“What’s that sound in the wood?” you ask. Your companion looks around, then shrugs. “I thought I heard something. Music.” Or something like it; music without a melody to give it meaning.

Shaking yourself from your thoughts, you nudge your heels into your horse’s flanks and drive her further down the road. Drums mean people, and people mean conversation—questions posed and answered, the world bounded and made comprehensible through exegesis and diegesis. You could do with a little comprehension.

Where the road crests a little hill, there is a clearing nestled amid the brazen trees, and in that clearing is a makeshift stage. If (as some say) the whole world is compassed in the round of the stage, then the whole world opens up before you. At the center, a player in black hose and doublet kneels to a boy-queen with a golden crown, tenderly clasping her hand.

Move on. You have business elsewhere.
Pause to watch the play.