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In ‘As you like it’ (III. v. 80) Shakespeare parenthetically commemorated his acquaintance with, and his general indebtedness to, the elder dramatist by apostrophising him in the lines:

Dead Shepherd! now I find thy saw of might:

‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’

The second line is a quotation from Marlowe’s poem ‘Hero and Leander’ (line 76). In the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’ (III. i. 17–21) Shakespeare places in the mouth of Sir Hugh Evans snatches of verse from Marlowe’s charming lyric, ‘Come live with me and be my love.’

Between February 1593 and the end of the year the London theatres were closed, owing to the prevalence of the plague, and Shakespeare doubtless travelled with his company in the country. But his pen was busily employed, and before the close of 1594 he gave marvellous proofs of his rapid powers of production.