ELIZABETHAN TABLE MANNERS
A place setting at a formal meal would have a plate (not the trenchers of bread more common in earlier times), a spoon and probably a knife. Forks were a new fashion, arrived from Italy, but even the most fashionable people were only just beginning to learn to use them. Men carried knives as a matter of course, and might use them to cut their food as well as to dispatch an enemy. A knife sometimes had prongs or a prong on one end to help in picking up food from the common dish. But usually food arrived at the table already in pieces that could be eaten with the fingers or a spoon, or as great joints that were carved at the table. In simple households, the male head of the house would carry out the carving. In wealthier homes, it might be done by a professional carver, who would also add sauces or seasoning to the pieces he had carved.
A spoon might be hand-carved wood, or silver, or an alloy of gold, depending on your status. A sucket spoon was a small spoon with a hollow handle used to eat moist sweet dishes, like stewed quinces.
Most Elizabethans used their fingers to pick up their food. Washing your hands before a meal, and wiping your fingers during it, was an important part of table etiquette. A host provided a basin and jugs of warm or scented water for their guests before they sat at the table. There would be bowls of scented water on the table to dip your fingers into during the meal, before drying them on the tablecloth or linen napkins.
The servants would serve wine or ale into the cups (wood, tin, pottery or expensive glass, or pewter, brass, silver or gold) at the sideboard, then serve each person individually; or the women of the household would serve the men. Food was put on the table for everyone to help themselves to. It wasn’t good manners to reach across the table. You waited for your neighbour to ask if they could help you to a dish, or you asked for some of it, though the latter wasn’t acceptable for a woman or a young person. Nor was it good manners to pick the most delicious bit for yourself, to wipe your face with your hand or sleeve, to dip your sleeve into the stewed apple or sauce, or brush it against the roast. If you didn’t have the grace to make your long sleeves fall away from your wrists, it was best to discreetly pin them back before you helped yourself to food.
The wealthier you were, the more food you had in front of you. You weren’t expected to eat it all, or even to taste each dish. In a household like the Capulets’, the servants would eat the family’s leftovers. In the royal household, royalty ate first, and it was an honour to eat the leftovers from the royal table.
TRANSPORT
Few people had carriages at the time when Romeo and Juliet was first performed; nor were most of the narrow roads suitable for carriages to travel on. People rode horses, donkeys or mules; or were carried in chairs, or in litters where they lay on cushions.
HAIRSTYLES
A young Elizabethan girl of good family wore her hair loose, perhaps with the hair next to her face plaited and drawn back, and decorated with flowers or jewels. A married woman swept her hair up into a bun or other style, and covered it with a veil, wimple, hairnet, hat or cap, depending on who she was and what she might be doing. A servant’s hair might also be covered. A poorer woman might keep her hair covered much of the time to try to keep it lice-free.
ELIZABETHAN COLOURS
The poor wore dull colours, and the rich wore bright ones. The richer you were, the brighter your clothes, unless you wore black for mourning. The dyes came from insects, lichens and plants, and were costly. Most dyes faded quickly.
Bright pink was a popular colour for men as well as women. Only royalty or those closely related to royalty, like Paris, were allowed to wear gold or silver, although the law was often disobeyed.
THE BANQUET SONG
This is taken from Thomas Morley’s First Book of Ballets (1595). The song in I am Juliet has been changed slightly to fit the scene. This is the original:
Now is the month of maying,
When merry lads are playing, fa la,
Each with his bonny lass
Upon the greeny grass.
Fa la la! Fa la lala, la la.
The Spring, clad all in gladness,
Doth laugh at Winter’s sadness, fa la,
And to the bagpipe’s sound
The nymphs tread out their ground.
Fa la la! Fa la lala, la la.
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET 130
Paris’s song in the banquet scene of I am Juliet is meant to be the kind of song Shakespeare lampooned in this poem. Well-born men composed poetry, songs and music, and would perform in company, partly as entertainment, and sometimes, probably, to show off their wit and cleverness. The explicitness of Paris’s song — and his making such an open claim on Juliet in public — would be insulting today, but expected in the 1590s.
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
Acknowledgements
A manuscript is sometimes like an almost made cake, with still a bit of mixing, as well as baking and icing to be done.
I am Juliet was remixed as well as spiced by the superb editing of Nicola O’Shea, who smoothed out the lumpy bits where the combination of Shakespearean and modern language didn’t quite mesh, the whole guided and shaped by the wonderful Kate Burnitt of HarperCollins.
Lisa Berryman as always gave me the confidence to contemplate a marriage of my words and Shakespeare’s (I didn’t realise until I was well into it how ambitious a task it would be). Lisa calmly beheaded the book, removing the last unnecessary chapter. When I lack the courage or clarity to evaluate my work, Lisa is there. She shared the planning of the next two books in this series: Ophelia, Queen of Denmark (2015) and Third Witch (2016). As always, there are no words enough to thank her.
Enormous gratitude to Angela Marshall, for yet again taking a mess of badly spelled words and turning them into a readable manuscript, and in this case, sharing her knowledge and love of the play to help fit text with the book.
To the teenagers who first inspired this book, complaining about Romeo and Juliet’s unrealistically long speeches: I hope by now you have travelled far beyond the teacher who discouraged you from expressing what were well thought out and valid opinions, even if you hadn’t been taught how to transfer them to a page. With luck you have discovered that most teachers are not like yours (I eavesdropped on your teacher’s conversation in the staffroom, and was grateful yet again that I was blessed with superb teachers, not ones who muttered, ‘I don’t know why we turn up, really’ — I’m not sure why they turned up either). I hope you have found teachers with enthusiasm, insight and compassion. But if you haven’t, and if you did leave school, thinking there was no point staying any longer: you are not stupid, despite your teacher’s claims. If you still need to know how to write an essay: just write it down, exactly as you told me. I hope you will seize the most wonderful of futures, and perhaps even look again at Shakespeare and find beauty in his words.
And — belatedly — to the Brisbane Arts Theatre of my youth, who gave a teenager the privilege of playing third witch in Macbeth. One of my most treasured teenage memories is of sitting on a pile of scenery, dressed in black robes, warts and hunchback, studying for the next day’s economics exam while Banquo in red velvet breeches lectured me on Marxist economics (I just wanted to work out how to calculate GNP). Without the Ar
ts Theatre, and the magic of feet upon the stage, I too might have thought that Shakespeare was just ‘all those words’.
About the Author
Jackie French is an award-winning writer, wombat negotiator and the Australian Children’s Laureate for 2014–2015. She is regarded as one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors and writes across all genres — from picture books, history, fantasy, ecology and sci-fi to her much loved historical fiction. In her capacity as Australian Children’s Laureate, ‘Share a Story’ will be the primary philosophy behind Jackie’s two-year term.
You can visit Jackie’s website at:
www.jackiefrench.com
Books by Jackie French
Historical
Somewhere Around the Corner • Dancing with Ben Hall
Soldier on the Hill • Daughter of the Regiment
Hitler’s Daughter • Lady Dance • The White Ship
How the Finnegans Saved the Ship • Valley of Gold
Tom Appleby, Convict Boy • They Came on Viking Ships
Macbeth and Son • Pharaoh • A Rose for the Anzac Boys
Oracle • The Night They Stormed Eureka
Pennies for Hitler • Nanberry: Black Brother White
Fiction
Rain Stones • Walking the Boundaries • The Secret Beach
Summerland • Beyond the Boundaries • Refuge
A Wombat Named Bosco • The Book of Unicorns
The Warrior — The Story of a Wombat • Tajore Arkle
Missing You, Love Sara • Dark Wind Blowing
Ride the Wild Wind: The Golden Pony and Other Stories
Non-Fiction
Let the Land Speak: How the Land Created Our Nation
Seasons of Content • A Year in the Valley
How the Aliens from Alpha Centauri
Invaded My Maths Class and Turned Me into a Writer
How to Guzzle Your Garden • The Book of Challenges
Stamp, Stomp, Whomp
The Fascinating History of Your Lunch
Big Burps, Bare Bums and Other Bad-Mannered Blunders
To the Moon and Back • Rocket Your Child into Reading
The Secret World of Wombats • I Spy a Great Reader
How High Can a Kangaroo Hop?
The Animal Stars Series
1. The Goat Who Sailed the World
2. The Dog Who Loved a Queen
3. The Camel Who Crossed Australia
4. The Donkey Who Carried the Wounded
5. The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger
6. Dingo: The Dog Who Conquered a Continent
The Matilda Saga
1. A Waltz for Matilda • 2. The Girl from Snowy River
3. The Road to Gundagai
Outlands Trilogy
In the Blood • Blood Moon • Flesh and Blood
School for Heroes Series
Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior • Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs
Wacky Families Series
1. My Dog the Dinosaur • 2. My Mum the Pirate
3. My Dad the Dragon • 4. My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome
5. My Uncle Wal the Werewolf • 6. My Gran the Gorilla
7. My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken
8. My Pa the Polar Bear
Phredde Series
1. A Phaery Named Phredde
2. Phredde and a Frog Named Bruce
3. Phredde and the Zombie Librarian
4. Phredde and the Temple of Gloom
5. Phredde and the Leopard-Skin Librarian
6. Phredde and the Purple Pyramid
7. Phredde and the Vampire Footy Team
8. Phredde and the Ghostly Underpants
Picture Books
Diary of a Wombat (with Bruce Whatley)
Pete the Sheep (with Bruce Whatley)
Josephine Wants to Dance (with Bruce Whatley)
The Shaggy Gully Times (with Bruce Whatley)
Emily and the Big Bad Bunyip (with Bruce Whatley)
Baby Wombat’s Week (with Bruce Whatley)
Queen Victoria’s Underpants (with Bruce Whatley)
The Tomorrow Book (with Sue deGennaro)
Christmas Wombat (with Bruce Whatley)
A Day to Remember (with Mark Wilson)
Dinosaurs Love Cheese (with Nina Rycroft)
The Hairy-Nosed Wombats Find a New Home (with Sue deGennaro)
Good Dog Hank (with Nina Rycroft)
Copyright
Angus&Robertson
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia
First published in Australia in 2014
This edition published in 2014
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Jackie French and E French 2014
The right of Jackie French to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
French, Jackie, author.
I am Juliet / Jackie French.
ISBN: 978 0 7322 9798 5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978 1 4607 0086 0 (epub)
For children.
Juliet (Fictitious character)—Juvenile fiction.
Shakespearean actors and actresses—Juvenile fiction.
A823.3
Cover design by Christa Moffitt, Christabella Designs
Cover image by Lucia Rubio
Author photograph by Kelly Sturgiss