Part 6 (1/2)

In Sonnet CXXIV. the poet says:

If _my dear love were but_ the child of state, It might for Fortune's b.a.s.t.a.r.d be unfather'd.

From that it has been argued that his friend was of the n.o.bility, a ”child of state.”

Reading those two lines, or reading the entire Sonnet, it seems clear that if they contain any indication as to the station of his friend, the indication is rather against than in favor of his being of the n.o.bility, ”a child of state.”

I do not think, however, that the lines allow any clear or certain deduction either way, but have called attention to them because they are often cited on this point.

In Sonnet XIII. occurs the line,

Who lets so fair a _house_ fall to decay.

The word ”house” as there used has been interpreted as though used in the sense of the House of York, and so made an implication that his friend was of a lordly line. Such a far-fetched and unusual interpretation should not be adopted unless clearly indicated. And the context clearly indicates that the phrase ”so fair a house” is used as a metaphor for the poet's fair and beautiful body. If this inquiry were to be affected by far-drawn or even doubtful interpretations, I might quote from Sonnet Lx.x.xVI. There the poet, referring to his rival, says:

But when your _countenance_ fill'd up his line.

By merely limiting the word _countenance_ to its primary meaning, we may have the inference that his rival's verse was spoken or _acted_ by his friend, and so that his friend was an actor. I do not think, however, that either of the two lines last cited are ent.i.tled to any weight as argument, but they ill.u.s.trate the distinction between lines or Sonnets which may be the basis of surmise or conjecture, and those elsewhere cited, to which two different effects cannot be given without rending their words from their natural meaning.

The Earl of Southampton was born in 1573. He bore an historic name; fields, forests, and castles were his and had come to him from his ancestors; all of England that was most beautiful or most attractive was in the circle in which he moved and to which his presence contributed. In 1595 he appeared in the lists at a tournament in honor of the Queen; in 1596 and 1597 he joined in dangerous and successful naval and military expeditions; in 1598 he was married.[35] Is it conceivable that two thousand lines of adulatory poetry could have been written to and of him, and no hint appear of incidents like these? It is simply incredible. What is omitted rather than what is said clearly indicates that the life of the poet's friend presented no such incidents,--indeed no incidents which the poet chronicler of court and camp would interweave in his garlands of loving compliment.

Urging his friend to marry, the poet, comparing the harmony of music to a happy marriage, in Sonnet VIII. says:

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Resembling sire and child and happy mother, Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing: Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one, Sings this to thee: ”Thou single wilt prove none.”

But is it not a little strange that the pen that drew Rosalind and Juliet should have gone no farther, when by a touch he could have filled it with suggestions of the fair, the stately and the t.i.tled maidens who were in the court life of that day, and whose names and faces and reputed characters must have been known to the poet, whatever his place or station in London? How would a tracing of a mother, n.o.bly born, or of a lordly but deceased father, of some old castle, of some fair eminence, of some grand forest, or of ancestral oaks shading fair waters, have lightened the picture! And could the poet who gave us the magnificent pictures of English kings and queens, princes and lords--could that poet, writing to and of one of the fairest of the courtly circle of the reign of Elizabeth, so withhold his pen that it gives no hint that his friend was in or of that circle, or any suggestion of his most happy and fortunate surroundings? Surely, in painting so fully the beauties of his friend, the poet would have allowed to appear some hint of the beauty of light and color in which he moved.

I have before me in the book of Mr. Lee, a copy of the picture of the Earl of Southampton painted in Welbeck Abbey. The dress is of the court; and the sword, the armor, the plume and rich drapery all indicate a member of the n.o.bility. Could our great poet in so many lines of extreme compliment and adulation have always omitted any reference to the insignia of rank which were almost a part of the young Earl; and would he always have escaped all reference to coronet or sword, to lands or halls, or to any of the employments or sports, privileges or honors, then much more than now, distinctive of a peer of the realm?

And all that is here said equally repels the inference that these Sonnets were addressed to any person connected with the n.o.bility. The claim that they were addressed to Lord Pembroke [William Herbert] I think is exploded, if it ever had substance.[36] Lord Pembroke did not come to London until 1598 and was then but eighteen years old. There is not a particle of evidence that he and Shakespeare had any relations or intimacy whatever.

While I regard the view that the Sonnets were addressed to Southampton as entirely untenable, it nevertheless has this basis,--two of the Shakespearean poems were dedicated to Southampton. At least we may say that, if they were addressed to any person of that cla.s.s, there is a strong probability in his favor. And in order to consider that claim I would ask the reader to turn back to Sonnet II., page 23. That certainly is one of the very earliest of the Sonnets, almost certainly written when Shakespeare was not older than thirty and Southampton not over twenty-one years of age. With these facts in mind, the a.s.sumption that those lines were addressed to the Earl of Southampton becomes altogether improbable. Can we imagine a man of thirty, in the full glow of a vigorous and successful life, saying to a friend of twenty-one,--you should marry now, because when you are _forty years_ old (about twice your present age and ten years above my own) your beauty will have faded and your blood be cold?

We should not so slander the author of the Shakespearean plays.

The language of the Sonnets implies a familiarity and equality of intercourse not consistent with the theory that they were addressed to a peer of England by a person in Shakespeare's position.[37]

The dedication of _Lucrece_, which apparently was written in 1593, omits no reference to t.i.tle, and envinces no disposition or privilege to ignore the rank or dignities of the Earl. I will quote no particular Sonnet on this point; but the impression which the entire series seems to me to convey, is that the poet was addressing a friend separated from him by no distinction of rank. Sonnets XCVI. and XCVII.

are instances of such familiarity of address and communication.

On the other hand, there is not a single indication which the Sonnets contain as to the poet's friend which in any manner disagrees with what we know of Shakespeare. It may be said that being married the invocation to marry could not have been addressed to him. But the test is,--how did he pa.s.s, how was he known in London, as married or unmarried?

He is supposed to have come to London in 1586, or when he was twenty-two years of age, and he was then married and had three children. He remained in London about twenty-five years, and there is no indication that any member of his family ever resided there or visited him, and the clear consensus of opinion seems to be that they did not.[38] The indications that he had little love for his wife are regrettably clear.[39] When the earlier Sonnets were written he must have been living there about nine years, and must have had an income sufficient easily to have maintained his family in the city.[40] That he led a life notoriously free as to women cannot be questioned. Traditions elsewhere referred to so indicate[41]; and whether the Sonnets were written by or to him they equally so testify.

Under such circ.u.mstances his friends or acquaintances would not be led to presume that he was married, but would a.s.sume the contrary.

They would have done or considered precisely as we do, cla.s.sing our friends as married or unmarried, as their mode of life indicates.