Archive of Issues
Archive of Narrations
Syndic Literary Journal

Shakespearean Authorship: A Satire by Gene Gordon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Satire: Shakespearean Authorship

by Gene Gordon


Eighty True Authors

Well, Jesus Christ! Who ever knew
That William Shakespeare was a Jew?
And add to Jew one small detail:
Our bawdy Bard was a female!

What, mate – a she and not a he?
With an “O” thing not a wee-wee?
Oh yes – Amelia was her name
A deeply hidden Jewish dame!

Amelia Bassano Lanier
Had quite an exciting career…
Was Dark Lady in the sonnet –
Tuck that underneath your bonnet!

Wondrous! In the poem she got laid,
Then wrote all the plays? What a maid!
Who wrote Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear?
Forsooth – ‘twas Amelia Lanier!

But she is only one –
We’re far from done, I fear.
What – eighty more to come?
Oh dainty duck, oh dear!

Yes, take a trip with me,
You’ll have a grand old time.
But mind your sanity,
There’s madness in this rhyme.

Let’s play a screwball game.
We’ll hop from A to Z.
And in the end we’ll claim
Bard’s true identity.

“Who’s the True Author” the name of the game,
With 80 “Real Shakespeares” vying for fame.

Dyer, Derby, Dorset: each was an Earl,
The Countess of Rutland (she was a girl).
Essex the father and Essex the son
They both wrote Shakespeare. Are we having fun?

Sir Anthony Shirley, tourist renowned,
In far away Persia with Bard’s cap was crowned.
Sir Walter Raleigh wrote all the plays too.
Put that tobacco in your mouth and chew.

Great Lord Mountjoy, of Devonshire the Earl…
Let’s throw more names in and give it a whirl.
Henry, Lord Paget; John Barnard a knight,
Not eighty yet? We need still more? All right!

Earl of Southampton – young lord in the poem?
The First Folio! He wrote that great tome.
William Stanley, of Derby the grand lord!
Earl of Salisbury – are you getting bored?

Wait! With William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke
We have an exceedingly special bloke:
He wrote all the plays, that’s certain for sure,
But so did Mary, his mother demure.

In fact, three Sidneys aristocratic –
Mary, Sir Philip, were authors dramatic.
The third, William Herbert, mentioned before…
(Keeping track of eighty is really a chore!)

The Earl of Rutland, hot Roger Manners,
Rose up ‘gainst the Queen with Essex banners.
Elizabeth Sidney, his lofty wife –
She wrote the plays too. (With Sidneys we’re rife.)

Here comes the most popular candidate:
The foolish fop many fools adulate –
The foul Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere
He too wrote Shakespeare until his career –
You’ll never believe it but this “author true,”
After writing “The Taming of the Shrew,”
Went ahead and died in 1604,
Yes, before “Lear,” “Macbeth” and much more.

What? Thirteen plays written after he died?
That Looney for Oxford certainly lied!
But folks buy his tale; its profits do well.
Better than that Mary Sidney cartel.

“The Tempest” was written deep in the grave
Of Edward de Vere, that false, arrant knave!
“Cymbeline,” “Timon,” and “Pericles” too
By a corpse were penned and does it stink – whew!

Friends, do not listen; they lie in their teeth,
Such a bald falsehood should be far beneath
Those who claim to love poetry and truth.
A dead man wrote Shakespeare. How awfully uncouth!
Nay, of dead men they provide more: Marlowe,
Essex, Woolsey – it’s a carnival show!
They think we’re so stupid: we will gulp down
Any “True Author” – a buffoon, a clown!

But “Here’s the plain truth” (so quoth the town crier),
“Shakespeare is Bacon: the fat’s in the fire.”
I would go on – yes, all day and all night,
Were not this a game with a hand that is sleight.

Yes, a sleight of hand game, a fraud, a sham,
Trickery, counterfeit, a vast vile scam!
For though eighty “true authors” they endow,
There’s one real writer they will never allow.

William from Stratford is disqualified.
They hate him and will not be mollified.

Yes, they froth at the mouth and with venom they ooze:
“A thief, barbarous oaf” – who would be in his shoes?
Who desires to be called “lying rascal” and more?
“Usurper, pretender…” I tell you they abhor
“The drunken clown of Stratford, the Stratford butcher-boy…
A money-lending malster…” Yes, they would destroy
For ever and ever, in all place and all time,
The good name of Shakespeare, his theater, his rhyme!
“Absolutely unlettered rustic of Stratford…
Vulgar, illiterate deer poacher of Stratford…”
Yes, “Stupid, ignorant – a clod without a spark…
Who never in his life wrote so much as” – but mark!
“His own name!” Yes, “Totally unable to read
One single line of print!” Such is their hateful creed.
“Stupid, third-rate player, sordid money-lender…”
In this fashion they hope to make us surrender
The supreme genius of our world who in his splendor
Outshines – as the sun! – every writer, any gender.

Who are these deniers? What is their game?
Sure many are in it just for the fame.
A NEW BOOK SENSATION! Make out a case
That Shakespeare’s a poet from outer space.

Dead men wrote Shakespeare, an infant stillborn,
The Virgin Queen – I have nothing but scorn
For these foolish fanatics, militant mobs
Of fawning aristocrat-loving snobs!

These are not scholars, though 4,000 books
Have been churned out by these obsessive kooks!
They’re like flat earth fans, and what’s more aghast
They’re like those who deny the Holocaust.
They believe because they want to believe.
No facts, no proof will they ever receive.
They are like – behind their foolish façade –
Devotees worshipping some bizarre god.

Yes, “a boy from a dirty market town”
Did become the greatest poet/playwright
Of mankind. He wears proud his great renown
Though for years an unspeakable blight
Stood in front of his father’s house: some shit!
Yes, a pile of stinking shit – so said Freud –
But here as elsewhere Freud was a nitwit.

Is this a tragedy or a big farce?
I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
Shove your “True Authors” up your dumb arse.
I do cry so hard my eyes just won’t dry.

Yes, eighty “true authors” they do endow,
Yet one real writer they will never allow.
William from Stratford is disqualified.
They hate him and will not be mollified.

Authors/Artists Bios

 

Compiled/Published by LeRoy Chatfield
History of Syndic
Write Letter / Contact Publisher
© all photos/text

Archive of Issues

Archive of Narrations