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SHAKESPERE
Once upon a time, an undergrad was having
trouble with one of the Sonnets, so I stepped
in to help out:
Sonnet 52
The big S: The big D:
So am I as the rich whose blesse'd key If you look at your stuff
Can bring him to his sweet up-locke'd treasure, all the time, you get
The which he will not ev'ry hour survey, bored with it. You
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. appreciate it more if you
lock it away and look at
it only occasionally.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare You value holidays
Since, seldom coming, in the long year set because they don't
Like stones of worth they thinly place'd are, happen often.
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest, It's a good thing I
don't see you more
often or I wouldn't
"treasure" you as
much.
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide, Just like it's a really
To make some special instant special blest striking effect to,
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride. say, yank open your
trenchcoat to
reveal the leather
lingerie underneath.
But if you wore it all
the time, people would
just get used to it.
Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope, You're so great, it's
Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope. great when we're
together, and when
we're not, it's great
looking forward to it.
So, the gist seems to be: "Sorry I can't see you tonight babe, but
don't worry we'll get in some quality time later."
After my first attempts at reading the sonnets,
I thought they played a lot like songs on FM
radio. My first impression was always
confusion, then after a little work I'd get an
appreciation for the way some of the phrases
ring, but then comes the serious disappointment
when I realized the whole thing was just an
absurdly hyperbolic hymn in praise of some (Or man,
woman. Couldn't this guy find something better yeah.)
to do than write elaborate pick up lines?
But yeah, actually he could. I had started reading them
in numerical order, which is presumably close to the
order he wrote them in. The later sonnets have a much
more complex, cynical attitude, like "My mistress' eyes
are nothing like the sun." Shakespere turns punk.
Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still.
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride;
And whether that my angel be turned fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell.
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
Essentially the sonnets are letters,
so understanding them requires
imagining a context for them...
who were they sent to, what
was going on then, etc.
And once it was pointed out to me that
there's a popular theory that Shakespere
was bisexual, a lot of the pronouns in the Really the sonnets are
sonnets suddenly made a lot more sense. love notes to Lord
Pembroke or Frances
It's a tidy interpretation of Bacon or someone.
"Two loves have I of comfort
and despair":
He's in a weird mood because
his two lovers are sleeping
with each other.
(Me, I always liked the notion that
his friend is sleeping with his
lover, and instead of being jealous
he's just worried about what she's
going to do to him.)
A footnote in Ben Johnson's
"Volpone or The Fox" Johnson is a playwrite from the
includes a definition of early 1600s, that some people
"will" as "sexual appetite". profess to prefer to Shakespere.
(Real hipsters always have a more
That throws a whole new obscure preference handy.)
light on Sonnet number 135:
Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus.
Pretty blatant, eh?
And what must it have been like for
Shakespere when he was growing up? Who
the hell would name a kid "Will", anyway?
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