HAWKER. Cress! Buy cress! Are you there, lady? [ELIZABETH _throws out another coin._] I plucked my riches From Deptford ditches, I came by a Deptford Inn; Where a young man lies, With pennies on his eyes-- Murdered, lady, and none saw who did it! Cress! Buy cress!
There was a boy that ran away, and Henslowe the Queen’s man, and a third-- Cress! Buy cress! A supper for Queen Bess!
ELIZABETH _lays down the purse on the table as the girl comes back._
ELIZABETH. It was here. That cress seller has a sweet voice. Fling her a coin and ask her where she lives!
GIRL [_going to the window_]. Hey, beggar!
GIRL. Where do you come from with your green stuff?
HAWKER. Marlow, lady, Marlow! Down by the river where the cresses grow, And buttercups like guineas. Cress! Buy cress! Who’ll buy my cress-es?
GIRL. She has come a long way. Marlow’s across the river, far from us.
ELIZABETH. Marlowe’s across the river, far from us. If any ask to speak with me, let me know it!
GIRL. Why, Madam, Henslowe, the old player, has been waiting since noon, and Mr. Shakespeare with him.
ELIZABETH. The name’s not written here. Whose duty?
ELIZABETH. Send Henslowe! And when I ring let Mary Fitton answer!
_She goes out_. ELIZABETH _rises and goes slowly across the room to the dais and seats herself. There is a pause. Then a page throws open the big door facing the dais and_ HENSLOWE _enters._
ELIZABETH. Henslowe, you’re not welcome For the news you bring.
HENSLOWE. Madam, that Marlowe’s dead I know because I found him--I am new come from Deptford-- But how you know I know not.
ELIZABETH. Why, not a keel Grounds on the Cornish pebbles, but the jar Thrills through all English earth home to my feet. No riderless horse snuffs blood and gallops home To a girl widowed, but I the sparking hoofs Hear pound as her heart pounds, waiting; for my spies Are everywhere. Do not my English swifts Report to me at dusk, eavesdropping low, The number of my English primroses In English woods all spring? The gulls on Thames Scream past the Tower “Storm in Channel! Storm!” And if I hear not, sudden my drinking glass Rings out “Send help, lest English sailors drown!” The lantern moon swings o’er unvisited towns Signalling “Peace!” or a star shoots out of the west Across my window, flashing “Danger here!” And is it Ireland rising, or a child On chalk-pit roof after the blackberries, I’m warned, and bid my human servants haste. The flat-worn stones, the echoes of the streets At night when drunkards tumble, citizens In the half silence and half light trot home, Reveal the well, the ill in my own land. I am its eyes, its pulse, its finger-tips, The wakeful partner of its married soul. I know what darkness does, what dawn discovers In all the English country. I am the Queen. You have done my errand? Shakespeare the player is with you?