The Shakespeare Code

It’s best to read ‘Marlowe’s Death’ Part 23 first.

HARRY’S INFIDELITY

Titchfield, 1593.

Shakespeare, from the beginning, has urged Southampton to sleep with women: it is the natural thing for young men to do and Harry must become a father – as Shakespeare is.

See Sonnets 2-18.

But sleeping with men is a completely different matter….

While Shakespeare was away at Stratford-upon-Avon, Harry had an affair with a man whom Shakespeare considers ‘base’

Like his mother, the Countess of Southampton……..

……Harry is attracted to men who are from a class lower to him.

His mother fell in love with ‘a common person’.

Shakespeare’s praise of Harry’s truth and constancy was wishful thinking……

See Sonnets 15. (14), 67. (53), 68.(54)

71. (33)

Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:

Shakespeare writes that he has often seen the morning sun shine in flattery on the tops of mountains, kissing green meadows with golden beams and turning pale-coloured streams into golden through alchemy.

‘Eye’ can also = ‘penis’ ……..

See 2.(1) 3. (2) 8. (7) 10. (9) 19.20.

and ‘face’ can also = ‘the genital area’.

See: King Lear: ‘Behold yond simpering dame/Whose face between her forks presages snow’

See especially Sonnet, 78. (94) – coming up.

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the for-lorn world his visage hide,

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:

But a moment later he allows the beams of his face to be hidden by low-natured, ugly clouds and hurries off to set in the west to hide his disgrace from the world.

‘Base’ can mean (1) Morally base (2) Lower class. In Shakepeare’s mind the two go together, even though Shakespeare himself is only yeoman class.

The ‘celestial face’ can also suggest Harry’s genitals – and the base clouds ‘riding’ on it, a sexual act.

Even so my Sun one early morn did shine

With all triumphant splendour on my brow;

But out alack, he was but one hour mine,

The region cloud hath mask’d him from me now.

Shakespeare describes Harry as his ‘sun’ – with a play on ‘son’. Harry, eight years younger than Shakespeare, becomes Shakespeare’s surrogate son – even though Shakespeare has a real son in Stratford-upon-Avon, Hamnet, who is eight years old.

Harry the sun has shone on Shakespeare, given him all his love and attention, but only for a brief period of time. He has been replaced by lower class men.

Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,

Suns of the world may stain, when heaven’s sun staineth.

But Shakespeare claims he does not love Harry the less. A worldly sun is allowed to sin if the heavenly sun  sins himself.

Harry for Shakespeare is no longer the divine being that he was. ‘Heaven’s sun’ has the suggestion of ‘Heaven’s son’ = Christ himself – as in St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, 1. 10:

and for to loke for his sonne from heven whom he raysed from deeth: I mean Iesus which delivereth vs from wrath to come.  (Tyndale’s translation of the Bible)                          

72. (34)

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day

And make me travail forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds ore-take me in my way,

Hiding thy brav’ry in their rotten smoke?

Shakespeare compares himself to a traveller that has been misled by the sun. 

Why did the sun (Harry) promise a bright, sunny day (exclusive love to Shakespeare) so Shakespeare didn’t think he needed a cloak  (protection from hurt)? But ‘base clouds’ – lower class chancers and rent boys – have beaten Shakespeare to the sun of Harry’s love and obscure Harry’s nobility by their putrid and diseased nature.

Katharine Duncan-Jones quotes: ‘The base contagious clouds’ surrounding Prince Hal in Henry IV Part One.

Clouds were thought to be the bearers of diseases – and conveys the idea is that Harry’s ‘lovers’ had venereal disease.

‘Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak,

That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:

Shakespeare says that it’s not enough that Harry pauses in his promiscuity to give love to Shakespeare – to wipe the tears from his face.

Shakespeare has said in Sonnet 69. (30) that he is ‘unused’ to weeping. Being in a relationship with Harry – and subject to Harry’s character and behaviour – has made crying a habit with Shakespeare. This has released Shakespeare emotionally – but it has also made him vulnerable.

Shakespeare describes his face as ‘storm-beaten’. This suggests (1) the upset that Harry’s betrayal has given him – and looks forward to the storms in King Lear when the old king, betrayed by to of his daughters, walks out into a tempest……

……. and (2) the fact that the rigours of touring in Lord Strange’s company have prematurely aged him.  Later on in the Sonnets, he mentions his loss of hair.

When Amelia attacks him the next year (1594) in Willobie his Avisa she describes ‘W.S.’ as ‘an old player’.

Nor can thy shame give physicke to my grief,

Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss;

Th’offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence’s cross.

[Note: Q has ‘loss’ repeated but most editors substitute ‘cross’ as it is highly unlikely that Shakespeare would use loss twice].

‘Physicke’ = ‘medicine’.

Shakespeare says that Harry’s shame at his own promiscuity cannot cure Shakespeare’s upset. Though Harry is sorry for what he has done, Shakespeare still suffers from the loss of the trust he had in Harry. The pain is as great as Christ felt when he was made to carry his own cross to Golgatha.

Titian’s version of Christ carrying his cross.

(This sonnet picks up the Christ imagery of the Sonnet before it, 71. (33)

Ah, but those tears are pearl which thy love sheeds,

And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.

But at the conclusion, Shakespeare changes his mind. Harry’s repentant tears are as precious as pearls. They are costly and act as a ransom for Harry’s sin.

Sir Walter Raleigh with his famous pearl in his ear.

73. (35)

No more be griev’d at that which thou hast done;

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;

Clouds and eclipses stain both Moon and Sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

Shakespeare now comforts Harry and tells him not be upset at his infidelity. Every beautiful thing has its ugly side: roses have thorns and silver fountains have mud at their bottom – even the moon and sun are subject clouds covering them and eclipses diminishing them or making them disappear altogether. And vile caterpillars can eat away at the sweetest flower bud.

But ‘bud’ can also = ‘the tip of the penis’. See Sonnet 2. (1) ‘Canker’ can also suggest ‘chancre’ – and the ravages of venereal disease on the genitals. Harry has already brought up the idea that Harry might be infected with venereal disease in Sonnet 46. (144) because of his liaison with Amelia.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

My self corrupting salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:

Every man is fallible and even I myself – making excuses for what you have done by comparing your misdeeds to other things – become guilty myself. My sin in doing this is greater than your original one.

‘Trespass’ is the word for sin from ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ – so Shakespeare draws on religious ideas again.

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,

Thy adverse party is thy Advocate,

And ‘gainst myself a lawful plea commence:

Shakespeare uses reason to defend what in Harry has been a sensual fault – promiscuity – thereby using the thing that Harry has most transgressed – ‘sense’ – to argue in Harry’s favour.

Such civil war is in my love and hate,

That I an accessary needs must be,

To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

Shakespeare’s internal war between love for Harry and hatred for what Harry has done, leads to a paradox. He must be an ‘accessory’ to the crime of theft from Harry – theft of his trust – by justifying it and so colluding with the sin.

But ‘accessory’ can also mean ‘a minor fitting or attachment’: so Shakespeare also needs to be ‘attached’ to Harry – suggesting both oral and anal sex.

Shakespeare may be ostensibly forgiving Harry for his infidelity – but he makes him squirm in the process!

Shakespeare self-consciously claims the moral high ground.

To read ‘The Order of the Garter’, Part 25, click: HERE