In honor of the day, I have placed below a portion of my monologue "The Great Will Shakespeare Speaks." If anyone reading this is interested in reading the whole thing, for fair use, please write to me at sarahredux@yahoo.com. Thank you. And Happy Birthday, once again, dear Will.

Whoe’er wrote aught unprompted by the call of heart’s ambition?

We would be great,

Would move the souls of fellow creatures of our Age,

Mayhap, of ages yet to come.

Would leave our stamp.

Would live on past our lives.

Ah, bitter, bitter, bitter jest.

I am renown-ed, yes.

Though some would place my laurels lightly

On the heads of others.

Yet, this sensible warm motion,

This life.

How fleeting.

It matters not how poor,

Time passes and we sigh to see it pass.

We weep. (Rueful smile)

What folly.

We are creatures of a day.

And so we write,

In writing give relief to our despair—and to our joy.

We give the groundlings, and the Court, somewhat to fill their hours—

their heads, if they do have them.

And their hearts.

What’s Hecuba to them or they to Hecuba that they should weep for her?

But weep they do

If we but put it to them fair,

If words we find which touch the chords of their great sorrows. . .