As You Like It

The Lady Mary took to her bed

On the last of the mad March days,

She’d strained her constitution, she said

At that upstart, Shakespeare’s plays,

The ruffians at the Globe were known

To be often rotten with fleas,

‘I must have been bitten,’ Milady said

With her skirt drawn up to her knees.

 

The footman fastened a painted sign

‘No Visitors’ up at the door,

While one of the maids got down on her knees

And scrubbed at the parquet floor,

Milady took to her poster bed

By a window out to the square,

‘You’d best get down to the Fleet,’ she said,

‘Lord Orton is working there.’

 

The doctor came with his physic

Carried a nosegay close to his face,

The cane that he prodded Milady with

Would leave her with little grace,

‘The swellings down in Milady’s groin

Will have to be truly bled,

A mixture of clay and violets then

Applied to the sores,’ he said.

 

The mist swept in and the night came down

As the fever grew apace,

And dark black pustules grew and swarmed

At the Lady Mary’s face,

A shadow fell on the window pane

Of a man stood out in the square,

‘Who is that nightly visitant,

And what is he doing there?’

 

She couldn’t make out his features for

His hat was broad of brim,

Shading his face and hawk-like nose

Though he kept on looking in,

‘I have a terrible feeling that

I’ve seen that man before,

He’s come from the coffin-maker, and

He waits outside my door.’

 

She slipped off into unconsciousness

So the footman let him in,

To measure her with a piece of twine

From her head to below her shin,

They waited then for an hour or two

While the doctor had her bled,

She cried aloud at a fancied shroud

And she shrank from it, in dread.

 

Late on the second day she woke

Lord Orton at her side,

Holding a faded nosegay to

Protect him from his bride,

She heard the clatter of wheels pull up

Outside in the darkened court,

And cried, ‘My Lord, will you leave me now

That my time is running short?’

 

She lapsed back into a coma, but

She could feel the tremors start,

And something strange had begun to change

In the beating of her heart,

A rattle deep in her throat began

And resounded through her head,

Just as a voice, it seemed to her,

Called out, ‘Bring out your dead!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

It's frightening to think that fleas could carry the Black Death. Something so small and infinitesimal can have such a major impact on society. It’s awful to think of anyone catching this disease and then having his home cordoned off so as to impede the spread of the disease. It meant certain death for anyone else locked within. Still, the disease spread, wiping out whole swaths of the population. As bad as the imagination is, I don’t think we can even come close to imagining how horrible it was.

I like how you integrated history into this piece.

[Rachelle]

Epidemiology from a literary point of view. We scientists sometimes forget that there are faces behind each statistic. Beyond morbidity and mortality rates are human beings seeking relief from suffering. As an ethnobotanist soon to be an ethnopharmacologist, I must comment, though that a lot of compounds found in plants are the bases for many a pharmaceutical product. The usage of nosegays may be a bit ridiculous to a layman's eyes but were probably the best they could do given the lack of scientific work done at that time -- as the doctor was also the dentist and your barber. An infusion or poultice would have been more effective but then the person who would have done it would be accused of sorcery and witchcraft.

[TL Boehm]

Highly original tale - love the time setting of this piece - the "Nosegay" the clay and violets - how archaic medicine was. A telling period piece, David.

[Ravyne Hawke]

Very clever this one! I love the descriptions of the plague without actually saying the plague. And of course, the "bring out your dead" reminds me of Monty Python.

[Tate Morgan]

Ring around the rosies pocket full of possies. Ashes ashes we all fall down. I can barely imagine the pain suffering and smell of death from back then.

[Onku Ghosh]

A brilliant write as always keeps holding the readers interest right till t he end.But i didn't expct it to end this way. Very well done,David.

[S.L.H]

Great detail, and I love its pace. Very nicely build to the conclusion. Black humour and poetry at its finest. Wonderful work David!

[Lena M. P.]

Ok that went from pox to the black death that I didn't see it coming at all. I figured she actually got some disease from being in the wrong place at the wrong time but I never thought about the time period until the end. Mad as a March Hare also comes to mind with this one.

[Marie]

I didn't see the Black Death starting at first...but the end sentence made it all too clear...

[Debbie_Philly]

Oh WOW... well first off David you know I think you are very talented... you never write one bad piece... always a great read.... this is very macabre for sure....gave me the chills... the ending did me in ;) Great piece !!