Welcome to the Hall of Imagination for an episode simply entitled Plagues
GEORGE:
This is an episode that deals with plague in Shakespeare’s lifetime… and COVID in ours.
Two ages. Two kinds of dread. One species—still trying to act brave.GEORGE:
Before we start, a rule for anyone joining us:
In my podcast, Shakespeare—the character—has the ability to look back from our present day to his life on earth.
So he can react to films, modern productions, scholarship, the whole lot.
But—this matters—he cannot predict the future in any way.
No prophecies. No “coming attractions.” No magic spoilers.
WILL:
I may remember, yes. I may reflect. I may even revise my opinions.
But I may not play oracle.
GEORGE:
Perfect. Because today is not fortune-telling.
It’s a conversation across centuries—about what it feels like when the world closes its doors.GEORGE:
Let’s start with something simple and terrifying:
A day begins, and you don’t know what the day is going to cost you.WILL:
That is a fine definition of plague time.GEORGE:
Paint me a scene. Not the grand history-book stuff.
One street. One door. One ordinary person.
WILL (slow, precise):
Very well. Imagine a London lane.
Not a romantic lane—no charming cobbles for tourists—
a lane that smells of work and waste and too many bodies too close together.
A woman opens her shutters…
and she does not look for the weather.
She looks for silence.
Because silence means the carts have not begun.
GEORGE:
The carts.
WILL:
The carts.
And she listens—because sound travels faster than reassurance.
She hears a cough.
Not a polite cough. A cough that sounds like the body is arguing with itself.
And she thinks: Is that next door?
Or is it simply the city being the city?
GEORGE:
That’s the kind of “ordinary” our modern world forgot—until COVID reminded us.
WILL:
Aye. Your century had to re-learn the ancient skill:
how to fear quietly while pretending you are fine.
GEORGE:
Okay. Let’s go practical.
When plague hit your London, it didn’t only make people sick.
It changed money, work, movement—everything.
And for you personally… it shut the theatre.
WILL:
The playhouses closed, yes.
And when the theatre closes, it is not only actors who suffer.
It is seamstresses. Candle-makers. Stagehands. Musicians.
The woman selling oranges.
The poor devil who sweeps the floor and sleeps in the corner.
GEORGE:
That’s a key point I want to hammer for listeners:
When a public space closes, the pain doesn’t spread evenly.
It lands hardest on those who were barely standing upright to begin with.
WILL:
Plague is a great revealer.
It reveals what the city truly values—
and who the city forgets.
GEORGE:
Did people argue about closures the way we did?WILL (with a small laugh):
Sir, people will argue while the roof is burning.
Of course they argued.
Some said: “Close everything—save the living.”
Some said: “Keep open—save the bread.”
And some said: “It is God’s will,” because that sentence saves a man the trouble of thinking.
GEORGE:
In COVID, we had the same tensions, just with different vocabulary.
“Essential.” “Nonessential.” “Lockdown.” “Restrictions.”
People fought about risk… and freedom… and fairness.
WILL:
And always, always—people asked:
“Why must I suffer for their safety?”
GEORGE:
And sometimes the harsh truth is: because we’re not separate.
We’re a community whether we like it or not.
GEORGE:
In our time, the shock was partly speed.
One moment: normal life.
Next moment: canceled events, empty shelves, masked faces, distance.
WILL:
Your people must have appeared astonished that the world could change so quickly.
GEORGE:
Yes.
We had grown used to the idea that tomorrow would resemble yesterday.
WILL:
That is the luxury of long peace.
GEORGE:
And there’s another difference. In COVID, we had constant information.
Numbers updated every day. Sometimes every hour.
Charts, dashboards, maps.
WILL:
Your age turned dread into a kind of mathematics.
GEORGE:
While your age had tallies too, but they traveled slower, and they were spoken out loud—
which makes them feel… heavier.
WILL:
A number spoken aloud is never merely a number.
It is an omen.
It is a knock at the door of the imagination.
GEORGE:
Here, in the wax museum, I’m going to do a very short reading—more like a dramatic paraphrase—
to give listeners the flavor of plague public language.
WILL:
Proceed, sir. Let it sound official. Nothing is more frightening than official language.
GEORGE (reading, measured, “public notice” voice):
“Whereas sickness increases in sundry parishes…
persons are commanded to avoid assemblies…
to keep to their houses…
to mark infected dwellings…
and to refrain from gatherings where breath is shared in close company…”
(Pause)
GEORGE (normal voice):
Even without the exact historical wording, you can hear the tone:
control, urgency, containment.
WILL:
Yes. And underneath it:
panic dressed as policy.
GEORGE:
Now, the modern echo.
In COVID we heard: “Stay home.” “Flatten the curve.” “Two weeks.”
And for many, “two weeks” turned into… a season of fear.
WILL:
We share this across time:
the human desire to name a number of days—
as if suffering obeys calendars.
GEORGE:
Here’s where my “present-day Will” becomes the perfect guest.
You can watch modern Shakespeare productions and react.
So I want to ask: does plague change how you hear your own plays now?
WILL:
It does.
I hear the lines where crowds gather—and I feel the danger.
I hear laughter in a theatre—and I feel gratitude.
GEORGE:
And the films—this is something my listeners will enjoy—
you’ve now watched Shakespeare on screen.
WILL (amused):
Your “movies,” yes.
In my time, if a man wished to see a king, he must go to court.
In your time, he may see a king while eating bread over a sink.
GEORGE:
And it somehow its plague and Covid perfectly–
because both eras forced a shift in how people performed life.
In plague London, you performed courage in public.
In COVID, many people performed courage alone in private.
rivate stage is the hardest stage.
There is no applause to bribe you into bravery.
GEORGE:
Here’s the emotional center I want these episodes to keep returning to
not just “history,” but moral terror.
The thought:
What if someone I love gets sick…
and I am trapped in a house with them…
and no one comes…
and I can’t fix it?
WILL (very quiet):
Yes.
And if you are the one infected—
you begin to measure your worth by whether others dare to enter your room.
GEORGE:
That hits hard because it’s true in every epidemic.
And in COVID we saw people dying alone, families separated, goodbyes spoken through screens.
WILL:
Your century had miracles of communication—
and still, the oldest grief remained:
“I cannot hold the hand of the person I love
GEORGE:
Second reading—this time modern. Again, paraphrase.
Not politics, not arguments—just the emotional temperature.
GEORGE (reading, diary tone):
“Today the streets are quieter than I’ve ever seen.
I stood six feet from a stranger and felt guilty for breathing.
The store had no paper goods, and it felt absurd—
but also like a sign the world was ending.
I called a friend and talked for an hour,
and afterward I sat in the silence like it was a new kind of weather.”
WILL:
That is plague writing, sir—only with different objects.
GEORGE:
Exactly.
Same fear. Different props.
GEORGE:
So here’s what we’ve established today:
Plague and COVID aren’t identical.
Different knowledge, different medicine, different speed of information.
But the human experience—
the loneliness, the arguing, the heroism, the denial, the need for meaning—
that part rhymes.
WILL:
History does not repeat itself, perhaps—
but it does rehearse. Mr. Bartley, let me point out that
London in 1592 was a partially-walled city of 150,000 people. Queen Elizabeth I had ruled for 34 years and her government struggled with London's quickly growing population. Due to increasing economic and food shortages, disorder had grown among the underclasses in the city and beyond, whom moralist authorities increasingly struggled to govern.[2] A large and impoverished population were the first communities to be hit severely by the plague.[3]
Mr. Shakespeare, could you tell us a little bit about how plague first came to England.
Certainly Mr. Bartley,Plague had been present in England since the Black Death, infecting various fauna in the countryside, and specifically known as plague since the 15th century.[4] Occasionally the disease was transmitted to human society by infectious contact with the fleas of wild animals, with disastrous results for trade, farming, and social life.[5][6]
An outbreak at Newcastle in 1589 killed 1727 residents by January 1590, while from 1590 to 1592 Plymouth and Devon were affected with 997 plague deaths
Mr. Shakespeare, that's quite a few deaths for peace time. How did we come to know about the plague.
Mr. Bartley, soldiers marching from England's north to embark on foreign campaigns were rerouted around the city London's theatres, who's had been temporarily closed by city authorities Since a riot in June, had their shutdown orders extended to 29 December by the government.Members of the aristocratic class sensed danger as the disease continued to spread and fled the city: "The plague is so sore that none of worth stay about these places" remarked one contemporary. AND being among the plague refugees at this time, I took the time to write my sonnets.&Queen Elizabeth's royal court also decided not to host the annual Accession Day tilt celebrations for the month due to the possibility of contagion at the royal court.[14]
Some records of the plague were copied by John Stow during his own research in the 17th century and have survived time despite the original documents being lost.[15] Around 2,000 Londoners died of plague between August 1592 and January 1593. The Company of Parish Clerks began regularly keeping and publishing records of plague mortality.
Mr. Shakespeare from what I understand,t he closing of the theaters was not just an external trend or threat, but a constant reality tthat partially shaped your future and the future of the written word
GEORGE:
See you next time. This has been the Hall of Imagination, and my name is George Bartley
MUSIC OUTOh shit