The Bard’s Rewrite
The Players of Time’s Forgotten Stage
Lo! From out the dust of time’s embrace do figures mute and carven rise, their visages fixed in mirth or mourning, as if they played their parts upon some ancient stage. Unearthed from lands far flung, these wooden phantoms whisper secrets of a world long vanished, where speechless lips yet spake in gestures bold. What hand did carve such countenances, and to what purpose did they serve? Were they wielded by priests in solemn rite, or did they dance in mirthful revels, delighting the eyes of men and gods alike?
Oh, most kindred art! For even as the players of our time do tread the boards with voice and motion, so too did these puppets, though their tongues were naught but wood, tell tales of grief and glory. Perchance they did summon forth the spirits of the dead, as did the witches call upon the shades in Scotland’s heath, or else did they, like Puck, make sport of solemn men, turning weeping woe to laughter’s light.
Of Ritual and Remembrance
These wooden shapes, though voiceless, do proclaim a truth most ancient: that man hath ever sought, through pageant and pretense, to bind his kindred in a common dream. As the Roman did cry out in the forum and the Greek spoke wisdom upon the Dionysian stage, so too did these lost peoples, with figures deftly wrought, mirror forth their fears and hopes, their gods and demons, their love and rage.
What sacred hands did set them forth? Were they the tools of holy men, who called upon the heavens to hear their pleas? Or did some rustic fool, like the motley Touchstone, make jest of lords and kings with gestures broad and merry? No matter their master, their purpose stands revealed: to make the silent speak, to give to shadow shape, and to weave the hearts of men into one tapestry of tale and truth.
The Eternal Stage of Man
Thus do these relics, though worn with age, bear witness to a theatre eternal, wherein each age doth find its scene anew. From the first flickering firelight unto the stage of London fair, man hath ever sought to tell his tale, to act his part beneath the watchful stars. These puppets, though their strings be severed and their voices stilled, do whisper yet of this unbroken chain, wherein each hand doth pass the story to the next.
And so, let us not gaze upon them as mere remnants of a world forgot, but as echoes of our own desires, our own need to shape the air with words and deeds. For as Prospero did say, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” and so too were these figures, fashioned for dreams, for fancies, and for rites unbroken by the march of time.
