The Shakespeare Code

It’s best to read ‘The Birthday Sonnets’ – Part Four – first.

8. (7)

Lo in the Orient when the gracious light,

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

Doth homage to his new appearing sight,

Serving with looks his sacred majesty,

In this Sonnet, Shakespeare compares the rising and setting sun to the life of a man who has no children. At the beginning of his life – when he is handsome and strong – people gaze at him. But when he gets older, people no longer want to look at him.

But there is another, coded message. The ‘burning head’ also represents the erect penis in the act of masturbation and ‘each under eye’ the testicles that are drawn up when the penis is erect – as though they are attendants on a king. The facial area in Shakespeare could also represent the genital area.

And having climb’d the steep up heavenly hill,

Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

Attending on his golden pilgrimage:

Here the ‘heavenly hill’ is the literal ‘hill of heaven’ – but it also suggest the ‘mons veneris’ – the ‘mound of Venus’ – the pubic bone above the penis. The ‘mortal looks’ which attend the Sun’s ‘golden pilgrimage’ – the golden journey the golden Sun makes – are literally the eyes of the onlookers – but they also represent the testicles, still elevated by the risen penis.

But when from high-most pitch with weary car,

Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,

The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are

From his low tract and look an other way:

The ‘weary car’ means ‘weary carriage’. In Greek classical mythology, the Sun rode in a chariot, pulled by fiery steeds.

So Shakespeare is saying that when the Sun has reached its zenith and starts to set, people are no longer interested. They are no longer interested in a man who is growing old and feeble.

But it also suggest the testicles which are no longer drawn up by the penis when the penis, having ejected semen, is no longer erect.

So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:

Unlook’d on, diest unless thou get a son.

Literally, this means that a man who is completing his cycle of life will die unregarded unless he has produced a son who will inherit his strength and good-looks. But as Katharine Duncan Jones points out in the Arden edition of The Sonnets, ‘noon’ also symbolised erection for the Elizabethans, when both hands on the dial of a clock were pointing upwards.

‘Diest’ could also mean for Shakespeare – as it meant for the Metaphysical Poets – ‘to achieve orgasm’. So ‘unlook’d on’ can also suggest the act of solitary masturbation where a partner is not looking at the activity.

Stewart Trotter – the Code’s Chief Agent – submitted this interpretation of the Sonnet for his Cambridge Finals in 1971.

Stewart’s Cambridge College.

His Director of Studies – no names, no pack-drill – was so shocked he told him not to submit his essay.  But he did – and this is now the standard interpretation of the Sonnet.

To read ‘The Birthday Sonnets’, Part 6, click HERE