The Sonnets and Other Poems (3 page)

Shakespeare, alas, left no reader’s guide to the sonnets. If he had done so, it would probably have been as enigmatic and mischievous as that of Giles Fletcher.

The extraordinary commercial success of
Venus and Adonis
, together with Shakespeare’s increasing celebrity as a playwright and the knowledge that he had been circulating “sugared sonnets among his private friends,” led the publisher William Jaggard to produce in late 1598 or early 1599 a tiny volume of twenty sonnets and songs called
The Passionate Pilgrim By W. Shakespeare
. Jaggard had obtained manuscript versions of two of Shakespeare’s best and most characteristic sonnets (one on the duplicities of love, the other contrasting the fair youth and the dark lady). He began his volume with them, then filled it up with poems from the sonnet-smattered comedy of
Love’s Labour’s Lost
and a variety of other sources. Cleverly, he included several sonnets that, though not Shakespearean, were clearly inspired by
Venus and Adonis
—readers could easily be led to imagine that these accomplished little gems were by Shakespeare.
The Passionate Pilgrim
includes several poems that were unquestionably by other authors and some of unknown authorship. It is fascinating testimony both to Shakespeare’s popularity by the end of the 1590s and to the way in which Elizabethan publishers and readers were more relaxed than we are about questions of attribution and authorial property.

Shakespeare must have composed a body of occasional poetry, in the form of either commissioned work or prologues and epilogues for particular theatrical performances. Many short poems of the period have been attributed to him at one time or another, but in only two cases is the attribution secure. One is a beautifully turned epilogue or prayer that meditates on time in an address to Queen Elizabeth at the end of a court performance in February 1599, which remained unknown in manuscript until the late twentieth century. The other is the mysterious poem that has become generally known as “The Phoenix and Turtle” (though Shakespeare did not give it a title).

In 1601, a minor author called Robert Chester published a long allegorical poem entitled
Love’s Martyr
. It begins with a council of the gods “in the high Star-chamber” (i.e. the cosmos, but also the seat of English government). They debate about what to do now that the phoenix (who is, unusually, female) is growing old and has no heir: “This
Phoenix
I do fear me will decay, / And from her ashes never will arise / An other Bird her wings for to display, / And her rich beauty for to equalize.” The parallel with the aged and sick virgin Queen Elizabeth is all too obvious. Chester’s phoenix then accepts the devoted courtly service of a turtledove. He agrees to die in fire with the phoenix, to be “A partner in this happy Tragedy,” in the hope that from the ashes of the two bodies “may spring one name.” In the closing section of the poem the rhythm changes to trochaic tetrameter as the phoenix and turtle are imagined as emblems of what Shakespeare calls “married chastity.” Chester’s conclusion imagines a new phoenix being born from this asexual union. The poem seems to be a fantasy of a smooth royal succession, achieved through the loyalty of Elizabeth’s male courtiers (but without biological conception of an heir, the queen now being far too old for that). The poem was dedicated to John Salusbury of Llewenni, Denbighshire, and seems to have been printed in honor of his being knighted by the queen in June 1601. Salusbury is therefore a prime candidate for the role of the turtledove, though the latter may equally well be regarded as a generic loyal courtier. It is hard to imagine Chester’s phoenix as anything other than a symbol for Queen Elizabeth. She was often so portrayed and, what is more, the phoenix was the symbol of her mother’s family, the Bullens (Boleyns)—throughout her life she wore a signet ring that opened to reveal images of Anne Bullen and a phoenix.

When Chester’s poem was published it was accompanied by “Diverse Poetical Essays on the Former Subject; viz. The Turtle and Phoenix,” also dedicated to Salusbury and dated 1601. One of these poetical essays, beginning “Let the bird of loudest lay” and written in a much more adept trochaic tetrameter than Chester’s, was signed William Shakespeare and is unmistakably in his style. The poem seems to be a response to the closing sequence of Chester’s: it imagines a group of birds at the funeral of the phoenix and turtle. Again, the phoenix seems to be Elizabeth, the turtle a loyal subject: “Distance and no space was seen / ’Twixt this turtle and his queen.” But “Distance and no space” is more than a metaphor for the combination of propriety and loyalty required by good courtiership. It is also a metaphysical conundrum. On being invited (and presumably paid) to contribute to Chester’s volume, Shakespeare took the opportunity to rework the union of phoenix and turtle as a philosophical tour de force instead of a piece of routine poetic flattery. A line such as “Either was the other’s mine” may allude back to a lengthy and tedious section of Chester’s poem concerning different kinds of mining, but it works primarily as a brilliant pun on the exchange of selfhood that is the core of true love. Whereas Chester’s ambition was to gain or retain Salusbury’s patronage, Shakespeare rose above the occasion and indulged a vein of serious intellectual play of a kind much closer to the dazzling mind-bending of John Donne.

The mythical phoenix, which regenerates from its own ashes. © Bardbiz Ltd.

Around this time Shakespeare also wrote
Twelfth Night
, with its learned allusions to Pythagoras and its perspectival drama of twinning. Fascinated by the oxymoron of two becoming one, he turned the union of phoenix and turtle into an emblem of how “Beauty, truth and rarity” can confound “reason” and “property.” The latter word simultaneously means ownership, propriety or decorum, and the philosophical principle that particular qualities inhere in one entity alone. “Single nature’s double name, / Neither two nor one was called”: these paradoxes are akin to some of the key enigmatic utterances in the plays, such as Iago’s “I am not what I am” and the talk in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
of seeing “with parted eye, / when everything seems double.” “Neither two nor one” could serve not only as an epitaph for the phoenix and the turtle, but also as an epigraph for the double vision that shapes Shakespeare’s dramatic universe.

AUTHORSHIP:
Venus and Adonis
,
The Rape of Lucrece
, “Let the Bird of Loudest Lay,” and
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
are all indisputably by Shakespeare.
The Passionate Pilgrim
was attributed to him on publication but is a mix of poems by Shakespeare, by others, and of uncertain authorship. “To the Queen” was an epilogue for a court performance by Shakespeare’s company and is wholly Shakespearean in meter and vocabulary. “A Lover’s Complaint” was published with the sonnets and attributed to Shakespeare, but his authorship has often been doubted and a strong case has been made for that of John Davies of Hereford (1565?–1618), an admirer and imitator of Shakespeare. This poem is included, with grave reservations, in order to respect the integrity of the
Sonnets
volume, just as the whole of
The Passionate Pilgrim
is included, even though some poems in it are by Richard Barnfield and Bartholomew Griffin. Various other short poems, notably several epigrams and epitaphs, have early attributions to Shakespeare, but none sufficiently secure to merit inclusion.

LINGUISTIC MEDIA:
Venus and Adonis
is in a six-line stanza rhyming
ababaa
,
Lucrece
and “A Lover’s Complaint” in a seven-line stanza rhyming
ababbcc
(known as “rhyme royal”), both staple meters for poetic romance. Shakespeare’s sonnets, like most other English examples of the period, are shaped as three quatrains and a couplet (typically rhyming
ababcdcdefefgg
), in contrast to the Petrarchan or Italian structure of an octave and a sestet. “Let the Bird of Loudest Lay” and “To the Queen” are both written in trochaic tetrameters (as is, for example, the Fairies’ song at the end of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
).

DATES:
Venus and Adonis
was published in 1593,
The Rape of Lucrece
in 1594,
The Passionate Pilgrim
in late 1598 or 1599 (though it included poems from
Love’s Labour’s Lost
that were written sometime earlier). “To the Queen” was written for a court performance on 20 February 1599. “Let the Bird of Loudest Lay” was commissioned for a book published in 1601. The date of the sonnets is much disputed: the published volume was registered for publication in May 1609, but the vogue for sonneteering was at its height around the time of the 1592–94 plague closure of the theaters. According to Francis Meres, some of Shakespeare’s “sugared sonnets” were circulating “among his private friends” in manuscript by 1598 (variant manuscript texts exist for several of them). Sonnet 107 apparently alludes to Queen Elizabeth’s death (spring 1603). Analysis of rare words suggests that 1–103 and 127–54 may date from the 1590s, 104–26 from the early 1600s.

SOURCES:
Venus and Adonis
is based on a story in book 10 of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
, with some use of other Ovidian stories such as those of the lovely boys Narcissus (book 3) and Hermaphroditus (book 4).
Lucrece
derives from book 2 of Ovid’s
Fasti
and perhaps a translation from Livy’s
History
in William Painter’s
Pallace of Pleasure
(1566). “A Lover’s Complaint” is in a long tradition, going back to Ovid’s
Heroides
, of “complaint” poems written in the voice of women deserted by their lovers; there are many examples in the
Mirror for Magistrates
(1559), and Samuel Daniel included “A Complaint of Rosamond” as a tailpiece to his sonnet collection
Delia
(1592). The
Sonnets
draw on, but also parody, an array of sonneteering conventions in the tradition that goes back to Petrarch; Ovidian interests such as desire and narcissism, time and change, and the durability of poetry are also pervasive.

TEXTS:
The well-printed 1593 Quarto of
Venus and Adonis
was reprinted in 1594, 1595?, 1596, 1599, 1599, 1602?, 1602, 1602, 1617, making it by a considerable margin Shakespeare’s bestseller in print. The well-printed 1594 Quarto of
Lucrece
was a little less popular but still much in demand (reprinted 1598, 1600, 1600, 1607, 1616).
The Passionate Pilgrim
appeared in a small Octavo edition (title page lost) sometime after September 1598; a second edition was published in 1599; poems 1 and 2 are versions of sonnets subsequently published in the 1609 collection; the three other definitely Shakespearean poems are from
Love’s Labour’s Lost
; a reprint of 1612 included additional poems by Thomas Heywood, a practice to which Heywood and apparently Shakespeare objected. “To the Queen” remained in manuscript until 1972. “Let the Bird of Loudest Lay” was included in
LOVES MARTYR OR, ROSALINS COMPLAINT. Allegorically shadowing the truth of Loue, in the constant Fate of the Phoenix and Turtle
(1601), a verse collection dedicated to Sir John Salusbury, which included work by John Marston, George Chapman, and Ben Jonson appended to a long allegorical poem by the little-known Robert Chester; Shakespeare’s contribution is untitled and only became generally known as “The Phoenix and Turtle” (i.e. turtledove) from 1807.
SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. Never before Imprinted
was published in 1609, with “A Louers complaint. BY WILLIAM SHAKE-SPEARE” filling up the final leaves. Littered with printing errors, it was little noticed upon publication and not reprinted. In 1640, John Benson published a collection of
Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-speare. Gent
., mainly based on the 1609 volume, but with considerable additions and alterations, including occasional regendering of the addressee from male to female. The sonnets and poems did not enter the tradition of “Complete Works” of Shakespeare until Edmond Malone edited them for his supplement to the 1778 Samuel Johnson/George Steevens edition.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
HENRY WRIOTHESLEY
, EARL OF
SOUTHAMPTON AND BARON OF TITCHFIELD
RIGHT HONOURABLE,

I KNOW not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden; only if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised and vow to take advantage of all
idle hours
, till I have honoured you with
some
graver labour
. But if the
first heir of my invention
prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather and never after
ear
so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable
survey
, and your honour to your heart’s content, which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful expectation.
Your honour’s in all duty,
William Shakespeare

EVEN as
¹
the sun with
purple-coloured
face
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheeked Adonis
hied him
³
to the
chase
.
Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn.
     
Sick-thoughted
⁵
Venus
makes amain
unto him
      And like a bold-faced suitor ’gins to woo him.

‘Thrice-fairer than myself’, thus she began,
‘The field’s chief flower, sweet above compare,
Stain to
⁹
all
nymphs
, more
lovely
than a man,
More
white and red
¹⁰
than doves or roses are:
      Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,
     
Saith
¹²
that the world hath ending with thy life.

‘
Vouchsafe
¹³
, thou wonder, to
alight
thy steed
And rein his
proud
¹⁴
head to the
saddle-bow
.
If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy
meed
¹⁵
A thousand
honey secrets
¹⁶
shalt thou know:
      Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,
      And being
set
¹⁸
, I’ll smother thee with kisses.

‘And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed
satiety
¹⁹
,
But rather famish them amid their plenty,
Making them red and pale with fresh variety:
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty.
      A summer’s day will seem an hour but short,
      Being
wasted
²⁴
in such time-beguiling
sport
.’

With this she seizeth on his
sweating
²⁵
palm,
The
precedent of pith and livelihood
²⁶
,
And trembling in her passion, calls it
balm
²⁷
,
Earth’s
sovereign
²⁸
salve to do a goddess good:
      Being so
enraged
²⁹
, desire doth lend her force
     
Courageously
³⁰
to pluck him from his horse.

Over one arm the
lusty
³¹
courser
’s rein,
Under her other was the
tender
³²
boy,
Who blushed and pouted in a dull disdain,
With
leaden
³⁴
appetite
,
unapt
to
toy
,
      She red and hot as coals of glowing fire,
      He red for shame, but frosty in desire.

The
studded
³⁷
bridle on a
ragged
bough
Nimbly she fastens. O, how quick is love!
The steed is
stallèd up
³⁹
, and even now
To tie the rider she begins to
prove
⁴⁰
:
      Backward she pushed him, as she
would
⁴¹
be
thrust
,
      And
governed him in strength though not in lust
⁴²
.

So soon was she along as he was down
⁴³
,
Each leaning on their elbows and their hips:
Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown
And ’gins to
chide
⁴⁶
, but soon she stops his lips
      And kissing speaks, with lustful language
broken
⁴⁷
,
      ‘If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.’

He burns with bashful shame, she with her tears
Doth quench the
maiden
⁵⁰
burning of his cheeks,
Then with her windy sighs and golden hairs
To fan and blow them dry again she seeks.
      He saith she is immodest, blames her
miss
⁵³
:
      What follows more, she murders with a kiss.

Even as an
empty
⁵⁵
eagle,
sharp by fast
,
Tires
⁵⁶
with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone,
Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste,
Till either
gorge
⁵⁸
be stuffed or prey be gone:
      Even so she kissed his brow, his cheek, his chin,
      And where she ends, she doth anew begin.

Forced to
content
⁶¹
, but never to obey,
Panting he lies and breatheth in her face.
She feedeth on the steam, as on a
pray
⁶³
,
And calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace,
      Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers,
      So they were dewed with such
distilling
⁶⁶
showers.

Look, how a bird lies tangled in a net,
So fastened in her arms Adonis lies.
Pure shame and
awed
⁶⁹
resistance made him
fret
,
Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes:
      Rain added to a river that is
rank
⁷¹
     
Perforce
⁷²
will force it overflow the bank.

Still she entreats and
prettily
⁷³
entreats,
For to a pretty ear she tunes her tale.
Still is he sullen, still he
lours
⁷⁵
and frets,
’Twixt
⁷⁶
crimson shame and anger ashy-pale:
      Being red, she loves him best, and being white,
      Her best is bettered with a more delight.

Look how he can
⁷⁹
, she cannot choose but love,
And by her fair immortal hand she swears
From his soft bosom never to
remove
⁸¹
Till he take truce with her
contending
⁸²
tears,
      Which long have rained, making her cheeks all wet,
      And one sweet kiss shall pay this
countless
⁸⁴
debt.

Upon this promise did he raise his chin,
Like a
dive-dapper
⁸⁶
peering through a wave,
Who, being looked on, ducks as quickly in:
So offers he to give what she did crave,
      But when her lips were ready for his pay,
      He
winks
⁹⁰
and turns his lips another way.

Never did
passenger
⁹¹
in summer’s heat
More thirst for drink than she for this good
turn
⁹²
.
Her help she sees, but help she cannot get,
She
bathes in water
⁹⁴
, yet her fire must burn:
      ‘O, pity,’ ’gan she cry, ‘flint-hearted boy!
      ’Tis but a kiss I beg, why art thou
coy
⁹⁶
?

‘I have been wooed, as I entreat thee now,
Even by the stern and direful
god of war
⁹⁸
,
Whose
sinewy
⁹⁹
neck in battle ne’er did
bow
,
Who conquers where he comes in every
jar
¹⁰⁰
,
      Yet hath he been my captive and my slave
      And begged for that which thou unasked shalt have.

‘Over my altars hath he hung his lance,
His battered shield, his
uncontrollèd
¹⁰⁴
crest
,
And for my sake hath learned to
sport and dance,
To toy, to wanton, dally
¹⁰⁵
, smile and jest,
      Scorning his
churlish
¹⁰⁷
drum and
ensign
red,
      Making my
arms
¹⁰⁸
his
field
, his tent my bed.

‘Thus he that overruled I
overswayed
¹⁰⁹
,
Leading him prisoner in a red rose chain.
Strong-tempered
¹¹¹
steel
his stronger strength obeyed
,
Yet was he servile to my coy disdain.
      O, be not proud, nor brag not of thy might,
      For mast’ring her that
foiled
¹¹⁴
the god of fight.

‘Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine —
Though mine be not so fair, yet are they red —
The kiss shall be thine own as well as mine.
What see’st thou in the ground? Hold up thy head.
      Look in mine eyeballs,
there thy beauty lies
¹¹⁹
,
      Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes?

‘Art thou ashamed to kiss? Then
wink
¹²¹
again,
And I will wink, so shall the day seem night.
Love
keeps his revels
¹²³
where there are
but twain
:
Be
bold
¹²⁴
to play, our sport is not
in sight
.
      These
blue-veined
¹²⁵
violets whereon we lean
      Never can blab nor know not what we mean.

‘The
tender spring
¹²⁷
upon thy tempting lip
Shows thee unripe; yet mayst thou well be tasted.
Make use of time, let not advantage slip,
Beauty within itself should not be wasted.
      Fair flowers that are not gathered in their prime
      Rot and consume themselves in little time.

‘Were I
hard-favoured
¹³³
,
foul
or wrinkled-old,
Ill-nurtured
¹³⁴
,
crooked
, churlish, harsh in voice,
O’erworn
¹³⁵
, despisèd,
rheumatic
and
cold
,
Thick-sighted
¹³⁶
, barren, lean and lacking
juice
,
      Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee,
      But having no defects, why dost abhor me?

‘Thou canst not see one wrinkle in my brow,
Mine eyes are
grey
¹⁴⁰
and bright and quick in turning:
My beauty as the spring doth yearly grow,
My flesh is soft and plump, my
marrow
¹⁴²
burning,
      My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt,
      Would in thy palm dissolve or seem to melt.

‘Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,
Or like a fairy
trip
¹⁴⁶
upon the green,
Or like a
nymph
¹⁴⁷
with long dishevelled hair
Dance on the sands and yet no
footing
¹⁴⁸
seen.
      Love is a
spirit
¹⁴⁹
all
compact
of fire,
      Not
gross
¹⁵⁰
to sink, but
light
and will
aspire
.

‘Witness this primrose bank whereon I lie,
These
forceless
¹⁵²
flowers like sturdy trees support me:
Two strengthless doves will draw me through the sky
From morn till night, even where I
list
¹⁵⁴
to sport me.
      Is love so
light
¹⁵⁵
, sweet boy, and may it be
      That thou should think it
heavy
¹⁵⁶
unto thee?

‘Is thine own heart to thine own face
affected
¹⁵⁷
?
Can thy right hand seize love
upon thy left
¹⁵⁸
?
Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected:
Steal thine own freedom and complain
on
¹⁶⁰
theft.
     
Narcissus
¹⁶¹
so
himself himself forsook
,
      And died to kiss his
shadow
¹⁶²
in the brook.

‘Torches are made to light, jewels to wear,
Dainties
¹⁶⁴
to taste, fresh beauty for
the use
,
Herbs for their smell and
sappy
¹⁶⁵
plants to
bear
.
Things growing to themselves are growth’s abuse:
      Seeds spring from seeds and beauty breedeth beauty.
      Thou wast begot: to
get
¹⁶⁸
it is thy duty.

‘Upon the earth’s
increase
¹⁶⁹
why shouldst thou feed,
Unless the earth with thy increase be fed?
By law of nature thou art bound to breed,
That thine
¹⁷²
may live when thou thyself art dead:
      And so, in spite of death, thou dost survive,
      In that thy likeness still is left alive.’

By
this
¹⁷⁵
the lovesick queen began to sweat,
For where they lay the shadow had forsook them,
And
Titan
¹⁷⁷
,
tirèd
in the midday heat,
With
burning eye did hotly
¹⁷⁸
overlook them,
      Wishing Adonis had
his team
¹⁷⁹
to guide,
     
So he were like him
¹⁸⁰
and by Venus’ side.

And now Adonis with a
lazy sprite
¹⁸¹
And with a heavy, dark,
disliking
¹⁸²
eye,
His louring brows o’erwhelming his
fair sight
¹⁸³
Like misty
vapours
¹⁸⁴
when they blot the sky,
     
Souring
¹⁸⁵
his cheeks, cries, ‘Fie, no more of love!
      The sun doth burn my face. I must remove.’

‘Ay me,’ quoth Venus, ‘young and so unkind,
What
bare
¹⁸⁸
excuses mak’st thou to be gone!
I’ll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind
Shall cool the heat of this descending sun:
      I’ll make a shadow for thee of my hairs,
      If they burn too, I’ll quench them with my tears.