The Tutor by Andrea Chapin Page A

is monotonous as well.”
    She gazed at him but said nothing.
    “Teach me,” he said.
    She was, with these two words, distracted by his lips. Again she noticed their shape.
    “I do not presume to teach,” she said, “but I can relate to you what I read and how it makes me feel.” She studied each sonnet anew. “These are the weakest.” She held two sheets in her hand.
    He frowned. “Why?”
    “They follow convention, lack emotion. The words plod across the page.”
    “Plod across the page? My words may be donkeys, but yours are daggers.” He placed his hand on his heart and toppled from his knees to the ground as if stabbed.
    She smiled. “If you cannot shield yourself, then we should end.”
    Shakespeare sat up, cross-legged, took one of the papers from her hand. “I was guided by the Greeks in form. Yet I invoke the Roman deities,” he said, “Cupid and the goddess Diana.”
    “I know the story. Love put his torch in care of Diana’s nymphs while he slept. Perhaps ’tis those ties to antiquity that make your words weary.”
    Lines formed above Shakespeare’s brows, and his eyes married hurt with humor. Katharine watched his mouth curve from a pout to a grin. Then he laughed: the sound was glorious and warm.
    “‘Seething bath’ and ‘sovereign cure’ are well chosen,” she said.
    “You flatter me,” he said.
    Katharine turned to the second of the two poems and said, “This sonnet lacks grace. Perhaps use brand instead of wand , and then change frond to hand . A plant has a frond, but does a maiden? Even in poetry that seems most stretched.” She continued, “The bitter end does resonate. A nod to the Song of Solomon, yes? ‘Love is as strong as death: jealousy as cruel as the grave . . .’” She glanced at him. “So love is a disease that hath no cure?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
    She did not wait for his response but sat back on her skirts. “Both poems fret and fume about distemper and disease. There is much ‘cure’ business. I see Petrarch in the complaint. Yet the shrill fury of the speaker is after the physical union, not before—unusual. If Sidney has pushed the form ajar, perhaps ’tis time for you to split it wide.” She paused. “Think you that women are the givers of disease, not the receivers? We steal ribs and health and lead men to debt and to death. How vile we are.”
    “Some more vile than others,” he said with a chuckle. He was on his knees again. He snatched another page from the linen and held it to her. “The verdict?”
    “This has much mirth.”
    “Ah. You are my advocate.”
    “How well you love yourself, your name. Will makes its entrance in your poem—once, twice, thrice, four times, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen times in fourteen lines, but—”
    “This sonnet may be too common for your chaste ears.”
    “I am no nun. But with all the planting you have done with your will , I am still not sure what is the thrust of this sonnet. Are we to care about this man, this Will? With these puns you dance well, your feet are swift.”
    “A jig at the end of a play,” he said forlornly.
    “Aye, a touch of the jig-maker. Use those same feet to tread deeper.”
    Katharine started to stand. He rose to help her. She tightened at his touch, which was delicate. Perhaps reading his verse was not a good idea.
    “This wearies you?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “Which is the best?” he asked.
    “The third sheet in,” she said.
    “Why?”
    “The first line, ‘They that have the power to hurt,’ hails from the heart, not the head,” she said.
    “It has history,” he said, his eyes filling with tears.
    His tears surprised her. He had dropped his shield. For the first time, she felt no need to parry.
    “I feel that history when I read it,” she said.
    He nodded. “’Tis good, then?”
    “Aye.”
    He smiled now, the tears of a moment ago gone. “Since meeting you, dear lady, I have put quill to page every day. I write