“Four hundred years is a long time”, said Polonius. “It’s a
long time to be dead”.
“I know”, said Shylock. “But he left behind a few things to
remember him by. You and me, for example.”
“Very true”, said Polonius. “And not just us. There’s
Falstaff, and Prospero, and Romeo and Juliet, and King Henry V …”
“But Henry existed anyway”, said Shylock. “Bill Shakespeare
didn’t invent him.”
“True”, said Polonius, “but nobody thinks today about Henry
V without remembering the Shakespeare version, however inaccurate it might be”.
“And ditto for Macbeth, Richard III, Julius Caesar and a few
others”, said Shylock. “But does it matter?”
“Not really”, said Polonius. “It’s the drama that counts. As
my mate Hamlet says, ‘the play’s the thing’”.
“Your mate?” said Shylock. “Didn’t he stick a sword in you
in Act Three?”
“Indeed he did”, said Polonius. “But it was a case of
mistaken identity, so I can’t really hold it against him. And I always come
back to life for the next performance, which I’ve been doing the past four
hundred and more years, just like you”.
“And that’s the point, isn’t it?” said Shylock. “People have
been talking about us for four centuries, which they wouldn’t have done if Bill
hadn’t created us. And he gave us some great lines – how about my ‘If you prick
us, do we not bleed; if you tickle us, do we not laugh’; I love that line.
“I’ve got some good ones too”, said Polonius. “I
particularly like ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be’”.
“Hang about”, said Shylock, “that’s my whole profession gone
for a Burton there.”
“Perhaps you should have followed my advice”, said Polonius.
“Moneylending didn’t do you much good, did it? You ended up losing the lot.”
“At least I was still alive in Act Five”, said Shylock. “And
it would have been a pretty boring play without me as the villain of the
piece.”
“And there’s something else to think about”, said Polonius.
“I wonder if there are people today, four hundred years on, who are making up
little stories about you and me and all the other characters, and having all
sorts of fun as they imagine what we might be saying to each other had we
really existed?”
“Come off it”, said Shylock. “You don’t think there’s anyone
around who’s that daft, do you?”
© John Welford
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