written them," or that the world should have wanted perhaps the most powerful and certainly the most singular utterances of passion which Poetry has yet supplied. But there is pleasure also in the belief, that this phase of feeling was transient, and that the sanity which, not less than ecstasy, is an especial attribute of the great poet, returned to the Shakespeare whom, with Jonson, we "love and honour, on this side idolatry, as much as any." The style of the Sonnets is condensed and metaphorical; those legal terms which have been noticed as of frequent occurrence in Shakespeare are here profusely scattered, and often with an unsatisfactory effect. Like the Plays, the Sonnets share also in that artificiality of language which was inevitable to the authors of the "Elizabethan " period, from the circumstances that when English was first steadily employed on literature, it was not (what one naturally inclines to think it, from the freshness of those early flowers) a young language; and that its literary cultivation was affected, not, like the Hellenic, by a spontaneous movement of the nation at large, but by writers educated under diverse and often exotic influences. Shakespeare is, in this sense, everywhere the child of his age; but nowhere, it must be confessed, more so than in the Sonnets. “The obscurity is often such," Mr. Hallam observes, "as only conjecture can penetrate." And even conjecture, though learned and ingenious, has been sometimes at fault. The poetical form adopted is here, however, partly responsible. Although, in place of the strict and elegantly involved sonnet structure, he has adopted the freer but less perfect system of quatrains with a closing couplet, that ingenious and subtle artificiality of idea which the Provençal or Italian poets strove to realize within the compass of these fourteen-line lyrics is deeply marked upon Shakespeare's "Book of Love." : The Passionate Pilgrim, a small collection published by a speculative bookmaker in 1599, contains a few poems ascribable with certainty to Shakespeare: a very few which are dubious and several either demonstrably not his, or bearing internal signs of other authorship. The latter have been here omitted. The two former classes fill pages 207 to 214. That strange, but strongly Shakespearian piece of fantasy-painting, the Phoenix and the Turtle, appeared in Chester's Love's Martyr (1601), with other poems upon the same subject. It was probably suggested in some degree by the Italian allegory of Torquato Celiano, translated by Chester himself. PAGE 57 content: happiness, Or else this glutton be, &c.: Or you will commit the excess of consuming what is due to the world by your death and your unmarried life. 58 sum my count: complete my account. unear'd: untilled. Fond: foolish. 59 Will. that unfair: will Leese: lose. 61 lovely gaze: object of gazing. render that unlovely. 64 who confounds: who confoundest: a various form, suggested by euphony; found especially in verbs ending in d or t. 65 makeless: mateless. 67 convertest: changest. E before r was commonly pronounced 71 conceit: fancy, idea. Store: here used for chil 72 pupil pen: pen of a learner. Fair: beauty. 74 that fair thou owest: that beauty thou ownest. 76 So is it not, &c.: I am not like that poet who exaggerates in praise of a painted beauty, coupling her with all other beauty in earth or heaven. Rondure: circle, horizon. 77 expiate: end. 79 stell'd: probably set or fixed. 83 twire: peep, twinkle. Table: panel for a picture. 85 And with old woes, &c, · παλαιὰ δακρύοις στένειν κακά. compare the Greek, καινοῖς Expense: loss. PAGE 86 obsequious tear: beside the obvious sense, is here used with reference to the obsequies of the dead. So 88 region cloud: cloud overspreading the part of the landscape in view. Stain: used as a verb neuter; be darkened. possibly Shelley 'Bare woods, whose branches stain.' 90 Authorising thy trespass, &c. : giving a precedent for thy fault by comparing it with mine. 91 one respect: one thing we look too. Separable spite: a fate 92 I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite: extremest.-The lameness spoken of here, and on page 144, must be a metaphorical phrase, or an allusion to some passing infirmity. The defect would otherwise have hardly missed notice from those who described Shakespeare's own stage appearances. Entitled in thy parts: ennobled in thy genius. 96 my seat: property. 98 unrespected: unregarded. IOI quest; inquest; jury. 104 advised respects: considerations formed by reflection. 115 Nativity, once in the main of light, &c.: when a star has 120 119-121. These three sonnets form one poem of marvellous power, insight, and beauty. 122 lace: decorate. Dead seeing: lifeless resemblance. 125 suspect: suspicion. 129 The coward conquest, &c.: must allude to anatomical dissection, then recently revived in Europe by Vesalius, Fallopius, Paré, and others. 131 a noted weed: familiar dress. 135 It is entirely unknown to what contemporary poet Shakespeare here alludes. See also page 141, where the same poet appears to be charged with magical practices, like those of Dr. Dee. To commentators interested in discovering the groundwork of the Sonnets, these hints should supply a clue. The superstitions which so strongly mark Europe during the sixteenth century were, in part, the unscientific expression of that advance in the human mind which created physical science again (dormant since the Roman conquest of the Greek states), by the labours of Copernicus, Tyco Brahe, Galileo, Bacon, Gilbert, and many more. 138 slept in your report: refrained from writing about you. 139 example: used as a verb active; give examples. fame. 140 Reserve preserve. So shail 142 upon misprision growing: apparently, granted in error. 143 set one light: value lightly. PAGE 144 152 To set a form, &c.: by defining the change you desire. 153 heavy Saturn: the gloomy side of Nature; or, the saturnine spirit in life. 154 162 The lily, &c.: I charged it with stealing the whiteness of thy hand. This Sonnet contains fifteen lines; a variation which suggests how the sonnet form might be judiciously expanded. a confined doom: a defined doom. And Peace proclaims, &c. The peace completed early in 1609, which ended the war between Spain and the United Provinces, might answer to the tone of this Sonnet. Mr. Massey dates it at the accession of James I and argues that the eclipse of the mortal moon refers to the death of Elizabeth Subscribes: submits. 165 a motley: a fool. Blenches: deviations. 166 eisel: vinegar. 167 charges has been here conjectured for changes. 168 latch: catch. Favour: face. 171 It is the star, &c.: apparently, whose stellar influence is unknown, although his angular altitude has been determined. 173 eager: sour. 174 limbecks: alembics used in distillation. Applying fears, &c. : setting fears against hopes. 176 bevel: aslant; biassed like a bowl. 177 retention: the album, meant to retain memoranda. 179 state: seems to mean, circumstance. The fools of time, &c.: apparently, the plotters and political martyrs of the age. 180 mutual render: give-and-take. This sonnet appears directed against some one who had charged him with superficial love. 181 quietus: acquittance. 182 false esteem: false pretensions. 183 jacks: keys. 185 compare : comparison. 189 statute: security. A friend came, &c.: who became. 190 Let no unkind, &c. : let no unkindness, no fairspoken rivals destroy me. 192 a several plot: a plot severed for a time from a common. 193 This sonnet was published in the Passionate Pilgrim of 1599. Shakespeare was then in his thirty-fifth year. 201 202 203 [Foil d by]: another conjecture is Fool'd by. The original censures: judges. 208 None fairer, &c.: She is surpassed by no woman in fairness and in falseness. 214 shrieking harbinger: possibly, the screech-owl. 215 defunctive music: funeral music. That thy sable, &c.: appears an allusion to some legendary fancy 216 But in them: except in them. Property was, &c.: natural law was astonished to see a thing not identical with itself:- PAGE 227 one of the many ingenious plays of fancy,-a fancy almost arithmetical at times, in which Shakespeare's subtlety of mind has indulged itself in this poem. Property seems here used in the logical sense. Threnos: dirge. A LOVER'S COMPLAINT The form of this poem has some resemblance to the shorter pieces by or ascribed to Chaucer, such as the Complaint of the Black Knight: but in its power and concentration it is probably alone in our language as a Lyrical Elegy. Under those limitations in regard to style which have been already noticed, it is such a song as might have come from the old Aeolian or Ionic poets, Simonides, or Sappho, or Erinna. Passion as a law to itself, all for love, and this world well lost, if not the next also, were never painted with a more sad and musical intensity. PAGE 220 Storming her world: filling herself and what was around her with storm. Napkin: handkerchief. Conceited characters: fanciful embroideries. Pelleted: formed into drops. 221 222 their carriage ride: move themselves. A careless hand, &c.: a hand careless of appearance. Maund: market-basket with two lids. schedules: billets-doux. Posied: bearing mottoes. With sleided silk feat enswathed: neatly tied round with floss silk. Fancy: lady-love. Fastly: near. 223 grainéd bat: rough (?) stick. Let it not tell, &c.: observe this touch of nature! 224 Sawn: doubtful whether sown or seen. seems to mean either immortally young, or tiful. Bare: bareness. 225 became: graced. 229 Manage skill in riding. trim, &c. artificial accomplishments added Phoenix down: celestially beau Their purposed nothing to his teen sorrowful longing; desiderium; sehnsucht. Talents: precious gifts. Impleach'd: intertwisted. |