Then outspoke medical Dick To his comrade medical Davy …
In his trinity of black Wills, the villain shakebags, Iago, Richard Crookback, Edmund in King Lear , two bear the wicked uncles’ names. Nay, that last play was written or being written while his brother Edmund lay dying in Southwark.
A tempo. But he that filches from me my good name …
Stringendo. He has hidden his own name, a fair name, William, in the plays, a super here, a clown there, as a painter of old Italy set his face in a dark corner of his canvas. He has revealed it in the sonnets where there is Will in overplus. Like John O’Gaunt his name is dear to him, as dear as the coat of arms he toadied for, on a bend sable a spear or steeled argent, honorificabilitudinitatibus, dearer than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country. What’s in a name? That is