The Shakespeare Code

It’s best to read ‘Obsession with Harry’ Part 21 first.

Summer, 1593. Stratford-upon-Avon.

Shakespeare, in Stratford away from his duties as ‘fac totum’ at Titchfield – begins work on Venus and Adonis – another commission from the Second Countess of Southampton……………

……to get Harry interested in heterosexual sex.

She also commissioned Thomas Nashe……

…..who came up with the erotic The Choice of Valentines which is dedicated to….

the right honourable, the Lord S.

Like Shakespeare’s Birthday Sonnets, it begins with a reference to the red rose of Southampton…..

Pardon sweet flower of matchless poetry,

And fairest bud the red rose ever bare….

Shakespeare returns to Ovid for his first narrative poem – the story of how the rampantly sexual Venus tries to stop the handsome Adonis from going off to hunt the boar with his friends….

And, of course, Titian’s interpretation of the story….

 

Shakespeare evokes this painting in the first stanza of the poem….

We see the sun bursting through the clouds just as Shakespeare describes ….

And events are seen through Venus’s eyes….

Just as the ‘perspective’ of the painting suggests: Venus has her back to us….

EVEN as the sun with purple-colour’d face
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek’d Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he loved, but love he laugh’d to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-faced suitor ‘gins to woo him.

‘Thrice-fairer than myself,’ thus she began,
‘The field’s chief flower, sweet above compare,
Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,
More white and red than doves or roses are;
Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,
Saith that the world hath ending with thy life….

But Shakespeare is so in love with Harry that he uses the same description of Adonis that he uses of Harry in the sonnets….

…the same imagery of white and red roses, and the same notion that Nature was ‘at strife’ when she created him…..

Adonis even looks like the Harry of the sonnets with…

The tender spring upon [his] tempting lip……..

……and his ‘locks’ that the wind would ‘play with’…..

A contemporary, William Renoldes, took Venus to be a portrait of Queen Elizabeth…….

…..and certainly, as she rugby-tackles Adonis to the ground, Elizabeth’s shameless pursuit of the Earl of Essex would have come to mind.

But Shakespeare’s great gift is empathy: Elizabeth’s passion for Essex becomes mixed with Shakespeare’s for Harry.

So the whole ‘hetero-sexualising’ project misfires – much as the Birthday Sonnets did….

Adonis is gored by the boar in a riot of gay imagery….

Tis true, ’tis true; thus was Adonis slain:
He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear,
Who did not whet his teeth at him again,
But by a kiss thought to persuade him there;
And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine
Sheathed unaware the tusk in his soft groin.

And Shakespeare writes about….

The wide wound that the boar had trench’d

In his soft flank….

Shakespeare drops coded hints that his poem has been inspired by a painting…..

(He daren’t let anyone know he, Harry and Nashe had called on England’s old enemy and former King, Philip II at Madrid where the painting hung!)

Venus insults the passionless Adonis as a ‘lifeless picture’ and as ‘painted grapes’. Shakespeare also writes:

Look when a painter would surpass the life

In limning out a well-proportioned steed,

His art with nature’s workmanship at strife,

As if the dead the living should exceed.

Shakespeare sends a copy of Venus and Adonis to Harry with this Dedication:

I KNOW not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a god-father, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart’s content; which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful expectation.

Your honour’s in all duty,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Although the poem is dedicated to Harry, his mother Mary paid for it as Harry had not yet come of age.

Shakespeare sent the poem to Harry along with  also the following Sonnet which echoes the dedication. Shakespeare is concerned that his command of language is inadequate.

66. (26)

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;

To thee I send this written embassage,

To witness duty, not to show my wit.

‘Lord of my love’ means (1) Harry is a Lord because he is 3rd Earl of Southampton (2) Harry commands all of Shakespeare’s love as ‘Lord’ of it. Shakespeare says he is a slave to Harry  because of Harry’s great moral worth. He sends Venus and Adonis to him as a token of his duty – not to display his talent.

Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine

May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;

But that I hope some good conceit of thine

In thy soul’s thought (all naked) will bestow it:

Shakespeare claims that his duty to Harry so far exceeds his wit that his language is inadequate to describe it: his only hope is that Harry’s own imagination will make up for Shakespeare’s own, impoverished (‘naked’) words.

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,

Points on me graciously with fair aspect,

And puts apparel on my tatter’d loving,

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect.

Shakespeare can only hope that destiny – the star that guides him – will look favourably on him and grant him a rich vocabulary to express his love for Harry: give him a rich suit to replace his current rags.

Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,

Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

When I have the right words, I will be able to declare publicly my love to you.  But till that time I will stay silent about my love in case you bring it to the test.

Shakespeare is often ambivalent in his Sonnets about the worth of his writing. Sometimes he thinks it will last until the end of time: at other times he thinks it worthless.

67. (53)

What is your substance, whereof are you made,

That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

Since every one, hath every one, one shade,

And you but one, can every shadow lend:

Shakespeare wonders about Harry’s nature. How is it that he has millions of shadows whereas it is usual for people to have only one – and Harry himself is ‘one’.

Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit

Is poorly imitated after you;

On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,

And you in Grecian tires are painted new;

Shakespeare admits that when he was writing about Adonis, he was really writing about Harry – even when he describes Helen of Troy, it’s really Harry in drag.

In Philip Sidney’s ‘Arcadia’ young Prince Pyrocles dresses up as a girl and the King falls in love with him. Harry was massively influenced by Sidney whom he worshipped and wore his hair long in imitation of the Prince.

Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,

The one doth shadow of your beauty show,

The other as your bounty doth appear,

And you in every blessed shape we know.

If Shakespeare writes about springtime or autumn, the first imitates Harry’s beauty and the second his generous endowments….

In all external grace you have some part,

But you like none, none you, for constant heart.

Harry is all beautiful things: but what makes him unique is his constant love for Shakespeare – something Harry alone possesses.

68. (54)

Oh how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give;

The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour, which doth in it live:

Shakespeare writes in praise of Harry’s truthfulness – and compares it to the odour of the rose which enhances its beauty.

The Canker blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the Roses,

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,

When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:

Dog roses visually have a colour as rich as cultivated roses, hang on the same thorny stems and blow in the breezes in the same way.

But for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo’d, and unrespected fade,

Die to themselves. Sweet Roses do not so,

But it is only the look of dog roses that is attractive: no-one makes a fuss over them or bothers when they die. But roses are different…..

Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:

And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.

When roses die, they are converted into perfume – as I shall preserve your youth and beauty by distilling you with my verse.

[Note: One editor of the Sonnets believes that ‘canker blooms’ are poppies. But poppies do not hang on thorns. Dog roses do have a slight odour, but not one strong enough to distill.]

‘Dog Roses’ were so named because, from Ancient Times, these flowers were said to cure the bite from a mad dog.

To read ‘Marlowe’s Death’, Part 23, click: HERE

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