Shakespeare's Dirty Cousin

Nobody knows who Shakespeare really historically was, but that has absorbed so much attention that nobody has even thought to wonder about his cousin, a peer and playwright in his own right and completely written out of history. But in their time, he, too, wrote many fine plays, some of which were performed, all of which, in time, were completely destroyed and forgotten with his tarnished reputation. In fact, it is likely some of the plays attributed to Shakespeare were his cousin's.

His cousin was ever in Shakespeare's shadow and rumored to be less of talent, but this was a matter of taste and debatable. He certainly didn't know how to appeal to a crowd and this was reflected in his approach: he would obsess over a minuscule detail and completely lose track of the work, sometimes for months, even years, and this tendency only worsened with age. As such, he was not as prolific, but, it might be assumed, far more incisive with what he did finish.

Shakespeare's cousin, clearly, was of a different cast of mind, and quite a bit more of a character, an oddball, of whom many anecdotes were spoken that, unfortunately, became distilled and absorbed into such varicolored channels as urban legends, fairy folklore and foreign influences after his disappearance. The most infamous and final of these pertained to the last time he was ever seen.

He was by nature not an oft publicly appearing man, but this final emergence into life only confirmed the suspicions of those who were already suspicious. He had been sitting in his room, writing his latest play, when something threw him awry and he began to wander the street, muttering nonstop.

“Unctual,” he said over and over and over. It was almost a meditation whose power carried him into the countryside on a dirt road where he was apprehended by one party after another and only repeated the same thing.

“Are you mad?” a shepherd called to him as he passed him.

“I could have sworn unctual was a word,” he replied and continued walking, stopping not but to venture down the deepest depths and remotest corners of the known world. He perused every tome, every college, every learned man he could find who would have him, which number dwindled as he became dirtier, for knowledge of the word. He went mad with it, was the rumor sent back to his cousin, Shakespeare.

Shakespeare was by now very popular and his cousin – to none of his cousin's concern – very unpopular. His plays, too, that had once sparked so much debate and wonder, were being forgotten with the public becoming bawdier.

Alarmed and concerned, Shakespeare sent a letter to the monk who'd last seen him telling his cousin to return at once to negotiate the performance of a double feature for some prominent society members. The last part was true – Shakespeare did have a dinner with some wealthy sponsors.

His cousin arrived, dirty, unwashed like a pilgrim, middinner and silence fell over the room.

“You're late,” said Shakespeare.

His cousin looked around at the playwright and his oily guests. “For what,” he said. “Impressing these greasegoblins? To think that I would forego the dignity of my craft to stomach their ingratiating lies. They will never be my audience!”

“Then who, exactly, will?” Shakespeare asked.

“Do you not hear me? Do you think you'll hear a word of truth from these men? I thought your powers of observation were better than that. Who do you think is sponsoring who, here?”

“My powers of observation are better than you left them years ago and have advanced into the unseen, which I hold at arm's length and within my arm's reach. You could stand to be a bit more unctuous yourself,” Shakespeare remarked.

Hearing this, it was rumored, his cousin flew into a rage and renounced the world, as well as all forms of playwriting, turned around on the spot and left with an empty stomach. And he was never heard from again.