Blessed be ye man yt spares thes stones
And Curst be ye yt moves my bones."
Now, why did Shakespeare make this peculiar request? No one seems to
have seen any meaning in it. It looks to me as if Shakespeare wrote the
verses in order to prevent his wife being buried with him. He wanted to
be free of her in death as in life. At any rate, the fact is that she
was not buried with him, but apart from him; he had seen to that. His
grave was never opened, though his wife expressed a desire to be buried
with him. The man who needs further proofs would not be persuaded though
one came from the dead to convince him.
The marriage was an unfortunate one for many reasons, as an enforced
marriage is apt to be, even when it is not the marriage of a boy in his
teens to a woman some eight years his senior. Shakespeare takes trouble
to tell us in "The Comedy of Errors" that his wife was spitefully
jealous, and a bitter scold. She must have injured him, poisoned his
life with her jealous nagging, or Shakespeare would have forgiven her.
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