The Shakespeare Code

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

15. (14)

Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,

And yet methinks I have Astronomy,

But not to tell of good, or evil luck,

Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality.

Shakespeare does not consult the stars to come to decisions – but at the same time he is a Master Astrologer. However he does not use this skill to predict the future for people.

Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,

Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,

Or say with Princes if it shall go well

By aught predict that I in heaven find.

Nor can he predict from the heavens what is going to be the fate of individuals – or even royalty, who might consult him in the way Queen Elizabeth consulted the Magus John Dee at Mortlake.

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,

And constant stars in them I read such art

As truth and beauty shall together thrive

If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:

No. Shakespeare claims that his knowledge of the future is derived from Harry’s eyes and this knowledge tells him that if Harry were to have a child, truth and beauty would flourish together.

Or else of thee this I prognosticate,

Thy end is Truth’s and Beauty’s doom and date.

If Harry, however, decides not to have a son truth and beauty will no longer reside together. Shakespeare is claiming that Harry is unique in that he is both beautiful AND truthful in a way that no-one else alive is.

16. (15)

When I consider every thing that grows

Holds in perfection but a little moment,

That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows

Whereon the Stars in secret influence comment.

Everything is changing in life and perfection only lasts a second. The world is like a theatre which presents shows on which the stars secretly comment – like an audience watching a play.

When I perceive that men as plants increase,

Cheered and checkt even by the self-same sky:

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,

And wear their brave state out of memory.

Men are subject to the same influences as plants are: like them, they grow vigorously but at the zenith of their growth they start to decline and become merely a memory of their former grandeur.

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay

Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

Where wasteful time debateth with decay

To change your day of youth to sullied night,

Knowledge of this transience makes you even more valuable to me – knowing that time and the natural process of decay are teaming up to kill you.

And all in war with Time for love of you,

As he takes from you, I ingraft you new.

Shakespeare is in a war with Time. As Time reduces Harry, Shakespeare increases him with his verse. It is like grafting on a new plant to an older one.

Shakespeare is starting a  new theme. That his poetry can make Harry immortal.

17. (16)

But wherefore do not you a mightier way

Make war upon this bloody tyrant time?

And fortify your self in your decay

With means more blessed then my barren rhyme?

Shakespeare invites Harry to make war on Time in a more powerful way than Shakespeare’s verse – which is barren of ideas as a woman can be barren.

Now stand you on the top of happy hours,

And many maiden gardens yet unset,

With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,

Much liker than your painted counterfeit:

Harry is at a supreme moment of happiness in his life and many women are like gardens waiting to be filled with the flowers of Harry’s children – which would represent you more truthfully than a painting or a poem can do…..

So should the lines of life that life repair

Which this (Time’s pencil or my pupil pen)

Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,

Can make you live your self in eyes of men.

Only life itself can repair the lines that will appear on your face: drawings are still subject to time and I am only beginning to learn my craft as a writer. Neither art nor poetry can capture your outward beauty and inner worth so that men can see it.

To give away your self, keeps your self still,

And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.

The paradox is that by giving yourself away to a woman, you get to keep yourself. And you can only live by making a drawing of yourself with a son.

The Countess of Pembroke – thirty miles away from Titchfield – was said to keep a ‘school’ for poets.

Mary Southampton – by commissioning this series of seventeen sonnets from Shakespeare for her son’s seventeenth birthday – was also keeping her own school at Place House in Titchfield.

18. (17)

Who will believe my verse in time to come

If it were fill’d with your most high deserts?

Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb

Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:

Even if Shakespeare had the skill as a writer to describe Harry’s qualities no one in the future would believe him. As it is, his verse rather resembles a tomb that hides a body than displays it accurately.

If I could write the beauty of your eyes,

And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

The age to come would say ‘This Poet lies;

Such heavenly touches ne’er toucht earthly faces.’

Even if Shakespeare had the skill to describes the beauty of Harry’s eyes and the beauty of his behaviour, people would say he was lying because such qualities can only be found in heaven – not on earth.

So should my papers (yellowed with their age)

Be scorn’d, like old men of less truth than tongue,

And your true rights be term’d a Poet’s rage,

And stretched metre of an Antique song.

Shakespeare’s poems will turn yellow with age and be mocked as old men, who lie about the past, are mocked. The truth about Harry would be dismissed as a poet’s madness and the exaggeration of some old ballad.

But were some child of yours alive that time,

You should live twice: in it and in my rhyme.

But if Harry were to have a son he would live twice over: once in his son, and once in Shakespeare’s verse.

Shakespeare, in the Birthday Sequence, holds out the idea that his verse will make Harry immortal, withdraws the idea as presumptuous, then  re-inforces it in the very last couplet.

This dynamic in the relationship between Shakespeare and Harry is of vital importance. Harry has the wealth and the looks: Shakespeare has the talent.

To read ‘The Attempted Seduction’ Part Nine, click: HERE