Friday, August 31, 2012

Will and Anne




Even though very little is known about Anne Hathaway outside of a few legal documents, she has been much maligned over the centuries as a shrew and a cradle snatcher. Probably, none of these characterizations are true. While she was 26 and pregnant, Shakespeare was 18 and poor and hardly a catch. We visited the house, now much enlarged, where Anne was born. The gardens were fabulous. There is a flower here, the anemone, that I'm coveting for our garden. The pink blooms, dogwood in likeness, sit on the ends of 3' stems. We strolled though a wooded path reading postings from Midsummer Night's Dream before leaving for Shakespeare's birthplace.
Shakespeare and Anne lived in the birthplace house. The Second Best Bed is here. The gardens here are lovely, too. We were amazed to be walking in the same halls as Shakespeare walked, breathed, sneezed, coughed, laughed and ......
More photos at Flickr.