dover

The ' Shakespeare Cliffs ' at Dover. What boy having the spirit of adventure that Kit obviously had, and having grandparents by the sea at Dover, would not have escaped as often as he could to visit this fascinating little port? - in those days one of the most important in England. If Katherine Arthur did not take her son often enough to see his grandfather William Arthur, who was still alive in 1574 when Kit was ten years old, we may be sure that the boy would have found means of cadging a lift on a passing wagon, riding pillion on some kindly traveller's horse on occasion, or simply walking the fifteen miles from Canterbury for the excitement of seeing the ships at anchor in the harbour, and listening to the sailors' talk of distant lands, fights at sea, storms overpassed, and the noisy argument of commerce. These memories he stored to be used later in his dramatic writings. One such ship riding at anchor at Dover during Kit's boyhood was ' The Flying Dragon ' which later appears as one of the argosy of The Jew of Malta.

Photo and caption from In Search of Christopher Marlowe: A Pictorial Biography, by A.D. Wraight and Virginia Stern.

From King Lear:

How fearful
And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the mid-way air
Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire-dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen that walk the beach
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge
That on th' unnumb'red idle pebbles chafes
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more.'

Act IV, Scene vi.