But Thursday is the REAL Holy Grail. The holiest of all holiest of Holy Grails.
Thursday is a day trip to the Currier Museum to see one of the 233 known surviving published copies of Shakespeare's First Folio of plays. 500 or so more copies are out there, either truly existing or already destroyed, but this one is close enough to practically touch.
Okay, so it's not the Lindisfarne Gospels nor the only existing original written copy of Beowulf, but still. I'm not planning a trip to the British Library anytime soon. Besides, I don't even have to go find the First Folio; it practically finds me.
This is when we say, "Hurrah for friends!" because had it not been for two of the late Will's pals deciding to publish previously unpublished plays of his, we might have lost much of Shakespeare's greatest works. Also, we say "Hurrah for friends!" because my pal drives up there so we can go see this masterpiece marvel of 1623 printing technology.
Of course the book, encased in thick, highly alarmed glass, is open to the "To be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet. This, to me, is an amateur move, but there are so many plebeians coming to view it, the museum probably wanted something everyone would easily recognize. I suspect that if I want to turn the pages, I'll have to do it virtually via the British Library's website (a brilliant technological move on their part for their extremely precious and valuable manuscripts).
When it is finally my turn, I silently and carefully drool over the manuscript. I can hardly believe my eyes that I am staring at a book that is nearly 400 years old and that is the hotly-contested center of the literary canon. I wrap my head around the reality that the greatest of all literary thieves (Shakespeare built much of his magnificent plots around snippets of factual information) concocted so many brilliant and magnificent characters and dialogue. His rhyming ability alone dizzies common sense.
Afterward, my friend and I mosey downstairs to see the terribly lame Shakespeare's Potions display, which we almost miss because it is tucked into a dead-end hallway on the way to the lower bathrooms. If we didn't have to pee while we were closer to the main stairs than to the entrance, we would've missed it entirely. There, though, is an enlarged version of Shakespeare's First Folio, a hands-on version that invites visitors to find their favorite passage.
Oh, so many. So very, very many.
I flip the pages to Much Ado About Nothing, the first Shakespeare I ever encountered (Thank you, Sam Waterson, Kathleen Widdoes, the York Shakespeare Festival, and the marvels of modern television circa 1973) and find one of my favorite parts (made even more dear to me by the Branagh version twenty years after the York production). "Here," I tell myself and my friend. "I'll leave it here."
As Don Pedro would say, "By my troth, a good song." And so, I leave thee.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh nor more; Men were deceivers ever. One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny; Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no mo, Or dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey, nonny, nonny.
