The Shakespeare Code

It’s best to read ‘Love in a Time of Plague’ Part Twelve first.

1592. Titchfield. Amelia is still playing hard to get – and Shakespeare becomes more and more frantic and insulting.

29. (150)

Oh from what power hast thou this powerful might,

With insufficiency my heart to sway,

To make me give the lie to my true sight,

And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?

Shakespeare wonders how it is that the morally bankrupt Amelia has such power over his emotions and causes him to see things erroneously – to the extent of denying that the day is light.

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds,

There is such strength and warrantise of skill,

That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?

Shakespeare asks how it is that Amelia can make bad things seem good. Even in her squalid actions there is such power and cleverness that, even at her worst, Amelia is is more attractive than good people like his wife, Anne Hathaway.

 

Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,

The more I hear and see just cause of hate?

Oh though I love what others do abhor,

With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.

Shakespeare wonders who taught Amelia to make him love her all the more when the evidence is there to make him hate her. Shakespeare loves Amelia whom other people detest – but that does not mean that Amelia should detest him the way others detest (1) his infatuation with her (2) his bisexuality (3) his low status as an actor and writer.

In Sonnet 136. (29) Shakespeare refers to his ‘outcast state’ – both as an actor and as a gay man.

If thy unworthiness rais’d love in me,

More worthy I to be belov’d of thee.

If it is Amelia’s worthlessness that gives Shakespeare erections, then there is all the more reason for Amelia to love the worthless Shakespeare in turn.

30. (142)

And so she will be the more blessed!]

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,

Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving;

O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,

And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;

Shakespeare says that being in love with Amelia is a sin because he is a married man. Consequently her hatred for him is, in fact, a virtue. Amelia’s hates his sin – but is herself coming from a background of ‘sinful loving’ as she is a courtesan. Shakespeare asks her to compare the sinfulness of his life with her own: she will then find that his sin does not merit her reproof.

Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,

That have profan’d their scarlet ornaments,

And seal’d false bonds of love as oft as mine,

Robb’d others’ beds’ revenues of their rents.

Or if it does merit reproof, it’s certainly not from her. Her red lips are like the red seals on documents which, instead of asserting truth, assert lies – as Shakespeare himself has done – and stolen the ‘rents’ due to other people. ‘Rents’ = ‘semen’ – another reference to Shakespeare’s bisexuality as well as Amelia’s professional promiscuity.

Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov’st those

Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee;

Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,

Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.

Shakespeare hopes that it is as excusable for him to love Amelia in the same way as she loves all the men she eyes up. He also hopes that pity for him will fill her heart and she in turn will deserve to be pitied by others.

If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,

By self example may’st thou be denied.

Because she is denying Shakespeare what she seeks from others, perhaps others will do the same to her – and deny her what she herself is after.

Shakespeare’s love for Amelia has become tortured and complex – and so the language he uses becomes tortured and complex as well.

31. (148)

O me! What eyes hath love put in my head,

Which have no correspondence with true sight?

Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,

That censures falsely what they see aright?

Shakespeare believes that love has put new eyes in his head which change the true appearance of everything. Or, if they do see correctly, where then has his sense of judgement gone which makes him ‘see’ things differently from other people?

If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,

What means the world to say it is not so?

If it be not, then love doth well denote,

Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s no.

Shakespeare asks if the woman he dotes on seems beautiful to him, why don’t other people share his judgement? If they are right, it proves that love’s ‘eye’/’Aye'[Yes] is not so accurate as the ‘no’ the rest of the world gives.

How can it? O how can love’s eye be true,

That is so vext with watching and with tears?

No marvel then, though I mistake my view,

The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.

But how can Shakespeare’s eyes discern the truth when they are exhausted with watching Amelia and weeping about her actions? It’s not surprising that Shakespeare sees wrongly: even the Sun itself cannot see till the clouds clear away.

O cunning love, with tears thou keepst me blind,

Lest eyes well seeing thy foul faults should find.

Shakespeare comes to the conclusion that it is all a cunning ploy by love: love keeps him blind so he can’t see all the ‘foul faults’ in Amelia.

32. (131)

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,

As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;

For well thou know’st to my dear doting heart

Thou art the fairest and most precious Jewel.

Amelia is as tyrannical as truly beautiful women are because she knows that, in Shakespeare’s mind, she is like a dazzling jewel.

Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,

Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;

To say they err, I dare not be so bold,

Although I swear it to my self alone.

But the truth is that some people say your face is not beautiful enough to make men groan with love – and I am not brave enough to say they are wrong, although privately I believe that to be the case.

And to be sure that is not false I swear

A thousand groans but thinking on thy face;

One on another’s neck do witness bear

Thy black is fairest in my judgment’s place.

And I am telling the truth – thousands of groans come tumbling out of me, tripping each other up, when I picture your face.

In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,

And thence this slander as I think proceeds.

The only ‘black’ thing about you is your actions – and that’s the reason why people doubt your physical beauty.

33. (137)

Thou blind fool love, what dost thou to mine eyes,

That they behold and see not what they see?

They know what beauty is, see where it lies,

Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.

Shakespeare claims that love is doing strange things to his eyes: he is simply not seeing properly. He knows what beauty is – but sees the most beautiful women as the worst looking.

If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,

Be anchor’d in the bay where all men ride,

Why of eyes’ falsehood hast thou forged hooks,

Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?

Shakespeare claims that his eyes have been distorted by looking over-fondly at Amelia – and by ‘eyes’ he means his genitals as well – that are now anchored in a bay open to all shipping, i.e. Amelia’s pudend as a prostitute. Shakespeare wants to know why love has also fixed fishing hooks to his false-seeing eyes which have ensnared his judgement.

Why should my heart think that a several plot

Which my heart knows the wide world’s common place?

Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not

To put fair truth upon so foul a face?

Shakespeare wonders why his heart deludes him into thinking that Amelia is private ground when in fact in fact she is common ground, open to all. Or if his eyes see this, why does he deny it, and pretends that her ‘face’ – which means her pudend as well – is filled with beautiful truth?

In things right true my heart and eyes have err’d,

And to this false plague are they now transferr’d.

Shakespeare, by saying ‘in things right true’, also refers to his wife, Anne’s, faithful genitals – from which he has strayed and is now transferring his love to the lying sickness that is Amelia.

The Plague was raging in London when he wrote this.

To read ‘The Love Triangle’, Part Fourteen, click: HERE