William: I will hound thee too, because of thy skin.
Listen to this verse. ‘Tis the best ever written.

‘My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.’

Lucy: S’truth, give me metal, William! I beseech thee.
Use thy sway with your patron, Henry,

Earl of Southampton, to have me ensconced
within a castle until this terror subsides.

Now listen to me and stop droning on with your
romantic folly. I have heard it all afore

from countless men who grace my bed
and bugger off without even a ta ra, then,

forgetting their fine gentlemanly manners,
that I, a lowly pro, have feelings too.

[Aside] Or did have once, when I was wild and green
and transplanted from wild forest and beach

and heat and sea and a spoken tongue
as soft on the ears as sand granules running

through mine fingers. Until I came to this,
this machiavellian city of stinking deceit.

William: Fie! Thou art too froward, woman.
Thou wilt be safe here. Worry not.

Canst thou not see that thou hath inspired
greatness in me? Now, listen to this one.

‘Therefore my mistress’s eyes are raven black,
Her brow so suited, and they mourners seem
At such, who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Sland’ring creation with false esteem:
Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says, beauty should not look so.’

William’s gaze shifts to the window, where he dreams upon the miracle of his own poetry. His words sound familiar to Stanley, but he cannot quite put his finger on it. He is mindful to nudge William and tell him to climb back down from his own fundament and listen to what this Lucy-woman is telling him. He must take her away from the city, which is closing in on her. Stanley wonders if he is also convincing himself.

William: So oft have I invok’d thee for my Muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse.

Lucy: Then stop the drivel and help me out, goddamit!

She prowls around William like a big cat sizing up its prey. Stanley hopes she’ll bend over William so that her breasts pop up from her bodice and squash against his own back. William thinks he will never understand women, but knows enough to allow them to let off steam every now and then, like Annie, back home in Stratford.

Lucy: Even though I’m just an image for thy poems
Merely a play on darkness against the light

or somesuch nonsense for them to quibble over.
O, and a great fuck too!

William tries to grab her, but she swings out of his reach.

William: To win me soon to hell my female end.

Lucy: Yes, twisted, and rotting and worse than a snake’s bite.
And thou knowst what? Everyone’s had me!