From Gary Taylor's Hamlet in Africa 1607:
Posted on June 4, 2005 11:11 AM. Filed under: books & lit."Methinks I see my father."
"Where, my lord?"
"In my mind's eye, Horatio." [1]
In your mind's eye, I would like to conjure up a company of British seamen, far from home. These men will spend the afternoon on shore, sweating, shooting an elephant. [2] But in the cool of the morning they gather on board ship for a different kind of sport. Within sight of conspiratorial packs of long-tailed monkeys on the rocks, within earshot of the estuary's cranes and pelicans, a sailor steps onto the deck. [3] He holds a weapon that combines a spear with a hatchet. He points this weapon in the direction of another man, and says, "Who's there?" —The first words of Shakespeare spoken outside of Europe. [4]
Who was there? Another British sailor, playing the role of Francisco, soon followed by others to play Horatio and the Ghost and Hamlet and all the rest. A unique company, they played to a unique audience: a boatload of 150 men on the first British diplomatic mission to India—and in their midst, four guests with filed teeth, plucked eyelashes, rings on their fingers and in their ears and noses, braided hair shaved into "elegant patterns" forming "various shapes, some oval, others like half an orange," and scarified black bodies, artistically tattooed "by means of hot irons" with "pictures of lizards, fish, gazelle, monkeys, elephants and all other kinds of animals, insects and birds." [5] We even know the name of one of those four African spectators. "Who's there?" – Lucas Fernandez, the first identifiable black man (or woman) whose life intersects with the works of our most canonical dead white male, William Shakespeare. But when Lucas Fernandez encountered Hamlet, the Great White Bard was still alive, and The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark was a new play. The performance of Hamlet I have been asking you to imagine took place on September 5, 1607 – almost a century and a half before the first known performance of Hamlet anywhere in the New World. [6] [continue]