The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Page 262
O most potential love: vow, bond, nor space
In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,
For thou art all, and all things else are thine.
‘ “When thou impressest, what are precepts worth
Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,
How coldly those impediments stand forth
Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame.
Love’s arms are peace, ’gainst rule, ‘gainst sense,
’gainst shame;
And sweetens in the suff’ring pangs it bears
The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.
‘ “Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,
Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine,
And supplicant their sighs to you extend
To leave the batt’ry that you make ’gainst mine,
Lending soft audience to my sweet design,
And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath
That shall prefer and undertake my troth.”
‘This said, his wat’ry eyes he did dismount,
Whose sights till then were levelled on my face.
Each cheek a river running from a fount
With brinish current downward flowed apace.
O, how the channel to the stream gave grace,
Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses
That flame through water which their hue encloses.
‘O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear!
But with the inundation of the eyes
What rocky heart to water will not wear?
What breast so cold that is not warmed here?
O cleft effect! Cold modesty, hot wrath,
Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.
‘For lo, his passion, but an art of craft,
Even there resolved my reason into tears.
There my white stole of chastity I daffed,
Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;
Appear to him as he to me appears,
All melting, though our drops this diff’rence bore:
His poisoned me, and mine did him restore.
‘In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
Of burning blushes or of weeping water,
Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
In either’s aptness, as it best deceives,
To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,
Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows,
‘That not a heart which in his level came
Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,
Showing fair nature is both kind and tame,
And, veiled in them, did win whom he would maim.
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
When he most burned in heart-wished luxury,
He preached pure maid and praised cold chastity.
‘Thus merely with the garment of a grace
The naked and concealed fiend he covered,
That th’unexperient gave the tempter place,
Which like a cherubin above them hovered.
Who, young and simple, would not be so lovered?
Ay me, I fell, and yet do question make
What I should do again for such a sake.
‘O that infected moisture of his eye,
O that false fire which in his cheek so glowed,
O that forced thunder from his heart did fly,
O that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed,
O all that borrowed motion seeming owed
Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed,
And new pervert a reconciled maid.’
ALTERNATIVE VERSIONS OF SONNETS 2, 106, 138, AND 144
Each of the four sonnets printed below exists in an alternative version. To the left, we give the text as it appeared in the volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets printed in 1609. ‘Spes Altera’ and ‘On his Mistress’ Beauty’ derive from seventeenth-century manuscripts. The alternative versions of Sonnets 138 and 144 are from The Passionate Pilgrim (1599).
2
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held.
Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse’,
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
106
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights;
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
And for they looked but with divining eyes
They had not skill enough your worth to sing;
For we which now behold these present days
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
138
When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth
Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust,
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
Spes Altera
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
And trench deep furrows in that lovely field,
Thy youth’s fair liv‘ry, so accounted now,
Shall be like rotten weeds of no worth held.
Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the lustre of thy youthful days,
To say ‘Within these hollow sunken eyes’
Were an all-eaten truth and worthless praise.
O how much better were thy beauty’s use
If thou couldst say ‘This pretty child of mine
Saves my account and makes my old excuse’,
Making his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new born when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
On his Mistress’ Beauty
When in the annals of all-wasting time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights;
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of face, of hand, of lip, of eye, or brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
E’en such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises were but prophecies
Of these our days, all you prefiguring,
And for they saw but with divining eyes
They had not skill enough your worth to sing;
For we which now behold these present days
Have eyes to wonder, but no tongues to praise.
138
When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth
Unskilful in the world’s false forgeries.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although I know my years be past the best,
I, smiling, credit her false-speaking tongue,
Outfacing faults in love with love’s ill rest.
But wherefore says my love that she is young,
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love’s best habit’s in a soothing tongue,
And age in love loves not to have years told.
Therefore I’ll lie with love, and love with me,
Since that our faults in love thus smothered be.
144
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.
144
Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,
That like two spirits do suggest me still.
My better angel is a man right fair,
My 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 fair pride;
And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
For being both to me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell.
The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
VARIOUS POEMS
A POET like Shakespeare may frequently have been asked to write verses for a variety of occasions, and it is entirely possible that he is the author of song lyrics and other short poems published without attribution or attributed only to ‘W.S.’ The poems in this section (arranged in an approximate chronological order) were all explicitly ascribed to him either in his lifetime or not long afterwards. Because they are short it is impossible to be sure, on stylistic grounds alone, of Shakespeare’s authorship; but none of the poems is ever attributed during the period to anyone else.
‘Shall I die?’ is transcribed, with Shakespeare’s name appended, in a manuscript collection of poems, dating probably from the late 1630s, which is now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; another, unascribed version is in the Beinecke Library, Yale University. The poem exhibits many parallels with plays and poems that Shakespeare wrote about 1593-5. Its stanza form has not been found elsewhere in the period, but most closely resembles Robin Goodfellow’s lines spoken over the sleeping Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 3.2.36-46). Extended over nine stanzas it becomes a virtuoso exercise: every third word rhymes. The case for supporting the seventeenth-century ascription to Shakespeare was strongly made when the Oxford edition first appeared. It has been hotly, often acrimoniously contested and remains a matter for debate, but the Oxford manuscript is generally reliable, and if the poem is of no great consequence, that might explain why it did not reach print.
Perhaps the most trivial verse ever ascribed to a great poet is the ‘posy’ said to have accompanied a pair of gloves given by a Stratford schoolmaster, Alexander Aspinall, to his second wife, whom he married in 1594. The ascription is found in a manuscript compiled by Sir Francis Fane of Bulbeck (1611-80).
In 1599 William Jaggard published a collection of poems, which he ascribed to Shakespeare, under the title The Passionate Pilgrim. It includes versions of two of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (which we print as Alternative Versions), three extracts from Love’s Labour’s Lost, which had already appeared in print, several poems known to be by other poets, and eleven poems of unknown authorship. A reprint of 1612 added nine poems by Thomas Heywood, who promptly protested against the ‘manifest injury’ done to him by printing his poems ‘in a less volume, under the name of another, which may put the world in opinion I might steal them from him ... But as I must acknowledge my lines not worthy his patronage under whom he hath published them, so the author I know much offended with Master Jaggard that, altogether unknown to him, presumed to make so bold with his name.’ Probably as a result, the original title-page of the 1612 edition was replaced with one that did not mention Shakespeare’s name. We print below the poems of unknown authorship since the attribution to Shakespeare has not been disproved.
The finest poem in this section, ‘The Phoenix and Turtle’, was ascribed to Shakespeare in 1601 when it appeared, without title, as one of the ‘Poetical Essays’ appended to Robert Chester’s Love’s Martyr: or Rosalind’s Complaint, which is described as ‘allegorically shadowing the truth of love in the constant fate of the phoenix and turtle’. Since the early nineteenth century it has been known as ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ or (following the title-page) ‘The Phoenix and Turtle’. An incantatory elegy, it may well have irrecoverable allegorical significance. Chester’s poem appears to have been composed as a compliment to his patrons, Sir John and Lady Ursula Salusbury. Although we know of no direct link between Shakespeare and the Salusburys, Lady Ursula was a half-sister of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, whose theatrical company performed Titus Andronicus and 1 Henry VI early in Shakespeare’s career.
It is not clear whether the two stanzas engraved at opposite ends of the Stanley tomb in the parish church of Tong, in Shropshire, constitute one epitaph or two. Their most likely subject is Sir Thomas Stanley (d. 1576), Ferdinando’s uncle. The stanzas are ascribed to Shakespeare in two manuscript miscellanies of the 1630s and by the antiquary Sir William Dugdale in a manuscript appended to his Visitation of Shropshire in 1664.
The satirical completion of an epitaph on Ben Jonson (written during his lifetime) is ascribed to Shakespeare in two different seventeenth-century manuscripts.
Shakespeare probably knew Elias James (c. 1578-1610), who managed a brewery in the Blackfriars district of London. His epitaph is ascribed to Shakespeare in the same Oxford manuscript as ‘Shall I die?’
The Combe family of Stratford-upon-Avon were friends of Shakespeare. He bequeathed his sword to one of them, and John Combe, who died in 1614, left Shakespeare £5. Several mock epitaphs similar to the first epitaph on John Combe have survived, one (on an unnamed usurer) printed as early as 1608; later versions mention three other men as the usurer. Shakespeare may have adapted some existing lines; or some existing lines may have been adapted anonymously in Stratford, and later attributed to Stratford’s most famous poet. The ascription to him dates from 1634, and is supported by four other seventeenth-century manuscripts. The second Combe epitaph is found in only one manuscript; it seems entirely original, and alludes to a bequest to the poor made in Combe’s will.
The lines on King James first appear, unattributed, beneath an engraving of the King printed as the frontispiece to the 1616 edition of his works. They are attributed to Shakespeare—the leading writer of the theatre company of which King James was patron—in at least two seventeenth-century manuscripts; the same attribution was recorded in a printed b
roadside now apparently lost.
Shakespeare’s own epitaph is written in the first person; the tradition that he composed it himself is recorded in several manuscripts from the middle to the late seventeenth century.
Various Poems
A Song
1
Shall I die? Shall I fly
Lovers’ baits and deceits,
sorrow breeding?
Shall I tend? Shall I send?
Shall I sue, and not rue
my proceeding?
In all duty her beauty
Binds me her servant for ever.
If she scorn, I mourn,
I retire to despair, joining never.
2
Yet I must vent my lust
And explain inward pain
by my love conceiving.
If she smiles, she exiles
All my moan; if she frown,
all my hopes deceiving—
Suspicious doubt, O keep out,
For thou art my tormentor.
Fie away, pack away;
I will love, for hope bids me venture.
3
‘Twere abuse to accuse
My fair love, ere I prove
her affection.
Therefore try! Her reply
Gives thee joy—or annoy,
or affliction.
Yet howe’er, I will bear
Her pleasure with patience, for beauty
Sure will not seem to blot
Her deserts, wronging him doth her duty.
4
In a dream it did seem—
But alas, dreams do pass
as do shadows—
I did walk, I did talk
With my love, with my dove,
through fair meadows.
Still we passed till at last
We sat to repose us for pleasure.
Being set, lips met,
Arms twined, and did bind my heart’s treasure.
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