{"id":3637,"date":"2025-11-15T15:14:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T15:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=3637"},"modified":"2025-11-15T15:14:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T15:14:55","slug":"from-bards-to-bard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=3637","title":{"rendered":"From Bards to Bard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Photo by a kind docent at Shakespeare’s Home, Stratford on Avon, August 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We had just left the library, me, exhilarated from chasing an elusive 14th-century ancestor through a nest of old parish records; him, simply relieved to stand upright again after half an hour on the bottom shelves. He\u2019d spent the morning handing me books like a dutiful squire and now looked as though he deserved a knighthood or, at the very least, a sturdy chair. Fortunately, Shakespeare\u2019s schoolroom promised benches and history. Two things I never resist, and one he can usually nap through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside, the air smelled of beeswax and old oak, the kind of room where you half expect to hear the scratch of quills and the snap of a tutor\u2019s patience. A man dressed in full Elizabethan regalia was lecturing with theatrical gusto about young William\u2019s schooling. My husband settled in contentedly, no doubt counting this as his rest stop on the Tudor trail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the story of how Shakespeare\u2019s sister once disguised herself as a boy to attend lessons beside him, the first recorded case, our costumed instructor declared, of gender-bending for the sake of education. My husband leaned over, voice low and amused, \u201cThat would be your<\/em> line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course I replied , I always reply. \u201cYes, it would.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tutor froze mid-sentence, eyes narrowing like an owl\u2019s. \u201cWould you care to share with the class, madam?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reader, I was forty years too old to be scolded and four hundred years too late to be sitting in Shakespeare\u2019s classroom yet there I was, reprimanded under the same beams that once heard Hamlet<\/em>\u2019s first drafts forming in the back of a boy\u2019s mind. My husband, naturally, looked saintly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the lecture continued, I couldn\u2019t help smiling. The old Welsh bards would have understood words have a life of their own, and some of us were simply born to answer them, even in other people\u2019s classrooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After my recent AI experience that I blogged about last week, it’s more important than ever to remember the power of words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had just left the library, me, exhilarated from chasing an elusive 14th-century ancestor through a nest of old parish records; him, simply relieved to stand upright again after half an hour on the bottom shelves. He\u2019d spent the morning handing me books like a dutiful squire and now looked as though he deserved a … Continue reading “From Bards to Bard”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1343,279],"class_list":["post-3637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-stories","tag-tudor","tag-william-shakespeare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3637"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3675,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3637\/revisions\/3675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}