Part 31 (1/2)

No suggestion in the sonnets of the youth's identity with Pembroke

The sonnets offer no internal indication that the Earl of Pe at all is deducible froue parallelisms that have been adduced between the earl's character and position in life and those hich the poet credited the youth of the sonnets It ranted that both had a mother (Sonnet iii), that both enjoyed wealth and rank, that both were regarded by adent in their relations omen, and that both in early allantry Of one alleged point of resened to Shakespeare's youth was not, as far as we can learn, definitely set to Pe his 'Poetical Rhapsody' to the earl in 1602 in a very eulogistic sonnet, makes a cautiously qualified reference to the attractiveness of his person in the lines:

[His] outward shape, though it most lovely be, Doth in fair robes a fairer soul attire

The only portraits of hie, {414} and seeestion that he was reckoned handsome at any time of life; at most they confirm Anthony Wood's description of hiant' But the point is not one of ains nor loses, if we allow that Peyrist, have at one period reflected, like Shakespeare's youth, 'the lovely April of his mother's prime'

But e have reckoned up the traits that can, on any showing, be aded friend, they all prove to be equally indistinctive All could be matched without difficulty in a score of youthful nobleentlemen of Elizabeth's Court Direct external evidence of Shakespeare's friendly intercourse with one or other of Elizabeth's young courtiers eneral references to the youth's beauty and grace can render the re his identity

Aubrey's ignorance of any relation between Shakespeare and Peh it ative or positive, against the theory that the Earl of Pembroke was a youthful friend of Shakespeare, it is worth noting that John Aubrey, the Wiltshi+re antiquary, and the biographer of lishmen of distinction of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was zealously researching from 1650 onwards into the careers alike of Shakespeare and of various members of the Earl of Pembroke's family--one of the chief in Wiltshi+re

Aubrey rescued from oblivion many anecdotes--scandalous and otherwise--both about the third Earl of Pembroke and about Shakespeare

Of the former he wrote in his 'Natural History of Wiltshi+re' (ed

Britton, 1847), recalling the earl's relations with Massinger and many other ossip in his 'Lives of Eminent Persons' But neither in his account of Peive any hint that they were at any time or in any manner acquainted or associated with one another Had close relations existed between them, it is impossible that all trace of them would have faded from the traditions that were current in Aubrey's tis {415}

VIII--THE 'WILL' SONNETS

No one has had the hardihood to assert that the text of the sonnets gives internally any indication that the youth's name took the hapless forue that in three or four sonnets Shakespeare admits in so many words that the youth bore his own Christian na her adentlenation These are fantastic assumptions which rest on a y and of the character of the conceits of the sonnets, and are solely attributable to the fanatical anxiety of the supporters of the Pembroke theory to extort, at all hazards, some sort of evidence in their favour fros of 'will'

In two sonnets (cxxxv-vi)--the most artificial and 'conceited' in the collection--the poet plays somatically on his Christian name of 'Will,' and a similar pun has been doubtfully detected in sonnets cxxxiv and cxlvii The groundwork of the pleasantry is the identity in form of the proper name with the colish a generous variety of conceptions, ofsince been deprived Then, as now, it was eical sense of volition; but it was more often specifically applied to two limited manifestations of the volition It was the commonest of synonyms alike for 'self will' or 'stubbornness'--in which sense it still survives in 'wilful'--and for 'lust,' or 'sensual passion' It also did occasional duty for its own diood-will,' and for 'free consent' (as nowadays in 'willing,' or 'willingly')

Shakespeare's uses of the word

Shakespeare constantly used 'will' in all these significations Iago recognised its general psychological value when he said, 'Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners' The conduct of the 'will' is discussed after the manner of philosophy in 'Troilus and Cressida' (II ii 51-68) In another of Iago's sentences, 'Love is merely a lust of the blood and a perht is shed on the process by which the word came to be specifically applied to sensual desire The last is a favourite sense with Shakespeare and his conteelo and Isabella, in 'Measure for Measure,' are at one in attributing their conflict to the forent Bertraentlewoan's heartless plot to seduce her brother-in-law is assigned to 'the undistinguished space'--the boundless range--'of woman's will' Similarly, Sir Philip Sidney apostrophised lust as 'thou web of will' Thoe, in 'Phillis' (Sonnet xi), warns lovers of the ruin that uide their course by will' Nicholas Breton's fantastic romance of 1599, entitled 'The Will of Wit, Wit's Will or Will's Wit, Chuse you whether,' is especially rich in like illustrations Breton brings into marked prominence the antithesis which was fa, and 'wit,' the Elizabethan synony between Wit and Will' opens thus:

_Wit_: What art thou, Will? _Will_: A babe of nature's brood,

_Wit_: Who was thy sire? _Will_: Sweet lust, as lovers say

_Wit_: Thy mother who? _Will_: Wild lusty wanton blood

_Wit_: When wast thou born? _Will_: In ht up? _Will_: In school of little skill

_Wit_: What learn'dst thou there? _Will_: Love is my lesson still

Of the use of the word in the sense of stubbornness or self-will Roger Aschaood instance in his 'Scholemaster,' (1570), where he recommends that such a vice in children as 'will,' which he places in the category of lying, sloth, and disobedience, should be 'with sharp chastisement daily cut away' {418a} 'A wos, an exceptionally popular proverbial phrase, the point of which revolved about the equivocalof the last word

The phrase supplied the title of 'a pleasant cohton, which--froed period of forty years 'Women, because they cannot have their wills when they dye, they will have their wills while they live,' was a current witticisham deemed worthy of record in his 'Diary' in 1602 {418b}