“To the Onlie Begetter of These Insuing Sonnets, Mr. W. H.”

My colleagues engaged in the Shakespeare authorship question have been discussing the cryptic dedication of the Sonnets.  The search continues for hidden meanings, anagrams, secret codes, etc., and I’ve no doubt that such information exists.  The design of the dedication has three inverted pyramids; each word is followed by a dot or period — indicating, it would seem, the presence of partially hidden information.

The dedication of SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS

Here’s how the dedication reads on the surface:

To the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets, Mr W H:

“All happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet,” wisheth the Well-Wishing Adventurer in setting forth.

(The Well-Wishing Adventurer, who is now setting forth, addresses the only begetter of these sonnets, Mr. W.H., wishing him all happiness and that immortality our deceased immortal poet promised him.)

THE ONLIE BEGETTER =MR. W.H.

OUR EVER-LIVING POET = THE WELL-WISHING ADVENTURER

THE ONLIE BEGETTER = Mr. W. H. (Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton) the only one who inspires and “gives birth to” these sonnets, all 154 of them:  “Yet be most proud of that which I compile,/ Whose influence is thine, and borne of thee” – Sonnet 78; “Since all alike my songs and praises be/ To one, of one, still such, and ever so” – Sonnet 105

[Even the so-called Dark Lady sonnets 127-152 and the Bath sonnets 153-154 are “begotten” or inspired by Southampton; and the verses, although written by Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, are therefore Southampton’s offspring:  “Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain” – Sonnet 77]

And “the onlie begetter” could not fail to recall “the onlie begotten son” of the New Testament: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotton Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” – Gospel of John, 1.18

From the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer, in the Communion Service, as reprinted in The Amazing Web Site of Shakespeare’s Sonnets:

“I BELIEVE in one God, the father almighty maker of heaven and earthe, and of all thynges visible and invisible: And in one Lorde Jesu Christe, the onely begotten sonne of GOD, begotten of his father before al worldes, god of God, lyghte of lyghte, verye God of verye God, gotten, not made, beynge of one substance wyth the father, by whome all thinges were made…”

Oxford, father of Southampton, his royal son by Queen Elizabeth, writes to him in Sonnet 53: “What is your substance, whereof are you made…”

[The basic connection between the Book of Common Prayer and Sonnet 53 was put forth by the author/editor of The Amazing Web Site of Shakespeare’s Sonnets]

MR. W.H. = This is the onlie begetter of the sonnets, Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, his title “Lord” reversed to “Mr.” and his intitials “H.W.” reversed to “W.H.” — reflecting the reversal of his title and status while in the Tower during 1601-1603.   He had been found guilty of high treason and sentenced to be executed, but his life was spared and he remained in prison as the base commoner “Mr. Henry Wriothesley” or “the late earl” in the eyes of the law — that is, he was legally dead.

Eighty consecutively numbered sonnets, from 27 to 106 – more than half the full sequence — cover the time Southampton spent in the Tower from the night of the failed Essex Rebellion on February 8, 1601 to his final night as a prisoner on April 9, 1603.  The reversals of his initials and title point us toward that central story within “these ensuing sonnets.”

The dedication of "Lucrece" to Southampton in 1594, ending with the words "all happinesse"

ALL HAPPINESSE: These are the final two words in the body of the previous dedication by “William Shakespeare” to Southampton, that of Lucrece in 1594:

“Were my worth greater my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened by ALL HAPPINESSE.”

THAT ETERNITIE PROMISED = the eternity promised to Southampton by the author, Lord Oxford, his father: “Your name from hence immortal life shall have” – Sonnet 81; and so on.

OUR EVER-LIVING POET = Edward de Vere Earl of Oxford (1550-1604), whose signature word was EVER for “E.Ver”.  In 1609 he is “ever-living” or deceased.   “That ever-living man of memory, Henry the Fifth” – 1 Henry VI, 4.3; but he would have crafted the dedication before he died.

THE WELL-WISHING ADVENTURER: This is also Oxford, who in the 1570’s had been an “adventurer” or investor in the Frobisher voyages to find a Northwest Passage to the Orient.

(But the son followed the father in many respects; and now in 1609 the Earl of Southampton is a leading “adventurer” or investor in the Virginia Company’s voyages to the New World; but even while in the Tower, in 1602, he had helped to finance the Gosnold Voyage resulting in the original naming of Cape Cod and the discovery of Martha’s Vineyard, and much more.)

SETTNG FORTH: Oxford is “setting forth” the truth of Southampton as a king or “god on earth” in these sonnets.   “I here pronounce this workmanship is such/ As that no pen can set it forth too much” – Ignoto, undoubtedly Oxford himself, in The Faerie Queene by Spenser, 1590.

Oxford must have composed and arranged the dedication of the Sonnets himself (without the “T.T.” referring to Thomas Thorpe, the publisher) prior to his death on June 24, 1604, when he was also “setting forth” from this world.

Here is part of the Discussion of “onlie begetter” in The Amazing Web Site of Shakespeare’s Sonnets:

“Other commentators have preferred to interpret ‘begetter’ as ‘the one who obtained the manuscript for me’. If, as has been suggested frequently, this book is a pirated and unauthorised printing of the sonnets, it seems unlikely that Thorpe would choose to trumpet the fact to the world and praise the one who had stolen the manuscript. The entire credit of the book and its salesworthiness depended on people believing that it was genuine Shakespeare. To give the game away that it was a stolen copy and not necessarily even by Shakespeare would have undermined its potential attraction to readers, not to mention the damage it might do to Thorpe himself as a publisher. Would he really wish to have portrayed himself as a purloiner of other men’s works?

“The word ‘begetter’ is not used by Shakespeare either in the plays or poems. However he does use ‘beget’ (23 times), ‘begets’ (7 times) and ‘begotten’ (4 times), either with literal meanings of ‘to father, to create, to procreate.’, or in a metaphoric sense. He does not use it to signify ‘to procure’. The absence of the word ‘begetter’ in the corpus could signify that Shakespeare did not have a hand in writing this dedication (it is signed by Thomas Thorpe). However that does not show that he thereby disapproved of it. Probably he enjoyed its puzzling ambiguity and was quite happy to have it attached to the poems, as it hid the dedicatee’s name from all those who were not already in the secret, and left open the possibility that all might be revealed in time.”

It’s time to drop the idea that “the onlie begetter” was the “procurer” of the Sonnets for the publisher!  And it’s also time to embrace the religious quality of these verses, within which Oxford portrays himself and his royal son, Southampton, as of “one substance”:

Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one
Sonnet 36

And these words from a father to his son who should be king:

As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth…

So then I am not lame, poor, despised,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am sufficed,
And by a part of all thy glory live.
Sonnet 37

But here’s the joy: my friend and I are one.
Sonnet 42

Published in: on December 28, 2009 at 11:33 pm  Comments (11)  
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“I, My Sovereign, Watch the Clock for You” – The Living Record – Chapter 52 – The Execution of Southampton Draws Near

DAY THIRTY-ONE FOR SOUTHAMPTON IN THE TOWER
THE TIME OF HIS EXECUTION IS ALMOST UPON US
Sonnet 57
I, My Sovereign, Watch the Clock for You
10 March 1601

Crowds of London citizens have been gathering in the mornings for the expected execution of Southampton.  Meanwhile Oxford addresses his royal son directly as “my sovereign” and states his duty as his “slave” or “servant” (vassal in service to his Majesty the Prince) to “watch the clock for you.”  In the ending couplet, Oxford records the fact that the bargain for his son’s life will include his own obliteration from the official record as the author of the works attributed to Will Shakespeare.  Oxford’s popular pen name is his gift to Southampton, who therefore has both a “Will” and a royal will.

A beheading on Tower Hill

This sonnet begins the fourth chapter of ten sonnets apiece, a chapter ending with Sonnet 66, the fortieth sonnet on the fortieth day after the night of the Rebellion when Southampton was imprisoned.

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu.

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But like a sad slave stay and think of nought
Save where you are how happy you make those.

So true a fool is love that in your Will
(Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.

The Tower

1 BEING YOUR SLAVE, WHAT SHOULD I DO BUT TEND

SLAVE = servant to a prince or king, as in “your servant” in line 8 below; same as one who serves “in vassalage” as in “Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage/ Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit” – Sonnet 26, line 1; “Thou factious Duke of York, descend my throne, and kneel for grace and mercy at my feet: I am thy sovereign.” – 3 Henry VI, 1.1.74-76; “Be humble to us, call my sovereign yours, and do him homage as obedient subjects” – 1 Henry VI, 4.2.6-7; “Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.  My life thou shalt command” – Richard II, 1.1.165-166

It is the curse of kings to be attended
By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
King John, 4.2.208-209

That God forbid, that made me first your slave
Sonnet 58, line 1

TEND = “That millions of strange shadows on you tend” – Sonnet 53, line 2; “Who didst thou leave to tend his Majesty?” – King John, 5.6.32; “The summer still doth tend upon my state” – Queen Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 3.1.147; “Where twice so many have a command to tend you” – to the King in King Lear, 2.2.453-454; “Tend me tonight” – Antony & Cleopatra, 4.2.24); “The which attending from the Court, I will take my leave of your Lordship” – Oxford to Burghley, July 1581

Dedication of "Lucrece" in 1594 to Southampton

2 UPON THE HOURS AND TIMES OF YOUR DESIRE?

HOURS AND TIMES = the time being reflected in these sonnets, related to the ever-waning life of Elizabeth; UPON THE HOURS AND TIMES OF YOUR DESIRE = the times chosen by your royal will; “When was the hour I ever contradicted your desire, or made it not mine too?” – Queen Katharine pleads with the king for mercy, Henry VIII, 2.4.26-27

3 I HAVE NO PRECIOUS TIME AT ALL TO SPEND,

PRECIOUS = royal; “Tend’ring the precious safety of my prince” – Richard II, 1.1.32; “Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)/ For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night” – Sonnet 30, lines 5-6; TIME = repeated from the previous line, emphasizing the importance of this ongoing time, now leading to the possible execution of Southampton; ALL = Southampton, his motto One for All, All for One

4 NOR SERVICES TO DO TILL YOU REQUIRE.

SERVICES = duties in service to him as prince; (“my duteous service” – Richard III, 2.1.64; “A boon, my sovereign, for my service done” – Richard III, 2.1.96; “Commend my service to my sovereign” – Henry V, 4.6.23; “My gracious lord, I tender you my service” – Richard II, 2.3.41; “To faithful service of your Majesty” – Richard II, 3.3.118; “Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers that owe yourselves, your lives and services, to this imperial throne” – Henry V, 1.2.33-35; “So service shall with steeled sinews toil, and labour shall refresh itself with hope to do Your Grace incessant services – Henry V, 2.2.36-39; “We shall present our services to a fine new prince” – The Winter’s Tale, 2.117; “Beseech your Highness, give us better credit; we have always truly served you, and beseech you so to esteem of us, and on our knees we beg, as recompense of our dear services” – The Winter’s Tale, 2.3.146-149, i.e., in service or slavery

And happily may your sweet self put on
The lineal state and glory of the land!
To whom, with all submission, on my knee
I do bequeath my faithful services
And true subjection everlastingly
King John, 5.7.101-105
(The Bastard to Prince Henry, son of now-deceased King John)

The White Tower - where Southampton is confined

“I serve Her Majesty” – Oxford to Burghley, October 30, 1584

TILL YOU REQUIRE = until you, my sovereign, command me; “The gods require our thanks” – Timon of Athens, 3.6.67-68

5 NOR DARE I CHIDE THE WORLD WITHOUT END HOUR

CHIDE = rebuke, scold, quarrel with; “A thing like death to chide away this shame” – Romeo and Juliet, 4.1.74; THE WORLD WITHOUT END HOUR = eternity; (“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end” – Morning Prayer Service); END HOUR = perhaps a play on “endower” – i.e., Henry Wriothesley, if he is not the King, can no longer “endow” the Tudor dynasty; he was “the world’s fresh ornament” in Sonnet 1, line 9, but now “the world” will be “without” him as its “endower.”

6 WHILST I (MY SOVEREIGN) WATCH THE CLOCK FOR YOU.

MY SOVEREIGN = Oxford speaking to his royal son as his prince or king; “The purest spring is not so free from mud as I am clear from treason to my sovereign” – 2 Henry VI, 3.2; “Comfort, my sovereign!  Gracious Henry, comfort!” – 2 Henry VI, 3.2.37; “Good morrow to my sovereign King and Queen!” – Richard III, 2.1.47; “A boon, my sovereign, for my service done” – to the King in Richard III, 2.1.96; “My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege” – Richard II, 1.1.21; “The King, thy sovereign” – 1 Henry VI, 3.1.25; “Be humble to us, call my sovereign yours and do him homage as obedient subjects” – 1 Henry VI, 4.2.6-7

WATCH THE CLOCK FOR YOU = Remain vigilant while the time leads to the hour when you may be executed; keep recording this time in these verses; wait with mounting anxiety over your impending execution; “To play the watchman ever for thy sake” – Sonnet 61, line 12; “so vexed with watching and with tears” – Sonnet 148, line 10; “The special watchmen of our
English weal” – 1 Henry VI, 3.1.66; “For sleeping England long time have I watched” – Richard II, 2.1.77; “What watchful cares do interpose themselves betwixt your eyes and night?” – Julius Caesar, 2.1.98-99; stand guard for you and your blood; “To guard a title that was rich before” – King John, 4.2.10

7 NOR THINK THE BITTERNESS OF ABSENCE SOUR,

BITTERNESS OF ABSENCE = the pain of your absence of liberty, of your absence from me, of your absence from the rest of England, being in the Tower; “Th’imprisoned absence of your liberty” – Sonnet 58, line 6; “O absence, what a torment” – Sonnet 39, line 9; “From you have I been absent” – Sonnet 98, line 1; “I will acquaintance strangle and look strange,/ Be absent from thy walks” – Sonnet 89, lines 8-9, referring to the “walks” he shared with
Southampton on the roof of his prison quarters within the Tower fortress; SOUR = hurtful

Dedication of "Venus and Adonis" in 1593 to Southampton, who is "the world's hopeful expectation," just as he is "the world's fresh ornament" in Sonnet 1

8 WHEN YOU HAVE BID YOUR SERVANT ONCE ADIEU.

YOUR SERVANT = your Majesty’s loyal and faithful servant; “Servant in arms to Harry King of England” – 1 Henry VI, 4.2.4; “Fit counselor and servant for a prince” – Pericles, 1.2.63; “The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever” – Horatio to the Prince in Hamlet, 1.2.162

9 NOR DARE I QUESTION WITH MY JEALOUS THOUGHT

DARE = Oxford speaking of his need to remain silent or be charged with treason for proclaiming his son’s right to the throne; “Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,/ Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me” – Sonnet 26, lines 13-14; JEALOUS = (“Vehement in feeling, as in wrath, desire, or devotion … Zealous or solicitous for the preservation or well-being of something possessed or esteemed; vigilant or careful in guarding” – OED); “I have been very jealous for the Lord God of Host” – Geneva Bible, 1560, 1 Kings 19.10

10 WHERE YOU MAY BE, OR YOUR AFFAIRS SUPPOSE,

WHERE YOU MAY BE = within the Tower; YOUR AFFAIRS = you affairs of state; “What one has to do … business” – OED; “But what is your affair in Elsinore?” – Hamlet, 1.2.174; “So I thrive in my dangerous affairs” – the King in Richard III, 4.4.398; “To treat of high affairs touching that time” – King John, 1.1.101; to Queen Elizabeth: “To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side” – Sonnet 151, line 12

11 BUT LIKE A SAD SLAVE STAY AND THINK OF NOUGHT

SAD SLAVE = unhappy servant; SLAVE = “a person who is absolutely subject to the will of another” – Schmidt; repeated from line 1; NOUGHT = nothing; an image of Southampton as “none” (the opposite of “one”) and “nothing” or a “nobody” in the prison; Oxford must think of “nothing” and so he may think of his son, who is “nothing” in the eyes of authority

12 SAVE WHERE YOU ARE HOW HAPPY YOU MAKE THOSE.

Except how happy you make those who are in your royal presence, i.e., those other criminals or traitors in the Tower; SAVE = except; WHERE YOU ARE = in the Tower; HAPPY = (“Health to my sovereign, and new happiness” – 2 Henry IV, 4.4.); THOSE = the other prisoners (and even the guards) in the Tower

Elizabeth

13  SO TRUE A FOOL IS LOVE THAT IN YOUR WILL

TRUE = Oxford, his motto Nothing Truer than Truth; FOOL = Oxford had pictured himself as a Jester or “allowed fool” at Court (allowed by the Queen), who wrote “comedies” laced with political satire and appeared to make a fool of himself; IN LOVE = in service of the royal blood; YOUR WILL = your royal will, with a play on “Will” Shakespeare, the pseudonym Oxford created in order to publicly support his son

14 (THOUGH YOU DO ANY THING) HE THINKS NO ILL.

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

HE = love, i.e., royal blood can do no ill; also Oxford, as loving father; NO ILL = as opposed to the “ill deeds” of the Rebellion, i.e., Southampton must repent (and forfeit the crown) and this act, with Oxford’s sacrifice of his own identity, will “ransom all ill deeds” – Sonnet 34, line 14; perhaps a play on “illegitimate”, i.e., Oxford still “thinks no ill” or thinks his son is not illegitimate; “If some suspect of ill masked not thy show” – Sonnet 70, line 13, referring to Southampton as a “suspect traitor” who has been convicted
and is now in the Tower facing execution

Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, in the Tower (8 Feb 1601 - 10 April 1603) - being held here until Robert Cecil engineers the succession of King James

Published in: Uncategorized on December 23, 2009 at 4:51 am  Comments (3)  
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Myth vs. Reality: What do William Shakespeare and Tiger Woods Have in Common?

Frank Rich

An observation by Frank Rich in today’s New York Times (Sunday December 20, 2009) made me think of why most of the world has had such a tough time considering the possibility that Will Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon was not, after all, the author of the works attributed to the printed name “William Shakespeare.”

Even when we know somewhere deep in our bones that some magnificent myth simply cannot stand up to scrutiny, we go right on tolerating and even mightily defending it.  We go right on, seemingly oblivious to the great gap between a beloved popular belief and what must be the quite different reality behind it.  Such is the case, I believe with the gap between our traditional image of Shakespeare the man and the real person who became the world’s greatest writer.

In his essay in the Sunday Opinion page, Rich had occasion to bring up the Tiger Woods saga:

“What makes the golfing superstar’s tale compelling, after all, is not that he’s another celebrity in trouble or another fallen athletic “role model” in a decade lousy with them.  His scandal has nothing to tell us about race, and nothing new to say about hypocrisy.  The conflict between Tiger’s picture-perfect family life and his marathon womanizing is the oldest of morality tales.

“What’s striking instead is the exceptional, Enron-sized gap between this golfer’s public image as a paragon of businesslike discipline and focus and the maniacally reckless life we now know he led.  What’s equally striking, if not shocking, is that the American establishment and news media — all of it, not just golf writers or celebrity tabloids — fell for the Woods myth as hard as any fan and actively helped sustain and enhance it. People wanted to believe what they wanted to believe…”

And this certainly has been true of the virtually universal belief in the myth of the Stratford man as “Shakespeare,” with English and Drama scholars of the academic establishment (instead of the American establishment and news media) actively helping to sustain and enhance it.

I admit that if I’d had the occasion to bet on Tiger’s reality, I’d have taken the side of the “role model” image that we now know was a false one.  The image that “Shakespeare” attended only grammar school at best, that he never traveled to Italy, that he wrote strictly for the box office, that his detailed knowledge and seemingly firsthand experience (which fills entire walls of library shelves) had been acquired by some miracle — at one time in my life, I would have bet on the side of that image, too.  (Too bad Will of Stratford left no voice mail messages behind!)

Now, about that popular myth of the Virgin Queen…

Published in: Uncategorized on December 20, 2009 at 8:21 pm  Leave a Comment  
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“Let This Sad Interim like the Ocean be” – Pleading with Southampton to Remain Strong in the Tower – Chapter 51 of The Living Record

THE PRISON YEARS
DAY THIRTY IN THE TOWER
Sonnet 56
This Sad Interim
9 March 1601

Oxford records his deep sadness after meeting with Southampton in the Tower, when he had to inform his royal son of the bittersweet bargain with Robert Cecil (and the Queen) as the only way to gain a reprieve from his execution.  His reference to the Ocean (sea of royal blood) is an overt homage to Southampton as a prince or king. He urges Henry Wriothesley to go along with the bargain to save his life.

Hank Whittemore performing "Shake-speare's Treason," the one-man show dramatizing this true story told by Oxford in the Sonnets for posterity (photo by Bill Boyle)

Sweet love, renew thy force!  Be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but today by feeding is allayed,
Tomorrow sharpened in his former might.

So love be thou, although today thou fill
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fullness,
Tomorrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of Love with a perpetual dullness.

Let this sad Interim like the Ocean be
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new
Come daily to the banks, that when they see
Return of love, more blest may be the view;

As call it winter, which being full of care,
Makes summer’s welcome thrice more wished, more rare.

1 SWEET LOVE, RENEW THY FORCE!  BE IT NOT SAID

SWEET LOVE = royal prince; royal son; “Good night, sweet prince” – Hamlet, 5.2.366; THY FORCE = your royal power and strength; validity, as in “our late edict shall strongly stand in force” – Love’s Labour’s Lost, 1.1.11; your will to live

A contemporary drawing of Essex being executed on February 25, 1601

2 THY EDGE SHOULD BLUNTER BE THAN APPETITE,

EDGE = the cutting side of a blade, echoing the “edge” of the executioner’s axe; “But bears it out even to the edge of doom” – Sonnet 116, line 12; keenness, desire, royal will; “with spirit of honor edged more sharper than your swords” – Henry V, 3.5.38; APPETITE = your desire to live; i.e., Oxford is urging his son to go along with the bargain being made for his life, appealing to his desire to live and eventually be freed from prison

3 WHICH BUT TODAY BY FEEDING IS ALLAYED,

BY FEEDING = by being put out to pasture, so to speak; “Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep in the affliction of these terrible dreams that shake us nightly” – Macbeth, 3.2.18-19; ALLAYED = postponed (with ALL = Southampton, his motto One for All, All for One)

4 TOMORROW SHARP’NED IN HIS FORMER MIGHT.

TOMORROW = “Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind” – Sonnet 105, line 5; FORMER MIGHT = former royal power; “O’er-charged with burden of mine own love’s might” – Sonnet 23, line 8; “Thy pyramids built up with newer might” – Sonnet 123, line 2; “England shall give him office, honour, might” – 2 Henry IV, 4.5.129; “the might of it” – i.e., the might and power of the crown, 2 Henry IV, 4.5.173

5 SO LOVE BE THOU, ALTHOUGH TODAY THOU FILL

SO LOVE BE THOU = so, royal son, be your royal self, since you are you; “This is I, Hamlet the Dane!” – Hamlet, 5.1.255; “But he that writes of you, if he can tell/ That you are you, so dignifies his story” – Sonnet 84, lines 7-8; act like the king you are, and go along with this decision to save your life; in giving up the throne, you help England avoid civil war, and you will gain your life and freedom

Queen Elizabeth I

6 THY HUNGRY EYES, EVEN TILL THEY WINK WITH FULLNESS.

HUNGRY EYES = royal eyes wanting to be who he is; WINK WITH FULLNESS = close or shut because of the power of the sun or royal light; echoing the “winking” of Southampton’s royal eyes or stars or suns;

7 TOMORROW SEE AGAIN, AND DO NOT KILL

TOMORROW SEE AGAIN = stay alive and use your kingly eyes once more; KILL = destroy; echoing the execution of Southampton, still a possibility, with Oxford urging his son to accept the terms of the “ransom” and, thereby, to save himself from being killed.

8 THE SPIRIT OF LOVE WITH A PERPETUAL DULLNESS.

THE SPIRIT OF LOVE = the sacredness of your royal blood (which is the essential and vital part of you); “Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame” – Sonnet 128, line 1, to Elizabeth, referring to her waste of Southampton’s “spirit of love” or royal blood; Essex in 1597 wrote to Elizabeth thanking her for her “sweet letters, indited by the Spirit of spirits”; PERPETUAL DULLNESS = eternal shame; perpetual confinement in the Tower; eternal death

9 LET THIS SAD IN’T’RIM LIKE THE OCEAN BE

THIS SAD INTERIM = this sorrowful time of your imprisonment (which hopefully is only temporary); OCEAN = kingly; royal blood“Here, then, we have Shakespeare typifying his Friend variously as a sun, a god, an ocean or a sea: three familiar metaphors which he and his contemporaries use to represent a sovereign prince or king” – Leslie Hotson, Mr. W. H., 1964
“Even to our Ocean, to our great King John” – King John, 5.4.57; “The tide of blood in me … shall mingle with the state of floods and flow henceforth in formal majesty” – 2 Henry IV, 5.2.129; “A substitute shines brightly as a king, until a king be by, and then his state empties itself, as doth an inland brook into the main of waters” – The Merchant of Venice, 5.1.94-97; poets alluded to Elizabeth as “Cynthia, Queen of Seas and Lands” – Roy Strong, The Cult of Elizabeth, 52; “Thou art, quoth she, a sea, a sovereign king;/ And lo, there falls into thy boundless flood/ Black lust, dishonour, shame” – Lucrece, 652

The Tower: the official prison-fortress of the monarch

10 WHICH PARTS THE SHORE, WHERE TWO CONTRACTED NEW

CONTRACTED NEW = come together again; “But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes” – Sonnet 1, line 5; Oxford and his royal son, envisioned as newly contracted

11 COME DAILY TO THE BANKS, THAT WHEN THEY SEE

COME DAILY = like these verses written daily; echoing the “daily” or day-by-day experience of his son in prison; like the tide coming daily to the banks of these “pyramids” or sonnets, as in “No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change!  Thy pyramids built up with newer might/ To me are nothing novel, nothing strange” – Sonnet 123, lines 1-3; “Thus they do, sir;
they take the flow of the Nile by certain scales in the pyramid” – Antony and Cleopatra, 2.7.17-18

12 RETURN OF LOVE, MORE BLEST MAY BE THE VIEW!

RETURN OF LOVE = return of royal blood; i.e., when Southampton finally emerges from the Tower, he will be alive and so will his great gift of “love” or royal blood still live; “So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,/ Comes home again, on better judgment making” – Sonnet 87, indicating “misprision” of treason as the new, lesser verdict that will allow Southampton to “come home again” as a free man; BLEST = full of Southampton’s royal and divine blessings; “the blessed sun of heaven” – Falstaff of Prince Hal in 1 Henry IV, 2.4.403

13 AS CALL IT WINTER, WHICH BEING FULL OF CARE,

WINTER = the present time, early March of 1601; this miserable time of your imprisonment and possible death; “How like a Winter hath my absence been/ From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year” – Sonnet 97, lines 1-2, corresponding with February 8, 1602, and referring to her Majesty’s “pleasure” or command; and with “fleeting” meaning “imprisoned,” echoing the Fleet Prison; “Three winters cold … /Since first I saw you fresh” – Sonnet 104, lines 3-8, corresponding to February 8, 1603, the third winter of Southampton’s confinement; i.e., this entire time of your confinement is a winter; FULL OF CARE = full of Oxford’s care for him, to save his life; “Thou best of dearest, and mine only care” – Sonnet 48, line 7

The White Tower, where Southampton was imprisoned

14 MAKES SUMMER’S WELCOME THRICE MORE WISHED, MORE RARE.

SUMMER’S WELCOME = the welcoming of the golden time of the king, of Southampton as prince, his return to freedom; “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day … And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date … But thy eternal Summer shall not fade” – Sonnet 18, lines 1, 4, 9; THRICE = related to the Trinity and also to the previously potential royal family (which is no longer possible) of Elizabeth and Oxford and Southampton; MORE RARE = more royal; “Beauty, Truth, and Rarity,/ Grace in all simplicity” – the royal family of Elizabeth, Oxford and Southampton in The Phoenix and Turtle, 1601, 53-5, being written about now in early 1601

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“‘Gainst Death and All-Oblivious Enmity Shall You Pace Forth!” – Sonnet 55 – The Living Record – Chapter 50 – Words to a Prince

DAY TWENTY-NINE IN THE TOWER
Sonnet 55
The Living Record of Your Memory
8 March 1601

“This is a continuation of Sonnet 54” – Dowden, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, 1881

Southampton in the Tower 1601-1603: Is he not presenting himself here as a prince?

With his son still facing execution, Oxford vows to create “the living record” of Southampton to be preserved “in the eyes of all posterity.” Along with Sonnet 81, this verse is a declaration of his utter commitment to making sure the truth about Henry Wriothesley will be known by future generations.  The “living record” of him (the story of his royal life until the fate of the Tudor dynasty is sealed) will be preserved for future readers within the tomb of the monument.  The tomb contains a womb of verse in which he is still “living” and growing in real time with this diary, the outcome of which remains
uncertain.

(“This is clearly addressed to a prince” – Ogburn & Ogburn, This Star of England, 1952 – and I hereby add my complete agreement.  In fact we can hear Oxford in the first two lines saying, in effect, that his son – Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton – is a prince who will have a monument outliving those built for all OTHER princes.)
Not marble nor the gilded monument(s)
Of Princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall Statues over-turn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.

‘Gainst death and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So till the judgement that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

1 NOT MARBLE, NOR THE GILDED MONUMENT(S)

GILDED MONUMENT(S) = gilded tombs of English monarchs, many made of marble; most modern editors emend “monument” to the plural, but in fact Oxford used the singular on other occasions:

“Again we see if our friends be dead, we cannot show or declare our affection more than by erecting them of tombs: Whereby when they be dead indeed, yet make we them live, as it were, again through their monument.  But with me behold it happeneth far better, for in your lifetime I shall erect you such a monument that, as I say, in your lifetime, you shall see how noble a shadow of your virtuous life shall hereafter remain when you are dead and gone.  And in your lifetime, again I say, I shall give you that monument and remembrance of your life whereby I may declare my goodwill…”
Oxford’s Prefatory Letter to Cardanus’ Comfort, 1573

A beheading on Tower Hill

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o’er-read        Sonnet 81, lines 9-10

And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants’ creats and tombs of brass are spent    Sonnet 107, lines 13-14

Ever belov’d and loving may his rule be;
And when old time shall lead him to his end,
Goodness and he fill up one monument!        Henry VIII, 2.1.92-94

This grave shall have a living monument.     Hamlet, 5.1.297

2 OF PRINCES SHALL OUTLIVE THIS POWERFUL RHYME!

PRINCES = Kings or Queens, including Elizabeth, who referred to herself as Prince of England; THIS POWERFUL RHYME = this monument of the Sonnets, which contains your “power” as a prince or king: “O Thou my lovely Boy, who in thy power” – Sonnet 126, line 1; “The King with mighty and quick-raised power” – 1 Henry IV, 4.4.12

3 BUT YOU SHALL SHINE MORE BRIGHT IN THESE CONTENTS

YOU SHALL SHINE = like a king; “Even so my Sunne one early morn did shine” – Sonnet 33, line 9; MORE BRIGHT = more royally; “A substitute shines brightly as a king” – Merchant of Venice, 5.1.94 “Yet looks he like a king; behold, his eye, as bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth controlling majesty” – Richard II, 3.3.68-70; “Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, his honour and the greatness of his name shall be” – Henry VIII, 5.5.50-52, Cranmer, speaking of a future son and royal heir of Queen Elizabeth (in a passage that has been thought to refer to King James, but the context of the speech clearly refers to an “heir” to arise from the Queen’s blood and ashes; IN THESE CONTENTS = in what is contained in these private verses written according to time; “The phrase carries a suggestion of ‘in this coffin’” – Booth; “That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,/ Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew” – Sonnet 86, lines 3-4; “Within thine own bud buriest thy content” – Sonnet 1, line 11, i.e., his substance or royal blood

4 THAN UNSWEPT STONE, BESMEARED WITH SLUTTISH TIME.

THAN UNSWEPT STONE, etc. = than stones that crumble in the course of time; “I will not ruinate my father’s house, who gave his blood to lime the stones together” – 3 Henry VI, 5.1.85-86; SLUTTISH = unclean, nasty; TIME = the ongoing withering of Elizabeth’s mortal life, i.e., mortal time

5 WHEN WASTEFUL WAR SHALL STATUES OVERTURN

WHEN WASTEFUL, etc. = when destructive wars overturn the statues of defeated kings

6 AND BROILS ROOT OUT THE WORK OF MASONRY,

BROILS = conflicts, disorders, wars; alluding to possible civil war over the throne; and to avoid such calamity for England he is counseling his royal son to renounce the crown

7 NOR MARS HIS SWORD NOR WAR’S QUICK FIRE SHALL BURN

NOR/NOR = neither/nor; “Now have I brought a work to end which neither Jove’s fierce wrath/ Nor sword, nor fire, nor fretting age with all the force it hath/ Are able to abolish quite” – Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book XV, 984-986, as translated (1567) by Arthur Golding, uncle of Edward de Vere, who may have produced the translation himself

8 THE LIVING RECORD OF YOUR MEMORY

The Sonnets are to become the living record of Southampton, for posterity; the verses are the womb in which he is reborn and grows; this diary, which is recording his life in real time and preserving it for future generations; LIVING = the dynamic nature of these verses, which are being written in relation to the calendar of the reign, i.e., the diary is aimed at the royal succession upon the death of the Queen, but exactly when she will die is unknown; (in fact she will die when Southampton is still in the Tower and James of Scotland will succeed to the throne, so the diary will continue until Elizabeth’s funeral, marking the official end of her Tudor dynasty); “Save men’s opinions and my living blood” – Richard II, 3.1.26

9 ‘GAINST DEATH AND ALL OBLIVOUS ENMITY

ALL = Southampton, One for All, All for One; ALL OBLIVIOUS = forgetful of you; “So you being sick of too much doubt in your own proceedings, through which infirmity you are desirous to bury and ensevel your works in the grave of oblivion” – Oxford’s Prefatory Letter to Cardanus Comfort, 1573, addressed to translator Thomas Bedingfield; ENMITY = contempt for you and your royal blood

10 SHALL YOU PACE FORTH!  YOUR PRAISE SHALL STILL FIND ROOM

SHALL = echoing “all” for Southampton; PACE = step, march, walk; echoing the stately, formal pace of a king, in majesty; SHALL YOU PACE FORTH = shall you emerge in glory as king; FORTH = as in “setting forth” in the 1609 dedication of the Sonnets; FORTH = “out from confinement or indistinction into open view” – Schmidt; “Caesar shall forth” – Julius Caesar, 2.2.10; “an hour before the worshipped sun peered forth the golden window of the east” – Romeo and Juliet, 1.1.118-119; also, to bring forth is to beget, procreate; YOUR PRAISE = recognition and praise of you as king; “The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise” – Sonnet 38, line 14, upon the trial when Southampton was convicted of high treason and condemned to death; STILL = always, eternally; FIND ROOM = find the place where your throne is; ROOM = room to be who he is; freedom from imprisonment and freedom from censorship or obliteration of his identity as prince; “Grief fills the room up of my absent child” – King John, 3.3.93; “To take their rooms ere I can plant myself” – 3 Henry VI, 3.2.132

11 EVEN IN THE EYES OF ALL POSTERITY

EVEN IN THE EYES = in the very eyes of subjects; ALL = Southampton, One for All, All for One; ALL POSTERITY = the entire world in generations to come; descendants; succeeding generations, future times; “Now that Henry’s dead, posterity, await for wretched years” – 1 Henry VI, 1.1.47-48; “Methinks the truth should live from age to age, as ‘twere retailed to all posterity” – Richard III, 3.1.76-77; “Beauty, Truth and Rarity,/ Grace in all simplicity,/ Here in cinders lie./ Death is now the Phoenix nest,/ And the Turtle’s loyal breast/ To eternity doth rest./ Leaving no posterity,/ ‘Twas not their infirmity,/ It was married chastity” – The Phoenix and Turtle, 1601, as by “William Shake-Speare”, lines 53-61

The father, all whose joy is nothing else
But fair posterity                The Winter’s Tale, 4.4.410-411

12 THAT WEAR THIS WORLD OUT TO THE ENDING DOOM.

That continue to the end of the world; “And we’ll wear out in a walled prison packs and sects of great ones that ebb and flow by the moon” – King Lear, 5.3.17-19, glancing at Elizabeth, the Moon goddess; also Southampton is “the world” itself, as Gloucester depicts the King: “O ruined piece of nature, this great world shall so wear out to naught” – King Lear, 4.6.130-31; ENDING DOOM = the Last Judgment; end of the Tudor Rose dynasty; “Thy end is Truth’s and Beauty’s doom and date” – Sonnet 14, line 14; echoing the possibility that Southampton will be executed and/or left in prison for life; “Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom” – Sonnet 107, line 1

“And all the world shall never/ Be able for to quench my name” – Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book XV, 990-991, translated by Oxford’s uncle Arthur Golding (1567) or by the young earl himself

13 SO TILL THE JUDGMENT THAT YOUR SELF ARISE,

TILL THE JUDGMENT = the rendering of you (the Audit of Southampton’s royal blood, in the future, to be forecast in the envoy, when nature’s final accounting “though delayed, answered must be, and her Quietus is to render thee” – Sonnet 126, lines 11-12); as opposed to the judgment of the tribunal at the trial; “So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,/ Comes home again, on better judgment making” – Sonnet 87, lines 11-12, when the judgment has been changed for the better from treason to misprision of treason; “His royal self in judgment comes to hear the cause betwixt her and this great offender” – Henry VIII, 5.2.154-155; THAT YOURSELF ARISE = that you ascend to the throne, rising like the sun, in the eyes of people in the future, i.e., in posterity; (“Till the decree of the judgment-day that you arise from the dead” – Dowden); a Christ-like Resurrection of the royal son or Sunne: “Even so my Sunne one early morn did shine” – Sonnet 33, line 9; “For as the Sun is daily new and old” – Sonnet 76, line 14

14 YOU LIVE IN THIS, AND DWELL IN LOVERS’ EYES.

YOU LIVE IN THIS = you continue to live in this monument of verse, growing in the womb of its tomb, by time recorded in this diary; you and your life and your blood are preserved; THIS = this verse; “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee” – Sonnet 18, lines 13-14; AND DWELL IN LOVERS’ EYES = and live in the eyes of your parents and all others who will appear, as subjects and friends, to adore you as king; “I tell thee, fellow, thy general is my lover” – Menenius Agrippa in Coriolanus, 5.2.14; IN LOVERS’ EYES = “You will be read by persons who will love you, though dead, as men love you in life” – Tucker.

Leslie Hotson observes in Mr. W. H., 1965, that the image of the Fair Youth is that of a “Sun” and a “God” and an “Ocean.”   And he states:

“It is well known that, following a general Renaissance practice drawn from antiquity, kings commonly figured as earthly ‘suns’ in the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries … ‘Gods on earth’ was proverbially used of kings as far back as Menander, and is frequent in Shakespeare … ‘Ocean’ or ‘sea’ as a figure for ‘king’ is often found in Shakespeare and his fellow-writers.

“Here, then, we have Shakespeare typifying his Friend variously as a sun, a god, an ocean or a sea: three familiar metaphors which he and his contemporaries use to represent a sovereign prince or king … Whatever may be meant by it here in the Sonnets, the Shakespearean and Elizabethan element common to the three is certainly king, and the metaphors exhibit a consistency of reference.”

He finds various usages in the Sonnets of succession, heir and issue, noting that these are terms that the same author “elsewhere applies to the paramount problems of royalty.” He notes that in Sonnet 9 “his Friend dying a bachelor without issue will leave the world his widow, contrasted by the poet with every private widow – that is, the widow of ‘a private man’ as distinguished from a ruler, a king.”

Hotson reads  Sonnet 14 in which “again Shakespeare presents his friend as a prince” whose fortune he is unable to foretell.   He also notes the poet’s direct usage of sovereign and king to describe the Fair Youth.

This “sustained and unmistakable” royal language in the Sonnets, writes Hotson, makes it obvious that “what he sets before us” is an array of powers “peculiar to a king: power to grant charters of privilege and letters patent, power to pardon crimes – in short, the exclusively royal prerogative.”  And in other verses we “need no reminder that it was to the king, and to no mortal but the king, that his dutiful subjects and vassals offered oblations; similarly, that it was only to the monarch or ruling magistrate that embassies were directed.”

Hotson notes the poet’s use of largess and bounty, writing: “Of the first it is significant to note that in his other works Shakespeare applies largess only to the gifts or donatives of kings.  As for bounty, the poet’s attribution of this grace to kings, while not exclusive, is characteristic … In the same way we recognize grace, state, and glory typically in Shakespeare’s kings.”

And finally he points to the explicit usages in the Sonnets of king and kingdoms.

“Clearly these consenting terms … cannot be dismissed as scattered surface-ornament.  They are intrinsic.  What is more, they intensify each other.  By direct address, by varied metaphor, and by multifarious allusion, the description of the Friend communicated is always one: monarch, sovereign prince, king.”

Of course Hotson was unable to find such a prince — a convincing one, at any rate; and the reason, I would argue, is that he was looking at the sonnets (and at the contemporary history) with the wrong author in mind!

Published in: Uncategorized on December 8, 2009 at 4:04 am  Comments (5)  
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Anticipating the Execution of Southampton – Sonnet 54 – “Sweet Deaths” – The Living Record: Chapter 49

Again from THE MONUMENT, my 900-page edition of The Sonnets:

THE PRISON YEARS
DAY TWENTY-EIGHT IN THE TOWER

The dynasty of the Tudors was symbolised by the Tudor Rose, emblem of the Tudors representing the fusion of the noble factions of Lancaster and York. This fusion was symbolised by the White rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster.

Sonnet 54
Sweet Deaths
7 March 1601

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford mournfully anticipates the execution of his royal son Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton and his death as heir to the Tudor Rose dynasty.  Southampton is the flower of the Tudor Rose, living and dying in this sonnet.

OH how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odor which doth in it live!

The Canker blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the Roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:

But for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves.  Sweet Roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made.

And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall vade, by verse distils your truth.

Robert Cecil -- after the failed Essex Rebellion of 8 February 1601, he had full power and control of Elizabeth and her government

Robert Cecil to George Carew, after March 5, 1601:

“It remaineth now that I let you know what is like to become of the poor young Earl of Southampton, who, merely for the love of the Earl [Essex] hath been drawn into this action, who, in respect that most of the conspiracies were at Drury House, where he [Southampton] was always chief … those that would deal [plead] for him (of which number I protest to God I am one, as far as I dare) are much disadvantaged of arguments to save him…”

– Stopes, 224; i.e., Cecil, dealing with Oxford behind the scenes, is now putting it on record that he hopes the best for Southampton, but that saving him won’t be easy because all evidence goes against him; perhaps to build up the difficulty in anticipation of taking credit for interceding with the Queen on Southampton’s behalf.

1 OH HOW MUCH MORE DOTH BEAUTY BEAUTEOUS SEEM

BEAUTY = Southampton’s blood from Elizabeth; (“That thereby beauty’s Rose might never die” – Sonnet 1, line 2; “thy beauty’s legacy” – Sonnet 4, line 2; BEAUTEOUS = royal, Tudor; (“Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate” – Sonnet 10, line 7, referring to the House of Tudor)

2 BY THAT SWEET ORNAMENT WHICH TRUTH DOTH GIVE!

SWEET ORNAMENT = royal prince; “Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament” – Sonnet 1, line 9; “Which like a jewel hung in ghastly night” – Sonnet 27, line 11

For princes are
A model which heaven makes like to itself:
As jewels lose their glory if neglected,
So princes their renowns if not respected.     Pericles, 2.2.10-13

TRUTH = the truth of his Tudor blood; Oxford’s motto Nothing Truer than Truth; in his role as father

Southampton as he appeared at 20 in 1594, eager for military action and fame

3 THE ROSE LOOKS FAIR, BUT FAIRER WE IT DEEM

THE ROSE = the Tudor Rose; FAIR = royal; “From fairest creatures we desire increase,/ That thereby beauty’s Rose might never die” – Sonnet 1, lines 1-2; FAIRER = more royal; with a greater claim to the throne; “But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy, nature and fortune joined to make thee great” – King John, 2.2.51-52

4 FOR THAT SWEET ODOR WHICH DOTH IN IT LIVE.

SWEET ODOR = the royal presence of Southampton within the Rose; “What doth avail the rose unless another took pleasure in the smell? … Why should this rose be better esteemed than that rose, unless in pleasantness of smell it far surpassed the other rose?” – Oxford’s Prefatory Letter to Cardanus’ Comfort, 1573

5 THE CANKER BLOOMS HAVE FULL AS DEEP A DYE

CANKER BLOOMS = Southampton’s disgrace; (blossoms of the dog-rose)

Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?
Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?        1 Henry VI, 2.4.68-69

To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker Bolinbroke?    1 Henry IV, 1.3.173-174

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) - having no known heir of her blood, and refusing to name her son Southampton as successor, she was leaving England on the edge of possible civil war over the throne

FULL AS DEEP A DYE = just as much filled with royal blood; “And almost thence my nature is subdued/ To what it works in, like the Dyer’s hand” – Sonnet 111, lines 6-7; “dye” echoing “die” in the circumstances by which Southampton may be executed

6 AS THE PERFUMED TINCTURE OF THE ROSES,

As the external show of royalty by Tudor Rose heirs, i.e., Oxford is using the plural to refer to the singular, Southampton, who is Elizabeth’s heir by blood; also, the “Roses” or past heirs of the Tudor dynasty, from Henry VII in 1485.

7 HANG ON SUCH THORNS, AND PLAY AS WANTONLY,

HANG = echoing the imminent execution of Southampton; “Which like a jewel hung in ghastly night” – Sonnet 27, line 11; THORNS = disgraces; another play on Elizabeth’s motto Rose Without a Thorn, indicating that Southampton has disgraced and doomed the Tudor Rose Dynasty; “Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,/ Clouds and eclipses stain both Moone and Sunne,/ And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud” – Sonnet 35, lines 2-4, referring to Southampton as “bud” of the Tudor Rose

8 WHEN SUMMER’S BREATH THEIR MASKED BUDS DISCLOSES:

SUMMER’S = golden, kingly; “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?” – Sonnet 18, line 1; MASKED BUDS = hidden or unacknowledged Tudor Rose heirs, i.e., Southampton

MASKED = “Even so my Sunne one early morn did shine/ With all triumphant splendor on my brow,/ But out alack, he was but one hour mine,/ The region cloud [Elizabeth Regina] hath masked him from me now” – Sonnet 33, lines 9-12; “Masking the business from the common eye, for sundry weighty reasons” – Macbeth, 3.1.123-124; BUDS = “Within thine own bud buriest thy content” – Sonnet 1, line 11; “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” – Sonnet 18, line 3; DISCLOSES = unfolds to view, opens, as in “The canker galls the infants of the spring too oft before their buttons be disclosed” – Hamlet, 1.3.40; but Southampton is not being “disclosed” as the royal son – except in these private sonnets and, less directly, in Oxford’s works attributed to Shakespeare

The Book of Sonnets, 1609 - with the space between the lines left blank, indicating the author is not being identified

9 BUT FOR THEIR VIRTUE ONLY IS THEIR SHOW,

Because their only virtue is their appearance

10 THEY LIVE UNWOOED, AND UNRESPECTED FADE,

UN-WOOED = unacknowledged as prince; without being named in succession; “And when a woman woos, what woman’s son/ Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?” – Sonnet 41, lines 7-8, referring to Elizabeth having “wooed” or promised/tempted her son to hope or expect that she will name him to succeed her

UN-RESPECTED FADE = ignored, un-regarded, held in contempt; and, as such, fail to grow into rightful kingship; “For all the day they view things un-respected” – Sonnet 43, line 2, Oxford speaking of what is seen or perceived of his royal son by the rest of the world; (“un-respected” is used nowhere else in Shakespeare, aside from Sonnets 43 & 54)

If well-respected honor bid me on            1 Henry IV, 4.3.10

As jewels lose their glory if neglected,
So princes their renowns if not respected         Pericles, 2.2.12-13

Throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty         Richard II, 3.2.172-173

To tread down fair respect of sovereignty         King John, 2.2.58

To understand a law, to know the meaning
Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns
More upon humour than advised respect         King John, 4.2.212-214

I come with gracious offers from the king,
If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect         1 Henry IV, 4.3.30-31

11 DIE TO THEMSELVES; SWEET ROSES DO NOT SO,

DIE TO THEMSELVES = as Southampton may die by execution; SWEET ROSES = royal Tudor Rose heirs, i.e., Southampton; “Earthlier happy is the rose distilled, than that which withering on the virgin thorn grows, lives and dies in single blessedness” – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1.1.76-78

12 OF THEIR SWEET DEATHS ARE SWEETEST ODORS MADE:

SWEET DEATHS = royal deaths; (again, the plural used for the singular); Southampton’s still-expected execution; also, the extinction of his chance to gain the throne; SWEETEST ODORS = most royal evidence

"Shakespeare and the Tudor Rose" by Elisabeth Sears, Meadow Geese Press, 2003 - a ground-breaking book!

13 AND SO OF YOU, BEAUTEOUS AND LOVELY YOUTH,

YOU = Southampton; “But he that writes of you, if he can tell/ That you are you, so dignifies his story” – Sonnet 84, lines 7-8; BEAUTEOUS AND LOVELY YOUTH = royal son of beauty, the Queen; BEAUTEOUS = related to the Queen by blood; (perhaps rather than “beautiful” because of the “E O” within “beauteous); LOVELY = filled with “love” or royal blood; “O Thou my lovely Boy” – Sonnet 126, line 1; “the little Love-God” – Sonnet 154, line 1

14 WHEN THAT SHALL VADE, BY VERSE DISTILLS YOUR TRUTH.

VADE = fade, depart; die; BY VERSE = by these sonnets; (“my” verse – Malone)

DISTILLS = recreates and preserves; “By means of verse your truth is preserved and transmitted to future generations” – Duncan-Jones. Arden Edition of the Sonnets); i.e., Oxford is using the Sonnets to preserve and perpetuate his son’s blood, as opposed to the “distillation” of his royal blood by the begetting of an heir, called for in an earlier time: “But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,/ Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet” – Sonnet 5, lines 13-14; and “Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface/ In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled” – Sonnet 6, lines 1-2; and much earlier, when Oxford was four years old, he began studying with Thomas Smith, his first tutor, an expert in distillation

The Tower of London, where Southampton was being held by Cecil until Elizabeth died and James of Scotland became King of England

TRUTH = the truth of your royal blood, which is related to Oxford, Nothing Truer than Truth; “And your true rights be termed a Poet’s rage” – Sonnet 17, line 11; “Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized/ In true plain words by thy true-telling friend” – Sonnet 82, lines 11-12

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