When a 1617 pamphlet speaks of “a mighty sea monster or whale” (10) discovered upon a beach near Harwich, such confusion is representative of early modern attitudes towards marine life, especially creatures of greater-than-human proportions (see Brayton). This same ambivalence can be found in Book 2, Canto 12 of The Faerie Queene, when Sir Guyon voyages across the ocean to the Bower of Bliss and encounters an armada of sea monsters resembling those that slither along the margins of Renaissance maps, such as the 1539 Carta Marina of Olaus Magnus. In stanza 26, however, the Palmer informs Guyon that these fabulous chimeras are simply marine fauna, distorted and transfigured by fear and the poetic imagination. The consequences of such dread or lurid wonder could be severe; how does the Palmer's reaction compare with that of the inhabitants of Ipswich and Bermuda (see Part iv) when confronted with exotic sea creatures? The passage thus pivots from an enchanted medieval vision of the ocean towards the proto-scientific mentality of Protestant naturalists who were attempting to disentangle fact from legend. While the poet equates the physical otherness of marine life with monstrosity, representing the ocean as “beyond human knowledge and control” (Brayton 26), the Palmer's acceptance of the ocean's inhuman ecology might reflect the greater confidence of Renaissance sailors to venture upon it in the Age of Exploration and Conquest. Underneath the allegory we might discern some of Spenser's own trepidations during his crossing of the Irish Sea. The seagull- and cormorant-haunted “Rock of Vile Reproach” is almost certainly modelled on the island known as Ireland's Eye, which Spenser sailed past in 1580.

Source: The Faerie Queene (1590), 369.

The German scholar Johann Herder once claimed it was worth studying Hebrew for a decade simply to read Psalm 104 in its original language. With its evident similarities to the opening book of Genesis, it belongs to a group known as the Creation Psalms (which includes 8, 19, 25, 64, 139). But whereas Genesis presents an orderly, sober account of creation, Psalm 104 is rhapsodic and exuberant. Everything in nature revels in the pleasure of simply being alive, and its mere existence is apprehended as poetic. In a world of such extravagant splendour, song (or poetry) becomes a sacred duty, an outpouring of gratitude for the beauty of the earth and the numerous resources it provides to sustain and enrich life. Inspired by Psalm 148, the Jacobean preacher Godfrey Goodman would imagine every creature joined in an inaudible refrain of “We sing the praise of our Maker,” and assert that other animals are capable of prayer and even salvation (The Creatures Praising God, 1622, 22–8).

Traditionally, most of the Psalms, including 104, were attributed to King David. Biblical scholars today are dubious of Davidic authorship, and estimates of their provenance range from roughly 900 to 400 bce. Some parts of the Psalms may be even older, with roots in the “praise poetry” of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Creation Psalms, in other words, represent some of the oldest written records of eco-spirituality in world literature. Psalm translations were popular throughout early modern Europe, although many sacrificed literary merit to make them easier to sing. In the 1580s, Philip Sidney undertook to translate them into more sophisticated English verse. He completed the first forty-three before his untimely death in 1586. His sister Mary took up the project and finished it thirteen years later. Far from a slavish literal rendering, her Psalter is remarkable for its metrical ingenuity, and for the liveliness of its imagery that delights in the confusion of nature and culture. Its popularity is attested by eighteen extant manuscripts, and 104 seems to have been particularly admired, as it was one of three psalms transcribed in two different manuscripts (All Souls College, Oxford MS 155, 123r–7r; Inner Temple Library, Petyt MS 538, vol. 43, l284r–6r).

Source: Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 24, with annotations from Penshurst MS.

It is fitting that England's first Lakeland poet wrote a proem personifying a lake. Brathwaite's relentless anthropomorphising captures the Renaissance tendency to comprehend nature by seeing ourselves reflected in it, while water's fluidity makes it the ultimate shape-shifter.

Source: A Strange Metamorphosis of Man, Transformed into a Wilderness (1634), C8r–D3r.

The Lake is Diana's glass, or common mirror of the rest of Nymphs, wherewith they dress themselves. It is a liquid crystal, whose Ice thereof make the perfect Crystal, while [C8v] the Sands in the bottom as the black of the mirror makes the foil that causeth the reflection. It is more properly a sea than the sea itself, because indeed a true congregation of waters so gathered into the stony cistern of the Rocks. He is no flatterer, but a true tell-troth,° for he will show the Stag his branchy horns, the Ass his prodigious ears, and discover the Satyr to be a beast as he is by his attire. He is very liberal of his liquids to all the Forest, for let them provide meat elsewhere, and he will find them drink enough: [D1r] exceedingly blessed of God for this his hospitality, for though he have given drink to all our Desert ° from the time of Noah, his store is never a whit the less. He is very patient, who will suffer any reasonable burden to be laid on his back and bear it willingly, if it sink not of itself, or be not perhaps stirred up and set on by the malicious blasts of the calumnious winds; for then he will so lash forth with his waves like so many kicks of the heel that twenty-to-one he unhorseth whatsoever is on his back … [D1v] He is not hot, but yet of that quality that he will bear no coals, ° especially if active and lively. As great as he is, there is no Snake shall creep in at a lesser hole than he; and like him where he gets but his head in once, with time enough he will draw his whole body after him.

Unlike parks today, Tudor parks were restricted spaces – owned by the king, nobles, or gentry – and reserved for keeping deer and other game. As England's population exploded in the sixteenth century, some persons began to feel that too much of the nation's land was set aside by the wealthy for private hunting grounds. In his Perambulation of Kent (1576), William Lambarde estimated that half of the county's parks had been disparked “within memory.” The high point probably occurred in the 1540s. Disparking slowed considerably during Elizabeth's reign (Pitmann), a trend that Harrison here seeks to reverse.

Source: Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), 204–5.

In every shire of England there is great plenty of parks, whereof some … (well near to the number of two hundred) [are] for [the] daily provision of that flesh appertaining to the prince; the rest to such of the nobility and gentlemen as have their lands and patrimonies lying in or near unto the same. I would gladly have set down the just number of these enclosures to be found in every county. But since I cannot so do, it shall suffice to say that in Kent and Essex only are to the number of one hundred, and twenty in the bishopric of Durham, wherein great plenty of fallow deer is cherished and kept. As for warrens of conies, I judge them almost innumerable, and daily like to increase by reason that the black skins of those beasts are thought to countervail the prices of their naked carcases, and this is the only cause why the grey are less esteemed …

Our parks are generally enclosed with [a] strong pale made of oak, of which kind of wood there is great store cherished in the woodland countries from time to time in each of them, only for the maintenance of the said defence and safekeeping of the fallow deer from ranging about the country. Howbeit, in times past diverse have been fenced in with stone wall, especially in the times of the Romans, who first brought fallow deer into this land (as some conjecture), albeit those enclosures were overthrown again by the Saxons and Danes …

A garden is always a battleground, an attempt by humans to stake out a plot of land for their exclusive use. Naturally, other species do not acknowledge our right to monopolize vast patches of the earth, provoking humans to devise a number of strategies for deterring or destroying perceived invaders. In the first English gardening manual, Thomas Hill shares dozens of recipes for protecting crops, some involving sympathetic magic and others deploying what we would now call biological pest control, such as training cats and tame weasels to catch moles. In the mid-twentieth century this traditional lore gave way to synthetic pesticides like DDT, which prompted Rachel Carson to write her landmark expose Silent Spring, kick-starting the modern environmental movement.

Source: The Gardener's Labyrinth (1577), 30–3, 66, 69, 71.

All worthy Writers agree that in vain the husbandly Gardener shall travail … if the Seeds bestowed in the earth [31] happen after to be endamaged, either of Worms and other creeping things, or otherwise scraped up and wasted by Birds … [So] that the owner or Gardener may avoid these injuries, it is high time that he employ a care and diligence in the conceiving of these remedies and secrets following. If Seeds to be committed to the Earth are a little time before the bestowing steeped in the juice of Houseleek or Sengreen, they shall not only be without harm preserved from Birds, Ants, Field Mice, and other spoilers of the garden herbs, but what plants shoot up of these shall after prove the better and worthier …

And for lack of this herb altogether, [Columella °] reporteth that the Gardener may use instead of it the Soot cleaving on the chimney, which gathered a day before the bestowing of the seeds in the earth and mixed for a night with them, doth the like defend the seeds in safety.

The Greek writers of husbandry … report that those seeds may be preserved in safety from all evil and garden monsters if the bare head, without flesh, of either Mare or She-ass (having been covered of the male) be buried in the Garden, or that the middest ° of the same fixed on a stake set into the earth be erected.

… with Globe Education. There was a small celebration taking place at 5 that afternoon in honour of Robert Dodsley, bookseller, writer, and Dr Johnson's publisher (amongst many other things), the 300th anniversary of whose birth had occurred with hardly anyone knowing about it. I must admit to not having noticed it myself. And it was the desire to rectify such ignorance that lay behind the invitation from Patrick Spottiswoode, the director of the Education department, to join him and a few friends for a glass or two of wine after I had finished my meeting with Tim Carroll. It was a delightful idea, for Dodsley was indeed a remarkable man – but that is another story – and we all learned a great deal, as we shared knowledge-fragments about him.

I left the theatre, several hours later, feeling that I could have played Juliet myself without any difficulty whatsoever, if only directors could see my potential. Globe Education parties are a bit like that. And I recalled three of the conversations I had had since 4 o'clock that afternoon.

Conversation 1 took place at 4.15 as I was passing the top of the stairs leading down to the Globe foyer. I bumped into one of the Practitioners – one of the team of professional actors who take part in Globe Education's outreach and on-site programmes for teachers, students, pupils, and others. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. I told him about the OP idea. There was a silence. Original pronunciation? ‘But how do you know?’ I gave him a potted version of the next few pages. As it was the first time I had been put on the spot like that, it was not entirely coherent, and it took ten minutes.

Conversation 2 took place at around 4.40 as I was meandering around the Globe bookshop, always a pleasant place to spend a spare quarter of an hour – and I mean, spend. I was in the process of paying for Peter Hall's new book when I realized I was standing next to someone who, out of context, I couldn't immediately place – but it turned out she had helped to steward my Sam Wanamaker talk a few months before.

At the time, I knew none of this. The first inkling I had that something was in the offing was an email in December from Debs Callan, Head of Continuing Education. The message mentioned that the Globe was planning an OP weekend for the last weekend in June, and that Globe Education wanted to support and help inform the work of the Theatre Department by setting up a study weekend ahead of the performances, at the beginning of that month. The aim was to provide a forum for discussion between theatre practitioners and scholars about the nature of Elizabethan pronunciation. What did I think?

I wasn't surprised to get such a message. My links with the Globe had become steadily stronger since 1997, when Nick Robins, the editor of the membership magazine Around the Globe, had asked me to write a regular piece on Shakespeare's neologisms – or Williamisms, as I went on to call them – for his magazine. As part of the Globe Education seasons, I had presented a few performance lectures on Shakespeare's language – a mixture of academic commentary and theatrical presentation, supported by actor son Ben. In 2003 I had the privilege of becoming the Sam Wanamaker Fellow for that year, and towards the end of the year I found myself working with Globe Education as a consultant for Wordplay, one of their schools outreach programmes. So I suppose I fell into the category of ‘tame linguist’, as far as the Globe was concerned. And no linguist could have been tamer and more ready to collaborate. I think the Globe is the most exciting theatrical project of modern times.

But the message made me think. It was a fine idea, but a difficult one to implement. In our book on Shakespeare's vocabulary, Shakespeare's Words, which had appeared in 2002, Ben and I had avoided representing Elizabethan pronunciation – or Early Modern English (EME), as it is more technically known – in all but a few very difficult cases (such as ‘oeillade’). We felt most readers would have difficulty with a technical representation of the sounds – a phonetic transcription.

Would actors be any different? I remember Ben telling me that phonetic transcription was not routinely a part of actor training. It was not immediately obvious how to get round this problem.

Well, almost over … I was driving back to Holyhead the next day when the mobile phone rang. It was a message from the Globe asking me to ring the Richard and Judy show. They were interested in doing a piece on OP. Was I in London? Well no, actually, Hilary told the researcher. We are on theM6 heading north-west. Could we be in London tomorrow? Not possible … meetings at home already planned. What about Wednesday?

Richard and Judy is a UK television chat-show that has made something of a mark for itself in recent times – an hour-long programme airing daily at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. It is produced in London by Cactus TV for Channel 4, and in 2004 was attracting an audience approaching 3 million. It has a reputation for dealing with serious topics in an intelligent way. If I wanted the OP project to come to the attention of a large number of people, this was a proposal I could hardly ignore! And I was impressed that a popular programme like this should have shown an interest.

That is why I found myself on a train from Holyhead to London on the Wednesday morning. Not the best day to be in London, as it happened. There was a 24-hour tube strike. But if anything, the traffic was lighter between Euston and the CactusTV studios, just round the corner from the Oval cricket ground on the South Bank, and I arrived in good time.

The day before I had had a couple of conversations with Anne Stone, the researcher assigned to the item, and we had worked out how to proceed. They were going to film Kananu and Tom doing a piece of the dialogue for the balcony scene, and they were proposing to show this in contrast with an extract from the same scene from Shakespeare in Love, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes. It was a brilliant idea. Seeing the two versions side by side made the contrast between RP and OP stand out more clearly than any amount of linguistic description could have achieved.

One other thing happened during the OP weekend. At the very end, on the last night. I was sitting on my bench, enjoying the jig, when I noticed Tim Carroll in the yard trying to catch my eye. He gestured me to come down. We had a talkback session to do immediately afterwards, so I thought he wanted us to get down to the Nancy Knowles before the crowd. But when I joined him he just stood there. We watched the jig come to an end, and then, Melanie Jessop (Lady Capulet) came to the front of the stage and asked for silence. What on earth was going on? I had to rely on Ben, who was in the audience with me that night, to tell me afterwards what exactly happened, because it blew my recall memory clean out of my head.

She thanked the audience and told everyone what a marvellous weekend it had been. There was a cheer.

Then I was startled to hear my own name and my role described. I looked at Tim aghast. He was grinning. There was another cheer. ‘Where are you, David?’ called Mel. I gave a weak wave. And she called me up. I walked to the front of the yard. The audience had erupted into applause. Do you know how high that stage is? Over five foot. My chin reached it. All I could do was raise my arms and pray. I was hauled up, unceremoniously, by I forget who – I think the Friar may have been part of it. I found myself on stage, with a company I had grown to love. I looked at them all. They seemed thrilled to bits. Jimmy told me later: ‘to haul a bearded academic in jacket and tie up onto a theatre stage and to hear him so loudly and hotly applauded is a memory that will stay with me for a very long time’. And me. There was a final bow, and we walked off together. I got a kiss from Juliet. For an aging historical linguist, that is as good as it gets.

Almost everything about this project was last minute. The decision to go ahead, all decisions about how to go ahead, even the appointment of a dialect coach – they all happened long after they should have done, if we were to do the thing properly. The reasons for this are boringly easy to imagine (money, scheduling problems, my own lack of organization); what is not so easy to explain is why it ended up working so well.

Over the last few years that I have worked at the Globe, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the nature of Shakespeare's language. I have always been very interested in what, if anything, Shakespeare's use of verse implies about the way the plays should be spoken. In particular, I have often noticed that an actor can create quite a pleasing effect by picking out those phrases (not so rare) which are still in use today and speaking them in as modern and ‘street’ a way as possible – ‘What do you mean?’ ‘How do I look?’. I have often felt that this short-term success came at a long-term cost: that it is a bit like performing a play in French, except that every time you come across a word like association that is the same as the English word, you pronounce it in English. This might help understanding fractionally, but it would destroy any chance of our believing we are listening to a language that anyone ever spoke. I have long felt that a strict attention to the metre might well create a language that, even if it took a little getting used to, would sound unified, and therefore more lifelike.

The three performances of Romeo and Juliet in original pronunciation gave me a glimpse of that longed-for event. Imperfect as it was, it was nonetheless possible to hear that real people were talking to each other. To be sure, some previously wellknown words were less familiar, but in that they were in the same boat as the characters in their original-practice costumes: we might not recognize them, we might not understand or even like them, but we can see that they belong together, that they come from one world.