My name is Toby. I’m eighty-three years old now. I once knew the greatest man in England. William Shakespeare was his name. I first met William near a big field of apple trees in the town named Stratford in October, 1579. He told me he was 15 years old. He was two years older than me. He had a sister, Joan, and two younger brothers, Gilbert and Richard. And the next year he had another brother, Edmund. After William’s parents died, he and his sister lived with his mother’s brother. I became his friend from that day until he died. We met nearly every day. We were friends for thirty years.
I once worked with him in the theatre, through the good times and the bad times. William was good at acting. He could make all kinds of people pleased. By 1592, he became very famous. He was always busy day and night. I don’t know when he slept. He not only acted in plays, but also wrote his own plays. In his whole life, William wrote 37 plays in all. He was the best
playwright in England.
He wrote a play about love in 1595. It was
Romeo and Juliet. He once used my name, Toby, in his play—
Twelfth Night. In this play, Sir Toby Belch was a big fat man, who liked drinking too much and having a good time. Queen Elizabeth the First watched this play on the 6
th of January, 1601. She liked it.
William Shakespeare is dead now, of course. He has been dead for more than thirty years. There’s no singing, no dancing, no plays. It isn’t like that in my young days. But I can still think—and remember when William and I were young, we had a good time in London, William and I…
小題1:Toby and William first met in ______.
小題2:Who was William’s youngest brother?
| A．Gilbert | B．Edmund | C．Richard | D．Joan |
小題3:In the second paragraph, the underlined word “playwright” means “a person who ______”.
| A．writes plays | B．performs in plays |
| C．watches plays | D．works in a theatre |
小題4:
Romeo and Juliet is a play about _______.
| A．war | B．peace | C．love | D．friendship |
