office
I command you – set forth your enterprise.
Is your alternate business just and sound?
Or but foul champerty, thus doomed to fail?
Cardenio:
My Lady, we are here to change the game
With modest outlay fair and wise fairly secured
Grave cases of injustice we can mend.
All legal, if the law will it allow.
Lady Chancellor:
Access to justice is a worthy aim
Thus your enterprise can be approv’ed
Under watchful eyes. Arras and Elbow
My faithful stewards of regulation
Will ensure boxes are all completed.
Go forth yet ensure your client account
Rests undepleted.
(Exeunt)
Cardenio:
’Tis time to float, Will: let the funders in.
(Flourish. Enter Grantham, Retford, Peterborough, Doncaster and York and their trains.)
Cardenio:
Lords and ladies all, you are welcome here
To join in writing a most grievous wrong
Suffered by so many. Will, our offering
To end the great injustice of our age.
Will (reads from handbill):
Hast thou in parlous shipwrack not your fault
Most cruelly from thy womb-shared twin been torn?
Master Cardenio, attorney at law,
Will secure redress and reunion
And compensat’ry ducats shall be yours
With no risk, no fee; should our suit be lost
Our practice itself shall bear all cost.
Cardenio:
My lords, the chancellor herself has smiled
On this my plan. Your ducats in this bucket please.
All: Truly ’tis a Game Changer.
Exeunt Cardenio and the funders
Will:
Something is rotten in this state of law
Methinks I am a prophet new inspired
Therefore since law itself is perfect wrong
I must the whistle blow
To Arras and Elbow I will go.
Act II. A tavern. Enter Will
Mistress Burgundie: O monstrous! Here is one more rude nave to take one half pennyworth of bread with his intolerable deal of sack.
Will: Nay Mistress, I come on the King’s business, to seek some stain of regulator.
Burgundie: Do not fart before the fireworks, as the man from Oporto sayeth. Is it Arras or Elbow you seek?
Will: I care not; in truth I cannot tell my Arras from my Elbow.
Burgundie: In that you are not alone. But no regulator is here to be found; only their reckoning, which, they say, the legal profession is sure bound to pay.
Enter the Warden of the Tower
Warden: Mistress I come to tell you that by unknown command, Arras and Elbow both are dead.
Will: This is villainy for sure. Warden, make not a scarecrow of the law: I charge Cardenio with murder theft and more.
Warden: For such foul slanders you will answer. (Manacles Will)
Act III. The Tower. Enter the Lady Chancellor, the warden, Will in chains
Warden: My Lady, this youth’s serpent tongue
Hath good Cardenio cruelly defamed.
Lady Chancellor: We have strict statutes and most biting laws
By them a slanderer must whipped and hang’ed be.
Will: Both whipped and hanged? A SLAPP!
A palpable SLAPP!
Alarum: Enter Grantham, Peterborough Doncaster and York
Lady Chancellor: Where is Retford?
All: The first to alight there may find that out.
Grantham:
My Lady and Lords, I bring desperate news
From far Sierras, where it seems Cardenio hath fled
Our funding ducats in his saddle-traps.
Lords: Oh our class action! Oh our ducats!
Lady Chancellor:
Then Master Will’s words bear the honest truth;
The very mercy of the law cries out
So this day shall gentle his condition.
Now done the half-hour’s traffic of our stage.
Hangman, stand down, Warden, be at pain
To ensure no game change scandal can occur again.
These whole proceedings now are moot.
Go, bid the tribunal shoot.
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