Hi everyone. Welcome back to Happy Hour, 欢迎回来酒馆.
I'm sure a lot of you know that we have released a new course a while ago- The Bluffer's Guide to Shakespeare【莎士比亚扫盲班】.
我知道有很多听我们节目的小伙伴已经买了这个专辑, 而且有人已经听完了, 还觉得意犹未尽, 还问我们有没有下一季, 这个可能就是一季的事了.
So I thought today I invite my co-developer 安澜 and we can get a little bit more into personal life of Shakespeare. Hi, 安澜.
Hi Lulu, hi everyone.
You know we spend all this time telling the stories from Shakespearean plays, one thing that I feel a little bit regretful is that we weren't gossipy enough.
Yes. To be honest, there's a lot we can gossip about, particularly when it comes to Shakespeare.
But before we start gossiping, it's important to note that a lot of Shakespeare's life is very uncertain.
Still enigmatic.
There are still a few kind of mysteries around Shakespeare. One of the biggest mysteries is his loves.
His loves?
His loves, plural.
He's love interests. His…那些风流往事.
Exactly. And a question that many scholars are asking nowadays was Shakespeare actually gay?
Okay. We're going to answer that question, well, we're going to try to talk about that in today's show.
Mhm.
But either way we are going to explore the private and personal love lives of Shakespeare.
Yes.
I mean, you would imagine that he hadn't somewhat of a colorful love life or at least love interest because he was able to create all those really 狗血 stories.
Pretty much. The thing that we are certain about is that Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, he was only 18 and she was 26.
That we talked about in our episodes. 我们在专辑里面和专辑发刊词里面都说了, 他娶了Anne Hathaway, 安妮·海瑟薇, 跟现在女明星的名字是一样的, 他们跟Anne Hathaway取的.
Yeah.
而且是姐弟恋, she was 26. He was only18.
Yes, so even back then, that was seen as quite an age gap, I would say.
Quite unusual.
Quite unusual. And also the wedding apparently was very rushed as according to the records she gave birth to their daughter 6 months later.
还是奉子成婚.
Probably, but again, we're not one hundred percent sure.
However, the one thing that we do know about is Shakespeare was probably an absentee father and husband. They lived in Stratford while Shakespeare spend his time in London.
Remind me how far away is Stratford?
It's quite far. It is, mile-wise I'm not too sure, but nowadays it probably takes 2 hours by car. So back then it must have taken a lot longer.
Back then probably a whole day trip.
A day or even 2 days.
So basically they were kind of like not separated in that way, but in the actual fact they were separated, 也是属于长期分居的这种状态, 就是丧偶式育儿Anne Hathaway.
Some people thought did Shakespeare really love Anne Hathaway, because there's a famous story that when he died, he left his second-best bed to his wife, not the first best bed, his second-best bed.
What? that was so calculating, why not the best bed？
That's really the question. On the surface, it appears like you didn't really care, but to be honest, he could also be the fact that Anne Hathaway would get most of his possessions.
And also the second best bed was probably their bed in back in those days, if you were rich enough, you may have your bed in your living room as a piece of furniture, but also for guests. So you have the best bed for guests, but their actual bed that they used was probably the second best.
That's actually they’re romantic if you think about it.
If you think about it in that way. But again, we're not 100% sure.
But obviously we're not just here to talk about him and his wife. Yes. That will be too orthodox for Shakespeare. But Shakespeare wrote a lot of love, sonnets, poems.
So it was a time of plague in London, so Shakespeare couldn't perform. He couldn't open theatres, so he stayed at home and wrote sonnets. One of the key figures in these sonnets…
The dark lady.
The dark lady.
Why is it the dark lady? Is it because the mysterious? Is it about the mystery or is it actual skin color？
Again. we're not 100% sure.
Mhm.
We're not even 100% sure if she existed, and if she existed who was she. Now