Chapbook entry

p. 18

Tardy: I think not. He never pays his debts, either -- same as you lot. [Jack and Matt laugh.] Oh, yes. A manly laugh. A woman gets used to a man's laughter -- the scorn or it -- the leer of it. And the rage.

Jack: The rage, Kate?

Tardy: Aye. That a woman has more 'pacity for love than a man. So a fellow has to mock it -- make it seem Cheapside, for fear we find him standing in the shallows when it comes to his own 'pacity for love.

Matt: 'Pacity, Kate?

Tardy: 'Pacity. Yes. Some such word. I heard it only once, but I know what it means.

Ned: "She had a sweet capacity for love."

Tardy: That's it. A sweet capacity. She had, mark you.

Ned: "And he had none."

Tardy: "And he had none." You spoke it, Master Ned. I don't remember where.

Ned: Love's Labour's Lost.

Tardy: "A sweet capacity for love." A well-writ phrase.

Will: We cut it.

p. 20

Ned: Do you always move your lips when you read?

Will: Piss off.

Ned: Are you trying to get away from us?

Will: I'm already away from you.

Ned: Escape? Is that why you read?

Will: I read because I write. It is a necessity of the trade.

p. 57

Elizabeth: We are all poxed, Master Lowenscraft -- one way or another. Life is a pox. It leaves its scars on all of us.

Ned: This pox kills, Madam.

Elizabeth: Life kills. That is its purpose....

p. 81

Elizabeth: What are you writing there?

Will: I'd rather not discuss it, Your Grace.

Elizabeth: But I demand it. I've never seen a writer writing before. How fascinating. Is it your Cleopatra play?

p. 133

Ned: Here, Bess. With you. [Elizabeth falls to here knees.] Are you afraid?

Elizabeth: Yes. Yes. More than once, I have been seized by fears I had not imagined possible -- in the dark -- in the night -- but tomorrow is a certainty -- and if your love is not with me in the morning, I will not know how to rise.