Part 32 (1/2)

In the opening words, 'Whoever hath her wish,' the poet prepares the reader for the punning encounter by a slight variation on the current catch-phrase 'A woman will have her will' At the next moment we are in the thick of the wordy fray The lady has not only her lover named Will, but untold stores of 'will'--in the sense alike of stubbornness and of lust--to which it seeatory to make addition {421c} To the lady's 'over-plus' of 'will' is punningly attributed her defiance of the 'will' of her suitor Will to enjoy her favours At the saracious,' {422a} although in hiues, should be otherwise; for as the sea, although rich in water, does not refuse the falling rain, but freely adds it to its abundant store, so she, 'rich in will,' should accept her lover Will's 'will' and 'e will more' The poet sums up his ambition in the final couplet:

Let no unkind no fair beseechers kill; Think all but one, and me in that one--Will

This is as much as to say, 'Let not my mistress in her unkindness kill any of her fair-spoken adorers Rather let her think all who beseech her favours incorporate in one alone of her lovers--and that one the writer whose name of ”Will” is a synonyht is wiredrawn to inanity, but the words make it perfectly clear that the poet was the only one of the lady's lovers--to the definite exclusion of all others--whose na pretence of identity with the 'will' which controls her being

Sonnet cxxxvi

The sa conceit of the poet Will's title to identity with the lady's 'will' in all senses is pursued in Sonnet cxxxvi The sonnet opens:

If thy soul check thee that I come so near, Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy will, {422b} And will thy soul knows is ad purpose the fa the soul's domination by 'will' or volition, which was more clearly expressed by his contemporary, Sir John Davies, in the philosophic poem, 'Nosce Teipsum:'

Will holds the royal sceptre in the soul, And on the passions of the heart doth reign

Whether Shakespeare's lines be considered with their context or without it, the tenor of their thought and language positively refutes the commentators' notion that the 'will' admitted to the lady's soul is a rival lover na lines run:

Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil {423a} Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love; Ay, fill it full ills, and reat receipt with ease we prove A a number one is reckon'd none: Then in the nuh in thy stores' account, I oneholdsweet to thee

Here the poet Will continues to claiht of his Christian na the 'wills,' the varied forness to accept others' attentions), which are the constituent ele The plural 'wills' is twice used in identical sense by Barnabe Barnes in the lines already quoted:

Mine heart, bound martyr to thy _wills_

But women will have their oills_

Is his fantastic pretension to a so apostrophe:

Make but my name thy love, and love that still, And then thou lovest me--for'Make ”will”' (_ie_ that which is yourself) 'your love, and then you love me, because Will is ly than the one which clinches the preceding sonnet that none of the rivals whoht to displace in the lady's affections could by any chance have been, like himself, called Will The writer could not appeal to a mistress to concentrate her love on his nan of identity between her being and him, if that name were common to him and one or more rivals, and lacked exclusive reference to himself

Loosely as Shakespeare's sonnets were constructed, the couplet at the conclusion of each poe twelve lines The concluding couplets of these two sonnets cxxxv-vi, in which Shakespeare has been alleged to acknowledge a rival of his own name in his suit for a lady's favour, are consequently the touchstone by which the theory of 'more Wills than one' must be tested

As we have just seen, the situation is summarily embodied in the first couplet thus:

Let no unkind no fair beseechers kill; Think all but one, and me in that one--Will

It is re-embodied in the second couplet thus:

Make but my name thy love, and love that still, And then thou lovest nificance of both couplets resides in the twice-repeated fact that one, and only one, of the lady's lovers is named Will, and that that one is the writer To assume that the poet had a rival of his own name is to denude both couplets of all point 'Will,' we have learned fro passion

Punning s the poet in either sonnet to the ultimate conclusion that one of her lovers round that his na passion Thus his pretension to her affections rests, he punningly assures her, on a strictly logical basis

Sonnet cxxxiv Meaning of Sonnet cxliii