(under construction) What Shakespeare's Sonnets tell us about their author
Den här diskussionen är en fortsättning på: (under construction) What Shakespeare's Sonnets tell us about their author
DiskuteraThe Globe: Shakespeare, his Contemporaries, and Context
Bara medlemmar i LibraryThing kan skriva.
1proximity1
For the previous posts in this thread, click on the link here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/219312
>159
Sonnet LXVII
Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve
And lace itself with his society?
Why should false painting imitate his cheek
And steal dead seeing of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins?
For she hath no exchequer now but his,
And, proud of many, lives upon his gains.
O, him she stores, to show what wealth she had
In days long since, before these last so bad.
(continued from above)
With some of the previous sonnet's
mood of dejection, this one raises questions:
Is this only an early working-draft of a sonnet? Could that exlplain the use of "he"? Here, "he" appears to refer to Wriothesley. If so, perhaps this was a preliminary draft which was neither finished nor sent--found among the others.
What would explain a finished sonnet addressing its recipient --usually addressed as "you," --in the third-person singular?
It seems clear enough that "she" refers to "Nature."
But these lines depart from the usual poetic images which remain based in a real-world view of life's relations and instead pose bizarre questions about the person we've been used to considering as the central figure so far: "Why should he live?" ? Why should the poet be moved to ask this question--even from a mood of despair?
Perhaps a clue is sonnet LXVI in which we're told that it is only for the sake of his beloved that the author chooses to persevere, not wanting to leave him "alone."
If he were to live no more, our author would be free of that felt obligation.
----------
post #2, below, was deleted as a duplicate of this post.
2proximity1
Det här meddelandet har tagits bort av dess författare.
3proximity1
Sonnet LXX
That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time;
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days,
Either not assail'd or victor being charged;
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy evermore enlarged:
If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show,
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.
4proximity1
Sonnet LXXI
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.
5proximity1
Sonnet LXXII
There's a monument to “Shakespeare” in Stratford-upon-Avon's Church of the Holy Trinity—a garrish thing (the monument, that is, not the church), chopped down from its former state by the modification of its orignal form—which we know from early sketches of it—where the original figure somewhat resembles the current one except that, in the original, the figure's arms and hands are resting on a bulging sack of something that looks like a fifty-pound sack of feed or some sort of milled stuff. In the re-made thing, the right hand holds a quill pen and the left rests on what is supposed to look like parchment.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ShakespeareMonument_cropped.jpg
at the main page for the Holy Trinity Church:
https://en.wikipedia.org/Church_of_the_Holy_Trinity,_Stratford-upon-Avon
The statue presents a torso figure for “Shakespeare” which looks like the results of the work of an amateur mortician on a bleary-eyed bad early morning after a late night out drinking at the pub. It more properly belongs in a penny-arcade of a cheap county fair or carnival.
Stratfordians fans of Shakespeare—and, of course, the peole and merchants of the town of Stratford even more so—are immensely proud of all this tourist-attracting stuff. Meanwhile, the real author of “Shakespeare's” works—whoever he was—wrote about his own view of how posterity should treat his name in the personal advice to the individual whose affection and memory of him should mean the most: the fair youthful friend, Henry Wriothesley—
Oxford was confident that, by his work, he'd vouchsafed the immortal memory of his friend Wriothesley. He must have also been confident that his real name would one day come to be fixed as the rightful author of the work—poems, plays and sonnets—which to him represented the real monument to his memory. As for the name “Shakespeare,” he tells us in the sonnet, writing as “Shakespeare, let that
“My name be buried where my body is
And live no more to shame nor
me nor you.”
Oxford, of course, not to mention his correspondent, Wriothesley, knew that there was no “body” to go with the authorial name “Shakespeare,” that being a mere pen-name. Thus, on one level, this sonnet is telling his correspondent (Hint to Stratfordians: and telling us, too) that once he, the author, is dead, may the name “Shakespeare” be buried—where its “body is.” As there is no body, let the name be buried where no one can find it, with the body which in fact never existed.
Oxford, too, wanted and hoped for at last the recognition from posterity which he knew was rightfully his—in his own name, not that of his mask, “Shakespeare.” Thus, a physical monument to the mask “Shakespeare” was an abominable idea to him. He'd both despise and ridicule the Stratford Trinity Church monument as a gross insult to his rightful memory—an insult which, indeed, it is for all those living who can actually read his words and hear them for what they really meant and still mean.
Hamlet: Being thus benetted round with villanies, (3680)
Or I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play. I sat me down;
Devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair.
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much (3685)
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service . (V, 2, 3680)
...
Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death,
Is strict in his arrest) O, I could tell you- (3995)
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;
Thou liv'st; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied. (V, 2, 3995)
...
...Horatio. Not from his mouth,
Had it th' ability of life to thank you. (4040)
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view; (4045)
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause; (4050)
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on th' inventors' heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.
... ...
Horatio. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more. (4060)
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance
On plots and errors happen.
O, lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death, dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you .
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
There's a monument to “Shakespeare” in Stratford-upon-Avon's Church of the Holy Trinity—a garrish thing (the monument, that is, not the church), chopped down from its former state by the modification of its orignal form—which we know from early sketches of it—where the original figure somewhat resembles the current one except that, in the original, the figure's arms and hands are resting on a bulging sack of something that looks like a fifty-pound sack of feed or some sort of milled stuff. In the re-made thing, the right hand holds a quill pen and the left rests on what is supposed to look like parchment.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ShakespeareMonument_cropped.jpg
at the main page for the Holy Trinity Church:
https://en.wikipedia.org/Church_of_the_Holy_Trinity,_Stratford-upon-Avon
The statue presents a torso figure for “Shakespeare” which looks like the results of the work of an amateur mortician on a bleary-eyed bad early morning after a late night out drinking at the pub. It more properly belongs in a penny-arcade of a cheap county fair or carnival.
Stratfordians fans of Shakespeare—and, of course, the peole and merchants of the town of Stratford even more so—are immensely proud of all this tourist-attracting stuff. Meanwhile, the real author of “Shakespeare's” works—whoever he was—wrote about his own view of how posterity should treat his name in the personal advice to the individual whose affection and memory of him should mean the most: the fair youthful friend, Henry Wriothesley—
Sonnet LXXII
O, lest the world should task
you to recite
What merit lived in me, that
you should love
After my death, dear love,
forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing
worthy prove; …
Oxford was confident that, by his work, he'd vouchsafed the immortal memory of his friend Wriothesley. He must have also been confident that his real name would one day come to be fixed as the rightful author of the work—poems, plays and sonnets—which to him represented the real monument to his memory. As for the name “Shakespeare,” he tells us in the sonnet, writing as “Shakespeare, let that
“My name be buried where my body is
And live no more to shame nor
me nor you.”
Oxford, of course, not to mention his correspondent, Wriothesley, knew that there was no “body” to go with the authorial name “Shakespeare,” that being a mere pen-name. Thus, on one level, this sonnet is telling his correspondent (Hint to Stratfordians: and telling us, too) that once he, the author, is dead, may the name “Shakespeare” be buried—where its “body is.” As there is no body, let the name be buried where no one can find it, with the body which in fact never existed.
Oxford, too, wanted and hoped for at last the recognition from posterity which he knew was rightfully his—in his own name, not that of his mask, “Shakespeare.” Thus, a physical monument to the mask “Shakespeare” was an abominable idea to him. He'd both despise and ridicule the Stratford Trinity Church monument as a gross insult to his rightful memory—an insult which, indeed, it is for all those living who can actually read his words and hear them for what they really meant and still mean.
Hamlet: Being thus benetted round with villanies, (3680)
Or I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play. I sat me down;
Devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair.
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much (3685)
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service . (V, 2, 3680)
...
Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death,
Is strict in his arrest) O, I could tell you- (3995)
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;
Thou liv'st; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied. (V, 2, 3995)
...
...Horatio. Not from his mouth,
Had it th' ability of life to thank you. (4040)
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view; (4045)
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause; (4050)
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on th' inventors' heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.
... ...
Horatio. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more. (4060)
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance
On plots and errors happen.
6proximity1
RE: >3 proximity1: >4 proximity1: & >5 proximity1:
Here is "Shakespeare": deeply worried about how his own infamy does or might harm the fair friend--Henry Wriothesley --by the close association with the actual author of these lines that is so flagrantly obvious from the testimony of these and so many other sonnets.
That is, Wriothesley was well known among the opinion which counted most in the matter of one's social reputation -- namely, the nobility, and, above all, the courtiers around Elizabeth--for his association with Oxford. They had many traits and interests--and experiences--in common.
Wriothesley himself is an imtimate of that society--since his youth, one of its darlings. Like the Earl of Oxford, Wriothesley was raised as a ward of the royal court from boyhood in the household of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who had, by the time Wriothesley was seventeen, a granddaughter of marrying-age: Oxford's daughter, Elizabeth. Burghley hoped that Wriothesley could be persuaded to marry her, bringing still more wealth and prestige to his family line to come.
The sonnets above make it clear that Wriothesley's relationship with the sonnets' author is so close and well known that it poses a risk to Wriothesley's reputation --among his noble peers.
Now, it's a testament to the utter ineptitude of Stratfordian detection and reasoning skills that these sonnets alone did not set off alarm bells which woke them from their foolish reverie about William of Stratford as the author of the sonnets. There is no public record which indicates any relation at all between Wriothesley and Shaksper. Nothing in letters or documents or oral tradition which places these two as such intimate friends. So why would Shaksper have spent so much ink and parchment on this deep concern? The short answer is that, of course, he, Shaksper, wouldn't have spent all that ink, parchment, time and worry over this. Indeed, he couldn't have been so close, so associated or so concerned. He didn't know Wriothesley.
And, by any reasonable notion, if anyone of the Stratford man's social station had posed such a threat to Wriothesley's reputation and his standing in the eyes of his peers, the obvious solution should have been to end any such observed or known relations rather than spend so much anguish over it. For we find that the author himself--whoever he was--writes,
How could it possibly be that that resolution wasn't blatantly obvious to a genius of Shakespeare's order?
And how could geniuses of the Stratfordians' order have failed to take proper account of this conflict of common sense?
One could wonder: faced with such an anomaly, why didn't Stratfordians hypothesize that, if it didn't occur to the these sonnets' genius-author to resolve the problem in the most obvious way, that the reason is likely because that obvious manner of resolution was not a practical solution to the problem? But how, under the Stratfordian ground assumptions, could it not have been practical?
The logical reason which suggests itself is that there is something seriously wrong with those ground assumptions. They simply fly in the face of the circumstances being described in these sonnets.
On the other hand, at the time these sonnets were being written, Edward Oxford had both a much degraded reputation in the eyes of numerous of his noble peers as well as a well-known close relationship with Wriothesley.
If, as a peer and fellow courtier, one was the envious type and harboured affection for Wriothesley as a man's friend, then Oxford's well-known close relationship with Wriothesley would make Oxford the most important and most obvious target for one's resentment-- if It happened that Wriothesley proved to be less an intimate friend than was hoped for. That would work as well to Wriothesley's detriment as noted in sonnet LXX:
(more to follow)
Here is "Shakespeare": deeply worried about how his own infamy does or might harm the fair friend--Henry Wriothesley --by the close association with the actual author of these lines that is so flagrantly obvious from the testimony of these and so many other sonnets.
That is, Wriothesley was well known among the opinion which counted most in the matter of one's social reputation -- namely, the nobility, and, above all, the courtiers around Elizabeth--for his association with Oxford. They had many traits and interests--and experiences--in common.
Wriothesley himself is an imtimate of that society--since his youth, one of its darlings. Like the Earl of Oxford, Wriothesley was raised as a ward of the royal court from boyhood in the household of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who had, by the time Wriothesley was seventeen, a granddaughter of marrying-age: Oxford's daughter, Elizabeth. Burghley hoped that Wriothesley could be persuaded to marry her, bringing still more wealth and prestige to his family line to come.
The sonnets above make it clear that Wriothesley's relationship with the sonnets' author is so close and well known that it poses a risk to Wriothesley's reputation --among his noble peers.
Now, it's a testament to the utter ineptitude of Stratfordian detection and reasoning skills that these sonnets alone did not set off alarm bells which woke them from their foolish reverie about William of Stratford as the author of the sonnets. There is no public record which indicates any relation at all between Wriothesley and Shaksper. Nothing in letters or documents or oral tradition which places these two as such intimate friends. So why would Shaksper have spent so much ink and parchment on this deep concern? The short answer is that, of course, he, Shaksper, wouldn't have spent all that ink, parchment, time and worry over this. Indeed, he couldn't have been so close, so associated or so concerned. He didn't know Wriothesley.
And, by any reasonable notion, if anyone of the Stratford man's social station had posed such a threat to Wriothesley's reputation and his standing in the eyes of his peers, the obvious solution should have been to end any such observed or known relations rather than spend so much anguish over it. For we find that the author himself--whoever he was--writes,
LXXI
"Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe."
How could it possibly be that that resolution wasn't blatantly obvious to a genius of Shakespeare's order?
And how could geniuses of the Stratfordians' order have failed to take proper account of this conflict of common sense?
One could wonder: faced with such an anomaly, why didn't Stratfordians hypothesize that, if it didn't occur to the these sonnets' genius-author to resolve the problem in the most obvious way, that the reason is likely because that obvious manner of resolution was not a practical solution to the problem? But how, under the Stratfordian ground assumptions, could it not have been practical?
The logical reason which suggests itself is that there is something seriously wrong with those ground assumptions. They simply fly in the face of the circumstances being described in these sonnets.
On the other hand, at the time these sonnets were being written, Edward Oxford had both a much degraded reputation in the eyes of numerous of his noble peers as well as a well-known close relationship with Wriothesley.
If, as a peer and fellow courtier, one was the envious type and harboured affection for Wriothesley as a man's friend, then Oxford's well-known close relationship with Wriothesley would make Oxford the most important and most obvious target for one's resentment-- if It happened that Wriothesley proved to be less an intimate friend than was hoped for. That would work as well to Wriothesley's detriment as noted in sonnet LXX:
That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time;
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
(more to follow)
7proximity1
The 466th anniversary of "Shakespeare's" * birth is exactly one week from today: 12 April.
*(That is, the true person as the author of the works attributed to "William Shakespeare", a Stratford-on-Avon resident and paid stand-in for the real author's pen-name) :
Edward De Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, born 12 April, 1550.
*(That is, the true person as the author of the works attributed to "William Shakespeare", a Stratford-on-Avon resident and paid stand-in for the real author's pen-name) :
Edward De Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, born 12 April, 1550.
8proximity1
Authors and works mentioned so far in this thread:
The poems of Edward DeVere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford and of Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex (Studies in philolog by Edward DeVere
"Shakespeare" identified in Edward De Vere, the seventeenth earl of Oxford by J. Thomas Looney
Palladis Tamia; wits treasury by Francis Meres
The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare
The Two Gentlemen Of Verona by William Shakespeare
The Genius of Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist
Metamorphoses by Ovid
Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
Aristotle's Poetics by Stephen Halliwell
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
Elizabethan sonnet themes and the dating of Shakespeare's "sonnets" by Claes Schaar
Shakespeare's Wordplay (University Paperbacks) by M. M. Mahood
King Lear by William Shakespeare
The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics by C. S. Lewis
Familiar Quotations by John Bartlett
William Tyndale: A Biography by David Daniell
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Samuel Johnson by W. Jackson Bate
Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer
Authors
Edward de Vere (See: https://www.librarything.com/author/oxfordedwarddevere )
J. Thomas Looney ( See: https://www.librarything.com/author/looneyjthomas )
Francis Meres
William Shakespeare
Jonathan Bate
T. S. Eliot
Iain McGilchrist
Ovid
Terence Dickinson
Stephen Halliwell
Mark Twain
Claes Schaar
John Fletcher
Mary Sidney Herbert
M. M. Mahood
C. S. Lewis
John Bartlett
David Daniell
Geoffrey Chaucer
Safa Khulusi
W. Jackson Bate
Germaine Greer
The poems of Edward DeVere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford and of Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex (Studies in philolog by Edward DeVere
"Shakespeare" identified in Edward De Vere, the seventeenth earl of Oxford by J. Thomas Looney
Palladis Tamia; wits treasury by Francis Meres
The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare
The Two Gentlemen Of Verona by William Shakespeare
The Genius of Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist
Metamorphoses by Ovid
Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
Aristotle's Poetics by Stephen Halliwell
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
Elizabethan sonnet themes and the dating of Shakespeare's "sonnets" by Claes Schaar
Shakespeare's Wordplay (University Paperbacks) by M. M. Mahood
King Lear by William Shakespeare
The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics by C. S. Lewis
Familiar Quotations by John Bartlett
William Tyndale: A Biography by David Daniell
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Samuel Johnson by W. Jackson Bate
Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer
Authors
Edward de Vere (See: https://www.librarything.com/author/oxfordedwarddevere )
J. Thomas Looney ( See: https://www.librarything.com/author/looneyjthomas )
Francis Meres
William Shakespeare
Jonathan Bate
T. S. Eliot
Iain McGilchrist
Ovid
Terence Dickinson
Stephen Halliwell
Mark Twain
Claes Schaar
John Fletcher
Mary Sidney Herbert
M. M. Mahood
C. S. Lewis
John Bartlett
David Daniell
Geoffrey Chaucer
Safa Khulusi
W. Jackson Bate
Germaine Greer
9proximity1
Sonnet LXXIII
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
-------------------
William Shaksper, supposedly famed poet and playwright, is believed to have been born in 1564 and the third Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, eight years and about six months later, in 1573.
Shaksper (in Stratford on Avon, we're to suppose) dies at the age of 52 (of unknown causes) in 1616. (His son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, a medical doctor who for years kept a notebook of commentary on his patients, notes nothing about his supposedly famous father-in-law's illness (if any) or death).
Wriothesley dies of a fever, just days after his eldest son died of the same cause and in the same place, while engaged in a military campaign at Bergen op Zoom in the Low Countries in November of 1624 (aged 51 years).
Thus, either Shaksper's life's dates or the premises of this sonnet simply make no sense--as they are mutually incompatible.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
-------------------
William Shaksper, supposedly famed poet and playwright, is believed to have been born in 1564 and the third Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, eight years and about six months later, in 1573.
Shaksper (in Stratford on Avon, we're to suppose) dies at the age of 52 (of unknown causes) in 1616. (His son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, a medical doctor who for years kept a notebook of commentary on his patients, notes nothing about his supposedly famous father-in-law's illness (if any) or death).
Wriothesley dies of a fever, just days after his eldest son died of the same cause and in the same place, while engaged in a military campaign at Bergen op Zoom in the Low Countries in November of 1624 (aged 51 years).
Thus, either Shaksper's life's dates or the premises of this sonnet simply make no sense--as they are mutually incompatible.
10proximity1
Sonnet LXXIV
Here, again, the author--as an aged father might to his son--takes up his pen to prepare the younger for his life ahead after his, the author's, death has come and the younger looks at life ahead without him.
The plain meaning here is that this, as a matter repeatedly addressed, is one which is now present in both their minds--the author's death is a current, not a distant, prospect. If there had been thought to have been ample years ahead of him, he'd not have been so intent on relating this then--since to do that should have been a morbidly premature and strange thing to do.
Thus, just so: for William Shaksper to have addressed this to Wriothesley--besides all the other oddities it should present--should have been, at his age, morbidly premature and strange.
Not so, on the other hand, for Oxford, who, as one with a father's aged perspective on Wriothesley, died a good twenty years before his young correspondent.
We also see one more indication here--if we needed one--that the author regards his writings as the best part of himself. His body he is ready to imagine decomposed. While for his friend, he'll live on in these lines--just as the author hopes.
From these facts we should expect that the author was of a mind to take due care for the disposition of his writings--as, in this very sonnet he's envisioning his own death before very much more time has passed. We have every reason to suppose that Wriothesley should have been no less careful in preserving the originals sent to him. He probably had entrusted his papers and affairs to close family before leaving for the military campaign in the Netherlands. Thus, we should expect that this person followed Wriothesley's instructions upon learning of his death and that of his eldest son.
As for Shakespeare's--the author's, not Shaksper the illiterate Stratford business man--instructions, the sonnets are published to the reading world bearing the strange publisher's dedication--complete with odd and unique features, the full stops and the very particular lineation--
indicating demarcation as though to aid one who is to count up the discrete terms for some reason :
Without this line formatting and spacing, without the unique spelling of "onlie" (only), spelled "onelie" everywhere else, and, most of all, without the strange full-stops, which have no apparent purpose otherwise, the suggestion here of an encrypted message should be certainly missed--and even in this presentation, it was routinely missed.
But the typesetter and printer, Thomas Thorpe, or another under his direction, was meticulously careful in precisely setting up and printing this page according to strict instructions.
By doing so, the author ensured that both his own name and that of Wriothesley were encrypted in clues which should one day be discovered. Thereby making good the author's promise to make his fair friend's fame as near as possible to immortal--and reserving at last the credit due for authorship to himself.
"Secrets of the Dedication to Shakespeare's Sonnets," by John M. Rollett; The Oxfordian, volume II, 1999.
http://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/Oxfordian1999_Rollett_...
More over, had William Shaksper of Straford on Avon been the real author, there'd have been no need to conceal his identity--his name or a name like his already had been associated with the poems and published with these sonnets.
Thus, the revelation of encryption can only indcate that the name on the title page is not to be credited.
But be contented: when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee:
The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me:
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered.
The worth of that is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.
Here, again, the author--as an aged father might to his son--takes up his pen to prepare the younger for his life ahead after his, the author's, death has come and the younger looks at life ahead without him.
The plain meaning here is that this, as a matter repeatedly addressed, is one which is now present in both their minds--the author's death is a current, not a distant, prospect. If there had been thought to have been ample years ahead of him, he'd not have been so intent on relating this then--since to do that should have been a morbidly premature and strange thing to do.
Thus, just so: for William Shaksper to have addressed this to Wriothesley--besides all the other oddities it should present--should have been, at his age, morbidly premature and strange.
Not so, on the other hand, for Oxford, who, as one with a father's aged perspective on Wriothesley, died a good twenty years before his young correspondent.
We also see one more indication here--if we needed one--that the author regards his writings as the best part of himself. His body he is ready to imagine decomposed. While for his friend, he'll live on in these lines--just as the author hopes.
From these facts we should expect that the author was of a mind to take due care for the disposition of his writings--as, in this very sonnet he's envisioning his own death before very much more time has passed. We have every reason to suppose that Wriothesley should have been no less careful in preserving the originals sent to him. He probably had entrusted his papers and affairs to close family before leaving for the military campaign in the Netherlands. Thus, we should expect that this person followed Wriothesley's instructions upon learning of his death and that of his eldest son.
As for Shakespeare's--the author's, not Shaksper the illiterate Stratford business man--instructions, the sonnets are published to the reading world bearing the strange publisher's dedication--complete with odd and unique features, the full stops and the very particular lineation--
indicating demarcation as though to aid one who is to count up the discrete terms for some reason :
By William Shakespeare, Thomas Thorpe - Shake-Speare's Sonnets, quarto published by Thomas Thorpe, London, 1609, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17354871
Without this line formatting and spacing, without the unique spelling of "onlie" (only), spelled "onelie" everywhere else, and, most of all, without the strange full-stops, which have no apparent purpose otherwise, the suggestion here of an encrypted message should be certainly missed--and even in this presentation, it was routinely missed.
But the typesetter and printer, Thomas Thorpe, or another under his direction, was meticulously careful in precisely setting up and printing this page according to strict instructions.
By doing so, the author ensured that both his own name and that of Wriothesley were encrypted in clues which should one day be discovered. Thereby making good the author's promise to make his fair friend's fame as near as possible to immortal--and reserving at last the credit due for authorship to himself.
"Secrets of the Dedication to Shakespeare's Sonnets," by John M. Rollett; The Oxfordian, volume II, 1999.
http://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/Oxfordian1999_Rollett_...
More over, had William Shaksper of Straford on Avon been the real author, there'd have been no need to conceal his identity--his name or a name like his already had been associated with the poems and published with these sonnets.
Thus, the revelation of encryption can only indcate that the name on the title page is not to be credited.
11proximity1
☆¤☆Sonnet LXXVI ☆¤☆
The author of the plays and poems of “Shake-speare” had always in mind two main audiences. The first audience consisted of his contemporaries—his noble peers at court, in the first place, and others, gentry and commoners, who knew he knew personally. The second audience, far more vast and of lasting importance, was that of all future generations, all of posterity. For his sonnets, he had the additional audience of his primary correspondent, to whom the sonnets were addressed and sent, Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton.
But Oxford, the author, neither expected nor ever intended that during his own lifetime he should become known to the general public at large as the author of the poems, plays and sonnets of “Shake-speare.” There were, of course, numerous friends and peers who knew him to be the real author behind the name. These included many nobles, and, most notably, his first wife, Anne Cecil and her family, the Herbert and Sidney families, and others, gentry and merchants, artists and fellow writers, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, his lover and the likely figure of the Dark Lady of the sonnets, Aemilia Bassano (1569-1645) and his second wife, Elizabeth Trentham. But none of these would or could dare to reveal Oxford's identity as the author to people outside the closed circle of family, friends and peers who already knew.
Therefore, to reach his largest audience, posterity, and, as he'd intended, become known at last as the author, Oxford had to leave clever allusions and clues to his identity in his plays and sonnets.
Sonnet LXXVI is a prime example of this. It has the distinct audiences addressed specifically in its text. The first part is addressed specifically to posterity—today, we are its intended audience. There is no reason for the author to have addressed these words in a posthumous publication to the addressee, Henry Wriothesley,
“Why is my verse so
barren of new pride,
So far from variation
or quick change?”
That is a question he could have discussed directly with Wriothesley had this been a matter of particular interest to them. But it wasn't. Explaining his authorial style to his peers—or even to posterity—is hardly something that the literary genius Oxford, who invented his own style to suit himself, writing as“Shake-peare,” would worry about. His rank was safe, his genius was already frankly acknowledged by anyone whose opinion counted in his own time. He had no need to win over literary critics then or later.
These introductory words are there to set up what he is addressing to us—all things already well known and understood by his friend, the addressee. That is why, we should pay close attention to what follows.
“Why with the time do
I not glance aside
To new-found
methods and to
compounds strange?”
This striking question is itself followed by a prime example of one of his many new-found methods and compounds strange which are the very signature of his style. So, as he has just done something that he only a moment earlier tells us that he does not do, we should regard this as holding some special meaning—perhaps there is something more to the face-value of these words, for they contain a punned allusion to his identity:
"I" "not " "glance" "aside."
A glance is the shifting laterally of the eyes-- also referred to in Shakespeare as "spheres" :
sphere (n.) 5 (plural) orbits (of the eye), sockets
So, to "glance aside" suggests an action also described "to shake one's spheres. "
But we're given that "Why do "I"
"not "glance aside"? why am I not "shake spheres?"
and, further, the following words.
“Why write I still all
one, ever the same,
And keep invention in
a noted weed,” …
Play only a little with these words—and Oxford played quite a lot with his words—and it isn't too farfetched to find,
Why! I still write alone. “all one”-- “Shake-speare” and I are one, --E. - Ver (Edward Vere)-- (and) the same.
(And why do I) Keep invention (fiction, make-believe) in a noted weed, …
This is a punned allusion : the fiction of his work is all kept confined to “a noted weed,” punned language for “a Not-Edward.” The fact, indeed, the truth ( “VERO NIHIL VERIUS,” Oxford's motto, “Nothing truer than truth.”) is in Vere, while invention, fiction, the made-up, all of that is kept in a “Not-Edward.” And the pen-name Shake-speare, as well as the Stratford on Avon man linked to it constitute the invention, the “Not-Edward.” Wriothesley should have laughed to read these lines. So should have Oxford's family and friends in the know. We, too, should laugh at them if we understand their hidden import. Though clever and funny, none of this should have come as news to Wriothesley. So why did the author go to such trouble to hide allusions to his identity in this sonnet when its recipient knew him well? Obviously, these words are addressed to Oxford's readers in future generations.
A second punned allusion comes with,
" That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?" ...
where "every" alludes to "E. Vere" and "word," to "Edward." thus,
" E ver + word " "doth almost tell my name."
By what stretches of the imagination does every word of Shakes-speare "almost tell (the) name" of the man from Stratford on Avon? Since that name is already on the title page of the published Sonnets--and since the recipient--whoever he was--and the author--whoever he was--were obviously intimate friends, what possible point should there have been in addressing these words only to those who already knew their author personally?
I can think of none. These lines only make sense as the author's cryptic message to reveal his identity as Edward de Vere--the same name revealed in the encrypted dedication to "these ensving sonnets"--and to reveal it to posterity: that is, these words are addressed specifically to future readers who don't know that Oxford is their author and who'd have no other means of discovering it than by these clues.
All of this taken together suggests something else to us:
Oxford would have expected his identity to have been discovered by readers of the original edition of the sonnets--that is, owners and readers of T. Thorpe's edition. That follows from the fact that all the key clues--apart from those such as are contained within the verses themselves--depend on the rendering of the dedication exactly as Thorpe published it. In later editions, as soon as the 18th century, the Sonnets' dedication began to be presented in a corrupted format, making it impossible to notice and decipher the clues.
-------------------------------
Some key terms:
(Source:
http://www.shakespeareswords.com )
Glossary : http://www.shakespeareswords.com/Glossary.aspx
argument
argument (n.) 1 subject of conversation, subject-matter, topic
argument (n.) 2 story, subject, plot
argument (n.) 3 subject, point, theme, target
argument (n.) 4 discussion, debate, dialogue
argument (n.) 5 quarrel, dispute, point of contention
argument (n.) 6 proof, evidence, demonstration
argument (n.) 7 proposition, logical deduction
argument (n.) 8 cause, reason (for a dispute)
argument (1):
AW II.iii.7 (Parolles to Bertram and Lafew, of the King's cure) 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times
1H4 II.ii.93 (Prince Hal to Poins) could thou and I rob the thieves ... it would be argument for a week
2H4 V.ii.23 (Warwick to Prince John) our argument / Is all too heavy to admit much talk
H5 III.vii.34 (Dauphin to Orleans, of his horse) It is a theme ... turns the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all
KL II.i.8 (Curan to Edmund, of the news) they are yet but ear-kissing arguments
LLL III.i.103 (Armado to Mote) How did this argument begin?
MA I.i.236 (Don Pedro to Benedick) thou wilt prove a notable argument
Sonn 38.3 thou ... pour'st into my verse, / Thine own sweet argument
Sonn 76.10 you and love are still my argument
Sonn 79.5 thy lovely argument / Deserves the travail of a worthier pen
argument (6):
E3 IV.vii.11 (Prince Edward to King John, of his remark that he was conquered by fortune not force) An argument that heaven aids the right
H5 IV.iii.113 (King Henry to Montjoy) There's not a piece of feather in our host - / Good argument, I hope, we will not fly
1H6 V.i.46 (King to Ambassadors, of the French princess) In argument and proof of which contract, / Bear her this jewel
2H6 I.ii.32 Duchess to Gloucester, of his dream an argument / That he that breaks a stick of Gloucester's grove / Shall lose his head for his presumption
2H6 III.i.241 (Suffolk to all, of Gloucester) we have but trivial argument, / More than mistrust, that shows him worthy death
LLL I.ii.164 (Armado alone) I shall be forsworn, which is a great argument of falsehood, if I love
MA II.iii.227 (Benedick alone, of Beatrice being fair, virtuous and wise) it is ... no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her
MW II.ii.236 (Ford as Brook to Falstaff, of Mistress Ford) my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves
Tim II.ii.183 (Timon to Flavius, of his friends) If I would broach the vessels of my love, / And try the argument of hearts, by borrowing (or: subject-matter)
TN III.ii.10 (Fabian to Sir Andrew, of Olivia) This was a great argument of love in her toward you
invention (n.) 6
fiction, fabrication, contrivance
AW III.vi.90 (First Lord to Bertram, of Parolles) (he will) return with an invention
AW IV.i.26 (Parolles to himself, of his lying) It must be a very plausive invention that carries it
Mac III.i.32 (Macbeth to Banquo, of Malcolm and Donalbain) filling their hearers / With strange invention
proceed (v.) 4 result, arise, come from
Cym III.v.59 (Queen alone, of Pisanio having her drug) I pray his absence / Proceed by swallowing that
spheres
A Midsummer Night's Dream MND II.i.153 And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
Antony and Cleopatra AC V.ii.84 As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
As You Like It AYL II.vii.6 We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.
Hamlet Ham I.v.17 Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
King John KJ V.vii.74 Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,
Pericles Per V.i.229 The music of the spheres! List, my Marina!
Romeo and Juliet RJ II.ii.17 To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
The Two Noble Kinsmen TNK V.i.114 Had almost drawn their spheres, that what was life
Twelfth Night TN III.i.107.1 Than music from the spheres.
Poems 2 Results Show results by
A Lover's Complaint LC.23 As they did batt'ry to the spheres intend:
Sonnets Sonn.119.7 How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitt
weed (n.) 1 (plural) garments, dress, clothes
weed (n.) 2 garment, piece of clothing
Cor II.iii.220 (Sicinius to Citizens, of Coriolanus) With what contempt he wore the humble weed
Luc 196 (Tarquin to himself) Let fair humanity abhor the deed / That spots and stains love's modest snow-white weed
MND II.i.256 (Oberon to Puck) the snake throws her enamelled skin, / Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in
Per IV.i.13 (Marina to herself) I will rob Tellus of her weed (i.e. her flowers)
Sonn 2.4 Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now, / Will be a tottered weed of small worth held
Sonn 76.6 (of his verse) Why write I still all one, ever the same, / And keep invention in a noted weed
-----------------------
Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same ,
And keep invention in a noted weed ,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?
O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
The author of the plays and poems of “Shake-speare” had always in mind two main audiences. The first audience consisted of his contemporaries—his noble peers at court, in the first place, and others, gentry and commoners, who knew he knew personally. The second audience, far more vast and of lasting importance, was that of all future generations, all of posterity. For his sonnets, he had the additional audience of his primary correspondent, to whom the sonnets were addressed and sent, Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton.
But Oxford, the author, neither expected nor ever intended that during his own lifetime he should become known to the general public at large as the author of the poems, plays and sonnets of “Shake-speare.” There were, of course, numerous friends and peers who knew him to be the real author behind the name. These included many nobles, and, most notably, his first wife, Anne Cecil and her family, the Herbert and Sidney families, and others, gentry and merchants, artists and fellow writers, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, his lover and the likely figure of the Dark Lady of the sonnets, Aemilia Bassano (1569-1645) and his second wife, Elizabeth Trentham. But none of these would or could dare to reveal Oxford's identity as the author to people outside the closed circle of family, friends and peers who already knew.
Therefore, to reach his largest audience, posterity, and, as he'd intended, become known at last as the author, Oxford had to leave clever allusions and clues to his identity in his plays and sonnets.
Sonnet LXXVI is a prime example of this. It has the distinct audiences addressed specifically in its text. The first part is addressed specifically to posterity—today, we are its intended audience. There is no reason for the author to have addressed these words in a posthumous publication to the addressee, Henry Wriothesley,
“Why is my verse so
barren of new pride,
So far from variation
or quick change?”
That is a question he could have discussed directly with Wriothesley had this been a matter of particular interest to them. But it wasn't. Explaining his authorial style to his peers—or even to posterity—is hardly something that the literary genius Oxford, who invented his own style to suit himself, writing as“Shake-peare,” would worry about. His rank was safe, his genius was already frankly acknowledged by anyone whose opinion counted in his own time. He had no need to win over literary critics then or later.
These introductory words are there to set up what he is addressing to us—all things already well known and understood by his friend, the addressee. That is why, we should pay close attention to what follows.
“Why with the time do
I not glance aside
To new-found
methods and to
compounds strange?”
This striking question is itself followed by a prime example of one of his many new-found methods and compounds strange which are the very signature of his style. So, as he has just done something that he only a moment earlier tells us that he does not do, we should regard this as holding some special meaning—perhaps there is something more to the face-value of these words, for they contain a punned allusion to his identity:
"I" "not " "glance" "aside."
A glance is the shifting laterally of the eyes-- also referred to in Shakespeare as "spheres" :
sphere (n.) 5 (plural) orbits (of the eye), sockets
So, to "glance aside" suggests an action also described "to shake one's spheres. "
But we're given that "Why do "I"
"not "glance aside"? why am I not "shake spheres?"
and, further, the following words.
“Why write I still all
one, ever the same,
And keep invention in
a noted weed,” …
Play only a little with these words—and Oxford played quite a lot with his words—and it isn't too farfetched to find,
Why! I still write alone. “all one”-- “Shake-speare” and I are one, --E. - Ver (Edward Vere)-- (and) the same.
(And why do I) Keep invention (fiction, make-believe) in a noted weed, …
This is a punned allusion : the fiction of his work is all kept confined to “a noted weed,” punned language for “a Not-Edward.” The fact, indeed, the truth ( “VERO NIHIL VERIUS,” Oxford's motto, “Nothing truer than truth.”) is in Vere, while invention, fiction, the made-up, all of that is kept in a “Not-Edward.” And the pen-name Shake-speare, as well as the Stratford on Avon man linked to it constitute the invention, the “Not-Edward.” Wriothesley should have laughed to read these lines. So should have Oxford's family and friends in the know. We, too, should laugh at them if we understand their hidden import. Though clever and funny, none of this should have come as news to Wriothesley. So why did the author go to such trouble to hide allusions to his identity in this sonnet when its recipient knew him well? Obviously, these words are addressed to Oxford's readers in future generations.
A second punned allusion comes with,
" That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?" ...
where "every" alludes to "E. Vere" and "word," to "Edward." thus,
" E ver + word " "doth almost tell my name."
By what stretches of the imagination does every word of Shakes-speare "almost tell (the) name" of the man from Stratford on Avon? Since that name is already on the title page of the published Sonnets--and since the recipient--whoever he was--and the author--whoever he was--were obviously intimate friends, what possible point should there have been in addressing these words only to those who already knew their author personally?
I can think of none. These lines only make sense as the author's cryptic message to reveal his identity as Edward de Vere--the same name revealed in the encrypted dedication to "these ensving sonnets"--and to reveal it to posterity: that is, these words are addressed specifically to future readers who don't know that Oxford is their author and who'd have no other means of discovering it than by these clues.
All of this taken together suggests something else to us:
Oxford would have expected his identity to have been discovered by readers of the original edition of the sonnets--that is, owners and readers of T. Thorpe's edition. That follows from the fact that all the key clues--apart from those such as are contained within the verses themselves--depend on the rendering of the dedication exactly as Thorpe published it. In later editions, as soon as the 18th century, the Sonnets' dedication began to be presented in a corrupted format, making it impossible to notice and decipher the clues.
-------------------------------
Some key terms:
(Source:
http://www.shakespeareswords.com )
Glossary : http://www.shakespeareswords.com/Glossary.aspx
argument
argument (n.) 1 subject of conversation, subject-matter, topic
argument (n.) 2 story, subject, plot
argument (n.) 3 subject, point, theme, target
argument (n.) 4 discussion, debate, dialogue
argument (n.) 5 quarrel, dispute, point of contention
argument (n.) 6 proof, evidence, demonstration
argument (n.) 7 proposition, logical deduction
argument (n.) 8 cause, reason (for a dispute)
argument (1):
AW II.iii.7 (Parolles to Bertram and Lafew, of the King's cure) 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times
1H4 II.ii.93 (Prince Hal to Poins) could thou and I rob the thieves ... it would be argument for a week
2H4 V.ii.23 (Warwick to Prince John) our argument / Is all too heavy to admit much talk
H5 III.vii.34 (Dauphin to Orleans, of his horse) It is a theme ... turns the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all
KL II.i.8 (Curan to Edmund, of the news) they are yet but ear-kissing arguments
LLL III.i.103 (Armado to Mote) How did this argument begin?
MA I.i.236 (Don Pedro to Benedick) thou wilt prove a notable argument
Sonn 38.3 thou ... pour'st into my verse, / Thine own sweet argument
Sonn 76.10 you and love are still my argument
Sonn 79.5 thy lovely argument / Deserves the travail of a worthier pen
argument (6):
E3 IV.vii.11 (Prince Edward to King John, of his remark that he was conquered by fortune not force) An argument that heaven aids the right
H5 IV.iii.113 (King Henry to Montjoy) There's not a piece of feather in our host - / Good argument, I hope, we will not fly
1H6 V.i.46 (King to Ambassadors, of the French princess) In argument and proof of which contract, / Bear her this jewel
2H6 I.ii.32 Duchess to Gloucester, of his dream an argument / That he that breaks a stick of Gloucester's grove / Shall lose his head for his presumption
2H6 III.i.241 (Suffolk to all, of Gloucester) we have but trivial argument, / More than mistrust, that shows him worthy death
LLL I.ii.164 (Armado alone) I shall be forsworn, which is a great argument of falsehood, if I love
MA II.iii.227 (Benedick alone, of Beatrice being fair, virtuous and wise) it is ... no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her
MW II.ii.236 (Ford as Brook to Falstaff, of Mistress Ford) my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves
Tim II.ii.183 (Timon to Flavius, of his friends) If I would broach the vessels of my love, / And try the argument of hearts, by borrowing (or: subject-matter)
TN III.ii.10 (Fabian to Sir Andrew, of Olivia) This was a great argument of love in her toward you
invention (n.) 6
fiction, fabrication, contrivance
AW III.vi.90 (First Lord to Bertram, of Parolles) (he will) return with an invention
AW IV.i.26 (Parolles to himself, of his lying) It must be a very plausive invention that carries it
Mac III.i.32 (Macbeth to Banquo, of Malcolm and Donalbain) filling their hearers / With strange invention
proceed (v.) 4 result, arise, come from
Cym III.v.59 (Queen alone, of Pisanio having her drug) I pray his absence / Proceed by swallowing that
spheres
A Midsummer Night's Dream MND II.i.153 And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
Antony and Cleopatra AC V.ii.84 As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
As You Like It AYL II.vii.6 We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.
Hamlet Ham I.v.17 Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
King John KJ V.vii.74 Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,
Pericles Per V.i.229 The music of the spheres! List, my Marina!
Romeo and Juliet RJ II.ii.17 To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
The Two Noble Kinsmen TNK V.i.114 Had almost drawn their spheres, that what was life
Twelfth Night TN III.i.107.1 Than music from the spheres.
Poems 2 Results Show results by
A Lover's Complaint LC.23 As they did batt'ry to the spheres intend:
Sonnets Sonn.119.7 How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitt
weed (n.) 1 (plural) garments, dress, clothes
weed (n.) 2 garment, piece of clothing
Cor II.iii.220 (Sicinius to Citizens, of Coriolanus) With what contempt he wore the humble weed
Luc 196 (Tarquin to himself) Let fair humanity abhor the deed / That spots and stains love's modest snow-white weed
MND II.i.256 (Oberon to Puck) the snake throws her enamelled skin, / Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in
Per IV.i.13 (Marina to herself) I will rob Tellus of her weed (i.e. her flowers)
Sonn 2.4 Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now, / Will be a tottered weed of small worth held
Sonn 76.6 (of his verse) Why write I still all one, ever the same, / And keep invention in a noted weed
-----------------------
12proximity1
Sonnet LXXVIII
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Sonnet LXXIX
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Sonnet LXXX
¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤
These three sonnets share a common theme and so are treated together here.
One of many things that is lost--or, rather, never gained, and, thus missing-- from the impoverished "picture" of our author as foisted upon us by the Shaksper dogma is in evidence here in these three sonnets: a human weakness--in this case, envy and some mild jealousy.
So bare is the Stratford Shaksper skeleton that we're commonly not used to endowing it with such human characteristics as these. Instead, these things simply don't typically come to mind. Many Stratfordians--as Stephanie Hopkins Hughes reminds her readers--simply don't really care enough about the author's personality to actually flesh out his weaknesses as well as his strengths. They live with a one-size-fits-all cartoon of human nature which allows them all to feel comfortable with a vague outline.
The more detail there was, the greater the risk that people should have to deal with aspects of personality which they find less than charming or other than admirable. In embracing a cartoon, they're spared that.
I confess that I am amazed at the spectacle of such a genius so helplessly smitten with affection for this young man. It is abundantly clear that Oxford is fawning and needy beyond any seemly degree between two people. And yet this is the same man who writes with such searching insight of others' emotions and their failures to be masters of themselves.
Here we see our literary genius weak, insecure, speaking of his failure to measure up as a writer to others he regards as rivals for young Wriothesley's attentions. This kind of thing is not easy to square with idea of Shakespeare as such a commanding force of intelligence and emotion. We'll find him only a relatively short time later, in sonnet LXXXVII, writing of giving up on his relationship as he'd hoped it could be or could remain :
Then, in sonnets which relate to the "Dark Lady", we have more evidence of his human frailties through his account of their variable relations-- with Wriothesley himself even coming between the author and his Dark Lady as he takes up an affair with her. With only four years and ten months separating their ages, there is nothing at all surprising in the fact that this remarkably handsome young man,Wriothesley, and the remarkably beautiful and much-desired Aemilia Bassano (later, Lanier) should take each other up in a romantic affair--at Oxford's loss.
So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly
Have added feathers to the learned's wing
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine and born of thee:
In others' works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
But thou art all my art and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Sonnet LXXIX
Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
But now my gracious numbers are decay'd
And my sick Muse doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
He robs thee of and pays it thee again.
He lends thee virtue and he stole that word
From thy behavior; beauty doth he give
And found it in thy cheek; he can afford
No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.
Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Sonnet LXXX
O, how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame!
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark inferior far to his
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building and of goodly pride:
Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this; my love was my decay.
¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤
These three sonnets share a common theme and so are treated together here.
One of many things that is lost--or, rather, never gained, and, thus missing-- from the impoverished "picture" of our author as foisted upon us by the Shaksper dogma is in evidence here in these three sonnets: a human weakness--in this case, envy and some mild jealousy.
So bare is the Stratford Shaksper skeleton that we're commonly not used to endowing it with such human characteristics as these. Instead, these things simply don't typically come to mind. Many Stratfordians--as Stephanie Hopkins Hughes reminds her readers--simply don't really care enough about the author's personality to actually flesh out his weaknesses as well as his strengths. They live with a one-size-fits-all cartoon of human nature which allows them all to feel comfortable with a vague outline.
The more detail there was, the greater the risk that people should have to deal with aspects of personality which they find less than charming or other than admirable. In embracing a cartoon, they're spared that.
I confess that I am amazed at the spectacle of such a genius so helplessly smitten with affection for this young man. It is abundantly clear that Oxford is fawning and needy beyond any seemly degree between two people. And yet this is the same man who writes with such searching insight of others' emotions and their failures to be masters of themselves.
Here we see our literary genius weak, insecure, speaking of his failure to measure up as a writer to others he regards as rivals for young Wriothesley's attentions. This kind of thing is not easy to square with idea of Shakespeare as such a commanding force of intelligence and emotion. We'll find him only a relatively short time later, in sonnet LXXXVII, writing of giving up on his relationship as he'd hoped it could be or could remain :
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? ...
Then, in sonnets which relate to the "Dark Lady", we have more evidence of his human frailties through his account of their variable relations-- with Wriothesley himself even coming between the author and his Dark Lady as he takes up an affair with her. With only four years and ten months separating their ages, there is nothing at all surprising in the fact that this remarkably handsome young man,Wriothesley, and the remarkably beautiful and much-desired Aemilia Bassano (later, Lanier) should take each other up in a romantic affair--at Oxford's loss.
13proximity1
Sonnet LXXXI
Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You still shall live--such virtue hath my pen--
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤
This is the clearest statement so far of the author's intentions for the destiny of these verses.
The sonnet reads as though the author has just come from a meeting with the people who, as executors of his estate, have agreed on the plan to handle the sonnets' publication--complete with the encrypted clues designed to reveal Wriothesley as the person to whom they are addressed so that, as promised here
"Your name from hence immortal life shall have,"...
"Your monument shall be my gentle verse,"...
--upon the first's death-- of either one or the other of them-- these verses shall be vouched safe in their publication. He writes with such assurance here that this is all now arranged, whatever may now happen.
Thus, the opening lines may be read as meaning,
"Either I shall survive you--in which case I'll write your epitaph
"Or you'll survive me-- But whichever of these may be the case,
From this moment forward, death cannot touch your memory."
How are we to understand
..."Although in me each part will be forgotten." ?
By "in me" the author is referring to "himself." But which "self"? Does he mean his pseudonymous "self," his mask-identity, "William Shake-speare"? Or is he referring to his real self, Edward Oxford? We must always read such references carefully for they may mean one or the other or both but in different and special senses.
And "forgotten" by whom? By their contemporaries then living? Or by posterity?
If Wriothesley's immortality is secured by the verses' lasting existence, then surely some author's name shall also survive with those verses. And since the clues we have--both in the sonnets' encrypted dedication as well as within allusions and punned meanings in the verses themselves--point to Oxford as the author, (as, just as surely, he'd have wanted to be the credited author) I believe that here, by "in me," the author is referring to his mask, "William Shakespeare."
So I believe we're to read,
..."Although in me, "William Shakespeare," each part will (eventually) be forgotten." --by future generations. An alternative reading is
"Although in me (or by me) (I.e., Edward), "each part"-- "epitaph" "memory," and "earthly burial," --referring to the mask "William Shakespeare," -- will be forgotten.
"Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,"...
That is, the pseudonym "William Shake-speare" and the stand-in person who lent his name as living cover for the pen-name, William Shaksper of Stratford on Avon, can have but a common grave in the earth since "I, once gone, to all the world must die."
That line is interesting not least for a distinction it suggests between "gone" and "dying."
" Your monument ...
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse ...
...When all the breathers of this world are dead;" ... --that is, when all our contemporaries are dead and gone--
" You still shall live ...
Where breath most breathes," :
"even in the mouths of men."
¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤
part :
part (n.) 1 quality, attribute, gift, accomplishment of mind or body
part (n.) 2 side, camp, party
part (n.) 3 remnant, fragment, vestige
part (n.) 4 action, conduct, behaviour
part (n.) 5 territory, region, province
part (v.) 1 depart from, leave, quit
part (v.) 2 divide, share, split up
part (v.) 3 cleave, break, tear
part (v.) 4 distinguish between, differentiate
part away (v.) depart, leave
part, part of (adv.) partly, in some measure
Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You still shall live--such virtue hath my pen--
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤
This is the clearest statement so far of the author's intentions for the destiny of these verses.
The sonnet reads as though the author has just come from a meeting with the people who, as executors of his estate, have agreed on the plan to handle the sonnets' publication--complete with the encrypted clues designed to reveal Wriothesley as the person to whom they are addressed so that, as promised here
"Your name from hence immortal life shall have,"...
"Your monument shall be my gentle verse,"...
--upon the first's death-- of either one or the other of them-- these verses shall be vouched safe in their publication. He writes with such assurance here that this is all now arranged, whatever may now happen.
Thus, the opening lines may be read as meaning,
"Either I shall survive you--in which case I'll write your epitaph
"Or you'll survive me-- But whichever of these may be the case,
From this moment forward, death cannot touch your memory."
How are we to understand
..."Although in me each part will be forgotten." ?
By "in me" the author is referring to "himself." But which "self"? Does he mean his pseudonymous "self," his mask-identity, "William Shake-speare"? Or is he referring to his real self, Edward Oxford? We must always read such references carefully for they may mean one or the other or both but in different and special senses.
And "forgotten" by whom? By their contemporaries then living? Or by posterity?
If Wriothesley's immortality is secured by the verses' lasting existence, then surely some author's name shall also survive with those verses. And since the clues we have--both in the sonnets' encrypted dedication as well as within allusions and punned meanings in the verses themselves--point to Oxford as the author, (as, just as surely, he'd have wanted to be the credited author) I believe that here, by "in me," the author is referring to his mask, "William Shakespeare."
So I believe we're to read,
..."Although in me, "William Shakespeare," each part will (eventually) be forgotten." --by future generations. An alternative reading is
"Although in me (or by me) (I.e., Edward), "each part"-- "epitaph" "memory," and "earthly burial," --referring to the mask "William Shakespeare," -- will be forgotten.
"Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,"...
That is, the pseudonym "William Shake-speare" and the stand-in person who lent his name as living cover for the pen-name, William Shaksper of Stratford on Avon, can have but a common grave in the earth since "I, once gone, to all the world must die."
That line is interesting not least for a distinction it suggests between "gone" and "dying."
" Your monument ...
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse ...
...When all the breathers of this world are dead;" ... --that is, when all our contemporaries are dead and gone--
" You still shall live ...
Where breath most breathes," :
"even in the mouths of men."
¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤ ¤¤¤
part :
part (n.) 1 quality, attribute, gift, accomplishment of mind or body
part (n.) 2 side, camp, party
part (n.) 3 remnant, fragment, vestige
part (n.) 4 action, conduct, behaviour
part (n.) 5 territory, region, province
part (v.) 1 depart from, leave, quit
part (v.) 2 divide, share, split up
part (v.) 3 cleave, break, tear
part (v.) 4 distinguish between, differentiate
part away (v.) depart, leave
part, part of (adv.) partly, in some measure
14proximity1
Re :
"Thomas Cromwell, who rose to become Henry VIII's chancellor was the son of a 'humble' blacksmith."
And--to return to the point made above-- what are and where are Cromwell's immortal writings?
Native genius and unbridled imagination cannot alone make for a proficiency in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian.
The simply social facts of Elizabethan life are that only the most amazing exceptions allowed the possibility for a commoner to gain even a fraction of that learning. That's not _our_ "snobbery," It's our clear-eyed view of the society as it was then .
How'd you like a remote arm-chair psychoanalysis of your motives for stubbornly sticking to the Stratford fairy tales? :
Insecure people latch on to the hope and faith in the imagined common origins of "Shakespeare" as a prop, a balm, as though his simple origins mean that the acknowledged genius of the author--whoever he really was--redounds to the desperately sought and needed "credit" of every average man and woman today .
This is tantamount to an archaic Jesus-fixation transferred to the secular figure of Shakespeare. It's morally and intellectually unbecoming. And it's completely unnecessary:
The ingenious author of the works of "Shakespeare" shared our mortal frailties and failings. He knew doubt and insecurity just as we do. He was not an Olympian god-- but he had read a lot about them in original Latin and Greek
Find some home-grown source for your flagging sense of self-worth. A nobleman wrote Shakespeare. That fact does _not_ exalt noblemen _generally_ --despite the naive and insecure creeping suspicion that it does. And Shakespeare's own work tells us that.
Sheesh!
----------------------------
Added: 22 April, 2016
a portion of my reply to a comment in a "discussion" thread at The Guardian (London) website :
..." There's no particular virtue in the author's having been born an Earl. It's important here only because it was the way he gained his exemplary education.
"It's you and fellow Stratfordians who are the class snobs in this matter. Your theories imply that you actually take nobility seriously as some real distinction of merit-- and, from this assumption, you find ample motive for your patent but ridiculous envy. You cling as though desperate to the place of William Shaksper as "our entry" in the competitive class "sweepstakes." That's disgraceful. It suggests that you can find nothing of the commonality you should naturally feel with the author if it happens that he was born a nobleman. That is cheap and petty class snobbery on your parts."
pfg2powell (replies to) Chuckman
8
9
'Although I do count myself as one of those with a strong suspicion someone else wrote the plays, using the actor and sometimes writer as his cover.
'The knowledge about high affairs in the plays just seems impossible for a man of Shakespeare's background.'
"I do wonder why folk can't accept that a man from Stratford, a farmer's grandson who had no university education, can't be the man who wrote Shakespeare's plays. Why not, exactly? We know the writer had a great imagination and a very good mind, we know he had an unusual sensitivity so why can't an 'ordinary' Warwickshire lad have these qualities? Thomas Cromwell, who rose to become Henry VIII's chancellor was the son of a 'humble' blacksmith. There is still something distinctly snobbish about the suggestion that 'Shakespeare couldn't have known all the royal/court/toff stuff. As a member of James I's Kings Men, he most certainly had access to court. And whoever wrote those plays knew a hell of a lot about acting, the theatre and what worked on stage."
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/apr/19/social-climbing-shotgun-weddings-...
"Thomas Cromwell, who rose to become Henry VIII's chancellor was the son of a 'humble' blacksmith."
And--to return to the point made above-- what are and where are Cromwell's immortal writings?
Native genius and unbridled imagination cannot alone make for a proficiency in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian.
The simply social facts of Elizabethan life are that only the most amazing exceptions allowed the possibility for a commoner to gain even a fraction of that learning. That's not _our_ "snobbery," It's our clear-eyed view of the society as it was then .
How'd you like a remote arm-chair psychoanalysis of your motives for stubbornly sticking to the Stratford fairy tales? :
Insecure people latch on to the hope and faith in the imagined common origins of "Shakespeare" as a prop, a balm, as though his simple origins mean that the acknowledged genius of the author--whoever he really was--redounds to the desperately sought and needed "credit" of every average man and woman today .
This is tantamount to an archaic Jesus-fixation transferred to the secular figure of Shakespeare. It's morally and intellectually unbecoming. And it's completely unnecessary:
The ingenious author of the works of "Shakespeare" shared our mortal frailties and failings. He knew doubt and insecurity just as we do. He was not an Olympian god-- but he had read a lot about them in original Latin and Greek
Find some home-grown source for your flagging sense of self-worth. A nobleman wrote Shakespeare. That fact does _not_ exalt noblemen _generally_ --despite the naive and insecure creeping suspicion that it does. And Shakespeare's own work tells us that.
Sheesh!
----------------------------
Added: 22 April, 2016
a portion of my reply to a comment in a "discussion" thread at The Guardian (London) website :
..." There's no particular virtue in the author's having been born an Earl. It's important here only because it was the way he gained his exemplary education.
"It's you and fellow Stratfordians who are the class snobs in this matter. Your theories imply that you actually take nobility seriously as some real distinction of merit-- and, from this assumption, you find ample motive for your patent but ridiculous envy. You cling as though desperate to the place of William Shaksper as "our entry" in the competitive class "sweepstakes." That's disgraceful. It suggests that you can find nothing of the commonality you should naturally feel with the author if it happens that he was born a nobleman. That is cheap and petty class snobbery on your parts."
15TheHumbleOne
Writing as I am at 02:05 on 23/4/16 I'd just like to wish Proximity1 well on this doubtless personally fraught occasion.
A very happy "undeathday" to you.
A very happy "undeathday" to you.
16proximity1
>15 TheHumbleOne:
From an Ever-Reader to a never writer,
;^ )
"My name be buried where my body is.
And live no more to shame nor me nor you."
-- "Shake-speare" Sonnet LXXII
From an Ever-Reader to a never writer,
;^ )
"My name be buried where my body is.
And live no more to shame nor me nor you."
-- "Shake-speare" Sonnet LXXII
17Podras.
This video by Christopher Gaze was pointed out to me today. After a wonderful recitation of Bernard Levin's Quoting Shakespeare, the subject changes to Sonnet 18 and the sense of Gaze that it may have been an eulogy, possibly one written about Hamnet. That isn't an interpretation that had occurred to me before, but it's an interesting thought. On contemplation, it seems a good fit for that purpose.
18proximity1
Their relationship ranged across all friendship's hills and valleys: admiration, desire, companionship, self-deception, generosity, self-assurance, self-doubt, ecstasy, hope, despair, envy, jealousy, anger, levity, forgiveness, gain, loss and more.
The sonnets chronicle all these ups and downs of this relationship. We see the author describe himself as the emotional slave of his devotion to his friend; we see recounted unfaithfulness on each one's part at various times. We see references to the pain caused and felt, the regret for having caused that pain, reproaches for moral lapses, apologies offrered and accepted, promises made to not repeat past offences. We see a mistress of one become in turn the mistress of the other. All this and more is revealed in these sonnets.
The sonnets chronicle all these ups and downs of this relationship. We see the author describe himself as the emotional slave of his devotion to his friend; we see recounted unfaithfulness on each one's part at various times. We see references to the pain caused and felt, the regret for having caused that pain, reproaches for moral lapses, apologies offrered and accepted, promises made to not repeat past offences. We see a mistress of one become in turn the mistress of the other. All this and more is revealed in these sonnets.
Sonnet XXVI
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit:
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
Points on me graciously with fair aspect
And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me."
------------
Sonnet XXXIV
"Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak
That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross." ...
------
Sonnet XXXV
"No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss," ...
---------
Sonnet XXXVI
"Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain
Without thy help by me be borne alone." ...
----------
Sonnet XL
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes."
----------
Sonnet XLII
"That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:
Thou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her;
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me," ...
-----------
Sonnet LVII
"Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;" ...
-----------
Sonnet LVIII
"That god forbid that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!
O, let me suffer, being at your beck,
The imprison'd absence of your liberty;
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each cheque,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well."
------------
Sonnet LXI
Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?
O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake:
For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near."
------------
Among the remarkable things about these sonnets is that their import and meaning can be so woefully mistaken in our time. Some Stratfordian scholars--and even some who reject the Stratfordian views-- read these sonnets and actually imagine that they can be interpreted just as well as expressions of the author's pure inventive fancy. They take these verses, into which he poured his heart and soul to express himself fully, and they suppose they could as easily have little or no reference to the author's own real life. Thus, when the author writes in Sonnet XXI :
"O' let me, true in love, but truly write,"...
it's merely more of his flights of fancy, a part of his recreational writing, a pastime, an exercise--any of many other possibilities but not to be taken seriously at face value.
But such an interpretation, offered to dispose of difficult anomalies, raises more problems than it resolves. Supposing these sonnets don't refer to real people in their author's life, then there's no "fair youth" to be immortalised, nor any need for these verses to endure across the ages; there's no need to have left out a fictitious name for the identity of the fair youth or the "Dark Lady." Assuming they were the inventions of a self-absorbed creative writer, their author could have invented names for them as well. So why didn't he?
And why, then, have them published at all if they don't relate to anything or anyone real? Stratfordians have lectured us on the "fact" that fiction-writing was not yet known in Elizabethan times. So it cannot have been the vanity of a novelist that accounts for their publication. Why should these verses have been published--with all the attendant trouble they'd have produced if and when they came to the attention of their author's wife and children--if they were only a pastime's fancy? If there's neither need for nor interest in a literary monument for a legacy, why weren't these verses burned by their author or by his executors on his instructions in his will? So, again, if that theory is correct, why didn't he? And why, in that case, was a real monument erected to him? --for fiction-writing?
To so badly mistake them announces one as deaf to, dead to, much that moved the author of these verses. It is a poor reader and an even poorer interpreter who thinks these sonnets are other than the recounting of events and people in the life of their author.
It seems that Stratfordians cannot have applied even ordinary common sense to their picture of the verses and what they suggest about their theory of the author. We're told, for example, that the author of these exraordinarily revealing verses wrote them, and, upon his retirement from stage and writing desk, he returned to live out his days in his Stratford home—where there lived his wife, Anne (Hathaway) Shaksper, and their daughter Susanna, grown and married to John Hall, M.D. and daughter Judith, grown and married to Thomas Quiney. We are told that Anne could read—that she came from a family which were “nearly nobility.” (I was told this directly in the course of an on-line discussion (at The Guardian's (London) website) about Shaksper the Stratford man versus “Shakespeare”, the pen-name of Edward, Earl of Oxford.)
Now, then, we have to suppose that Shaksper, according to the Stratfordians' view of the supposed author of these verses, not only wrote them but he also suffered them to be published or he even collaborated in their publication—during his own lifetime. Reading them, we can hardly expect that he wouldn't have eventually wanted them to be published and widely known. After all, he tells the reader again and again that among his purposes here is, paramount, the immortalisation of the person he addresses within them.
One way or the other, they were registered with the Stationers' Company office which supervised and approved texts for publication.
Published in 1609, the sonnets are, with The Phoenix and the Turtle, (published in Robert Chester's Love's Martyr (1601)) and the two long poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) 1 and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) 2, among the earliest of “Shakepeare's” published works3 (by the author using that pen-name). How are we to imagine that, upon their publication and for years afterward, they escaped the notice of their author's own wife? Wouldn't someone at some point have informed her that her husband had written and had published a set of vividly emotional verses and dedicated them to someone—a “W.H."?—and wouldn't Mrs. Shaksper have learned not only that the sonnets recount her husband's deep and prolonged emotional enslavement to the lord of his love, this “W.H.,” but also that they contain revelations about another love, that with a mistress, whom he loved passionately and whom he ultimately lost to his other love, the same to whom the verses are dedicated? Anne Hathaway outlived her husband—the great poet and dramatist?—by seven years, dying in 1623. (What in the world did she say to her own two grown daughters, Judith and Susanna, when they came to read the sonnets by their renowned father? Mummy, is it true that Papa had a mistress? Did you know her? How could he!? Weren't you furious?--because, if they could read, how could they fail to notice the monument in Holy Trinity Church? Didn't they ever enter the church? Were they unaware that the monument was apparently in honour of their own father? Were they never asked about this? )
Didn't they talk to each other? When William returned to Stratford from London didn't his wife ask, “How was your day, dear?” What did he reply? “Fine” ? Suppose she'd asked if anything interesting had happened to him while he was away--”No, nothing.”
-------------
1: (From Wikipedia): "Venus and Adonis was entered into the Stationers' Register on 18 April 1593; less than two months later (1) the poem appeared in a quarto edition, published and printed by Richard Field, a Stratford-upon-Avon man and a close contemporary of Shakespeare. Field released a second quarto in 1594".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_and_Adonis_%28Shakespeare_poem%29..
2 : (From Wikipedia):
"The Rape of Lucrece was entered into the Stationers' Register on 9 May 1594, and published later that year, in a quarto printed by Richard Field for the bookseller John Harrison ("the Elder"); Harrison sold the book from his shop at the sign of the White Greyhound in St. Paul's Churchyard."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_Lucrece
3 : Plays published in Quarto:
(Note : In their earliest appearance (dated below), in this format, they did not necessarily bear the name "Shakespere" or any other name as author /
Source for titles and dates: Wikipedia : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_texts_of_Shakespeare%27s_works )
◆ Titus Andronicus, 1594, 1600, 1611(octavo)
◆ Henry VI, part 2, 1594 (The First Part of the Contention Betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster), 1600, 1619
◆ Henry VI, part 3, 1595 (The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York), 1600, 1619
◆ Edward III, 1596
◆ Romeo and Juliet, 1597, 1599, 1609
◆ Richard II, 1597, 1598, 1608, 1615
◆ Richard III, 1597, 1598, 1602, 1605, 1612, 1622
◆ Love's Labour's Lost, 1598
◆ Henry IV, part 1, 1598, 1599, 1604, 1608, 1613, 1622
◆ Henry IV, part 2, 1600
◆ Henry V, 1600, 1602, 1619
◆ The Merchant of Venice, 1600, 1619
◆ A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1600, 1619
◆ Much Ado About Nothing, 1600
◆ The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1602, 1619
◆ Hamlet, 1603, 1604, 1611
◆ King Lear, 1608, 1619
(more commentary on this post directly following below)
19proximity1
To continue the review of these sonnets in >18 proximity1:
for the problems they raise in the Stratfordian assumptions about their author --
Reading the sonnets above attentively, we find their author making direct references to his adored youthful friend's transgressions:
XXXV : ... "at that which thou hast done:"...
... "All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,"...
and his young friend's own sense of guilt and shame for those actions:
XXXIV ..."Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:" ...
XL ..."I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;" ...
These sonnets portray remarkable--not to say, truly extraordinary--things going on between an Earl whose youth and beauty are the talk of the courtiers around an aging queen, on the one hand and, if we're to believe the Stratfordian view, a young-- but still a bit elder to the Earl--and still very much unknown commoner from the rural town of Stratford on Avon on the other hand. Somehow--we can only take wild guesses at how--this Stratford man becomes as emotionally close as it's possible for two men their ages to be without being a homosexual couple in love. (We know, too, from the sonnets that they weren't that.) Such a scenario flies in the face of our common sense understanding of class distinctions and the constraints and assumptions that went with the privileges of rank by birth and royal appointment.
It is not that we cannot conceive of a high-ranking member of nobility meeting a commoner; nor is it inconceivable that a relationship might grow out of a chance meeting. The nobility had liasons which they had to keep secret because they involved people who were beyond propriety's bounds to hold a social relationship or at times much more than that. These would be known and understood as "dangerous" liasons. Careers and reputations depended on these remaining secret from anyone who'd not overlook their transgression of the social order. Only the reigning monarch herself or himself could openly get away with such behaviour--as, for example, Elizabeth's successor, James, did when he took for his companion Robert Kerr (Carr) (1587-1645). ...
There are several questions we should pose about the author "Shakespeare's" (as Stratfordians present him to us in the fellow from Stratford) relationship with his fair friend of the sonnets.
We ought to ask why the Stratford man, as "Shakespeare," could not have received the kind of public honours for his literary talent and genius which others, far inferior-- judging by a comparison of their work--received: knighthood, pensions, a place in the life of the court.
Just as strange, if not stranger still, is the fact that our author--the real one, whoever he was--writes of his possessing wealth and honours :
Sonnet XCI
Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' force,
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill,
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest: "...
BUT
"But these particulars are not my measure;
All these I better in one general best." ...
Compared to those--and he could compare them only if he'd possessed them all-- he prizes his relationship with the fair friend above all :
..." Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,
Of more delight than hawks or horses be; " ...
So if he'd had these honours, where'd they come from? and when? Records are kept when honours are conferred. Where are the records of Shaksper's "high birth"? his wealth? his hawks and horses or his body's force?
Why didn't any of Wriothesley's other numerous friends--his noble peers--leave even so much as a trace of a mention of this remarkable relationship with the marvelous commoner poet, Shaksper of Stratford?
We ought to ask how it could have been possible for the relationship described in the sonnets to have occurred without the Stratford Shaksper having been known to frequent the royal court. The sonnets inform us that these two were often together, that the times apart were trying to our author.
Then, we ought to ask why in the world, if, however incredible it may seem to some of us today, a much-doted-upon young Earl of Southampton had met Shaksper of Stratford, had developed an amazing and mutual infatuation with him, had found Shaksper to be a literary genius of lyric and dramatic poetry--for what particular reason, exactly, would either of them be less than open about the friendship which, the sonnets reveal, was this author's consuming passion? Why shouldn't Shaksper have invited Southampton to his Stratford home? If he'd done so, why is there no record of it anywhere? Why shouldn't other members of Elizabeth's court have felt completely free to write in their private diaries about this friendship in their midst--a relationship they could not possibly have failed to notice--one which involved the young Earl, as the object of everyone's fascination, and his friend, Shaksper, the newly-arrived literary sensation from Stratford? Why in the world couldn't all of this have been openly related in the text of the sonnets themselves? Why not name Wriothesley clearly in the verses?
And we ought to ask: what became of Wriothesley's half of their correspondence? When Southampton left for the military campaign in the Low Countries, he surely wouldn't have destroyed these cherished papers "just in case" he didn't survive his expedition. Instead, he'd have saved them and left his belongings to the care of family and friends until his return. However, as we know, he didn't survive. So what became of these papers?
All these problematic issues spring from trying to do what amounts to forcing pieces of a puzzle into a picture when they have nothing to do with its factual reality--that is, they arise from having misidentified the author of the poems, plays and sonnets. Likewise, these problems vanish when a different, a correct, person is identified as the actual author.
--------------
Honoured by royal acts in recognition of
literary talent:
(Source : Wikipedia pages)
¤ Edmund Spenser:
" In 1590, Spenser brought out the first three books of his most famous work, The Faerie Queene, having travelled to London to publish and promote the work, with the likely assistance of Raleigh. He was successful enough to obtain a life pension of £50 a year from the Queen."
¤ Ben Jonson:
"... In 1616 Jonson received a yearly pension of 100 marks (about £60), leading some to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate." ...
-------------------------------
(more later)
for the problems they raise in the Stratfordian assumptions about their author --
Reading the sonnets above attentively, we find their author making direct references to his adored youthful friend's transgressions:
XXXV : ... "at that which thou hast done:"...
... "All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,"...
and his young friend's own sense of guilt and shame for those actions:
XXXIV ..."Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:" ...
XL ..."I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;" ...
These sonnets portray remarkable--not to say, truly extraordinary--things going on between an Earl whose youth and beauty are the talk of the courtiers around an aging queen, on the one hand and, if we're to believe the Stratfordian view, a young-- but still a bit elder to the Earl--and still very much unknown commoner from the rural town of Stratford on Avon on the other hand. Somehow--we can only take wild guesses at how--this Stratford man becomes as emotionally close as it's possible for two men their ages to be without being a homosexual couple in love. (We know, too, from the sonnets that they weren't that.) Such a scenario flies in the face of our common sense understanding of class distinctions and the constraints and assumptions that went with the privileges of rank by birth and royal appointment.
It is not that we cannot conceive of a high-ranking member of nobility meeting a commoner; nor is it inconceivable that a relationship might grow out of a chance meeting. The nobility had liasons which they had to keep secret because they involved people who were beyond propriety's bounds to hold a social relationship or at times much more than that. These would be known and understood as "dangerous" liasons. Careers and reputations depended on these remaining secret from anyone who'd not overlook their transgression of the social order. Only the reigning monarch herself or himself could openly get away with such behaviour--as, for example, Elizabeth's successor, James, did when he took for his companion Robert Kerr (Carr) (1587-1645). ...
There are several questions we should pose about the author "Shakespeare's" (as Stratfordians present him to us in the fellow from Stratford) relationship with his fair friend of the sonnets.
We ought to ask why the Stratford man, as "Shakespeare," could not have received the kind of public honours for his literary talent and genius which others, far inferior-- judging by a comparison of their work--received: knighthood, pensions, a place in the life of the court.
Just as strange, if not stranger still, is the fact that our author--the real one, whoever he was--writes of his possessing wealth and honours :
Sonnet XCI
Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' force,
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill,
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest: "...
BUT
"But these particulars are not my measure;
All these I better in one general best." ...
Compared to those--and he could compare them only if he'd possessed them all-- he prizes his relationship with the fair friend above all :
..." Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,
Of more delight than hawks or horses be; " ...
So if he'd had these honours, where'd they come from? and when? Records are kept when honours are conferred. Where are the records of Shaksper's "high birth"? his wealth? his hawks and horses or his body's force?
Why didn't any of Wriothesley's other numerous friends--his noble peers--leave even so much as a trace of a mention of this remarkable relationship with the marvelous commoner poet, Shaksper of Stratford?
We ought to ask how it could have been possible for the relationship described in the sonnets to have occurred without the Stratford Shaksper having been known to frequent the royal court. The sonnets inform us that these two were often together, that the times apart were trying to our author.
Then, we ought to ask why in the world, if, however incredible it may seem to some of us today, a much-doted-upon young Earl of Southampton had met Shaksper of Stratford, had developed an amazing and mutual infatuation with him, had found Shaksper to be a literary genius of lyric and dramatic poetry--for what particular reason, exactly, would either of them be less than open about the friendship which, the sonnets reveal, was this author's consuming passion? Why shouldn't Shaksper have invited Southampton to his Stratford home? If he'd done so, why is there no record of it anywhere? Why shouldn't other members of Elizabeth's court have felt completely free to write in their private diaries about this friendship in their midst--a relationship they could not possibly have failed to notice--one which involved the young Earl, as the object of everyone's fascination, and his friend, Shaksper, the newly-arrived literary sensation from Stratford? Why in the world couldn't all of this have been openly related in the text of the sonnets themselves? Why not name Wriothesley clearly in the verses?
And we ought to ask: what became of Wriothesley's half of their correspondence? When Southampton left for the military campaign in the Low Countries, he surely wouldn't have destroyed these cherished papers "just in case" he didn't survive his expedition. Instead, he'd have saved them and left his belongings to the care of family and friends until his return. However, as we know, he didn't survive. So what became of these papers?
All these problematic issues spring from trying to do what amounts to forcing pieces of a puzzle into a picture when they have nothing to do with its factual reality--that is, they arise from having misidentified the author of the poems, plays and sonnets. Likewise, these problems vanish when a different, a correct, person is identified as the actual author.
--------------
Honoured by royal acts in recognition of
literary talent:
(Source : Wikipedia pages)
¤ Edmund Spenser:
" In 1590, Spenser brought out the first three books of his most famous work, The Faerie Queene, having travelled to London to publish and promote the work, with the likely assistance of Raleigh. He was successful enough to obtain a life pension of £50 a year from the Queen."
¤ Ben Jonson:
"... In 1616 Jonson received a yearly pension of 100 marks (about £60), leading some to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate." ...
-------------------------------
(more later)
20proximity1
Live on, little thread.
21Muscogulus
>19 proximity1: "Such a scenario flies in the face of our common sense understanding of class distinctions and the constraints and assumptions that went with the privileges of rank by birth and royal appointment."
Only if one has a crude binary understanding of Elizabethan society. True, Shakespeare's England was a foreign country, from our perspective. We don't grasp it intuitively.
But Oxfordian analyses make it seem like a video-game kingdom, with all its two-dimensional figures sorted into on/off categories guided by algorithms.
Shakespeare's work was not conventional. Insisting that its circumstances adhere to rigidly construed convention seems like a determined way to misunderstand.
Only if one has a crude binary understanding of Elizabethan society. True, Shakespeare's England was a foreign country, from our perspective. We don't grasp it intuitively.
But Oxfordian analyses make it seem like a video-game kingdom, with all its two-dimensional figures sorted into on/off categories guided by algorithms.
Shakespeare's work was not conventional. Insisting that its circumstances adhere to rigidly construed convention seems like a determined way to misunderstand.
22proximity1
For continued discussion on this thread's topics, please refer to the Edward de Vere and the Shakespeare Authorship Mystery group
