Pathogen

Flies in the night. Enters chambers unawares.

Crowned, signifies Clown then likewise the King.

Turns flesh to fever without really thinking.

Renders visible the invisible, half-scared.

Interrupts the news, his friends look unwell.

Sniffs at frontiers. Sneezes “All aboard!”

Closes down the theatres. Opens up the wards.

Stops church service. Tolls the passing bell.

Crosses your customs, a jumpsuit miming “Curtain!”

Leaves you counting 400, 500, six…

Audience participation certain.

Dies in the spotlight, a fully-blown human.

Breathes faster harder fresh out of tricks

Hereafter the fires of summer consuming.

The word sounds like a character in Commedia dell’Arte. Enter, Pathogen. This weekend I read ‘Shakespeare’s Life and World’ by Katherine Duncan-Jones. Chapter 4 is ‘The Infectious Pestilence’, which describes the three times the plague hit London during his time there. Because they had to close the theatres Will had no work, so wrote long poems instead. The sonnets were published in the plague year of 1609. These facts lend further credence to the fact that he wrote the plays flat chat to meet the demand for new plays. You want ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’? What’s the deadline? Pathogen in Shakespeare sounds like one of those dodgy secondary characters who stick a dagger into someone without warning. I’m sure the news of the lockdown of Venice is in my mind also. Photograph: a group of partygoers at the Venice Carnival wearing the mask of the commedia character the Plague Doctor (Medico della Peste).