The Shakespeare Code

It’s best to read ‘Shakespeare on Tour Again’ Part 33 first.

In August 1595 the theatres in London re-opened in London and Shakespeare returned from his tour.

Harry was at Court and was becoming more heterosexual…..

….or bisexual rather.

He was secretly courting Elizabeth Vernon……..

…..a poor cousin of his friend, the Earl of Essex.

Shakespeare realised something was going on and feared rejection.

He had been the recipient of £1,000 from Harry when he came of age the year before (1594) – but this made him dependent on Harry. He had been bought and felt he was Harry’s ‘slave’.

1595/6.

105. (91)

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,

Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force,

Some in their garments though new-fangled ill,

Some in their Hawks and Hounds, some in their Horse,

Some take delight in being highly born, some in their talent, some in their riches, some in their muscle-power, some in their clothes – even though they follow the latest hideous fashion – some in hunting with hawks or hounds, some in the horse they ride…

And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,

Wherein it finds a joy above the rest;

But these particulars are not my measure,

All these I better in one general best.

Every man has a constitution that draws him to one particular thing or another – but none of the above pleasures apply to me. I have something that surpasses them all.

Thy love is better than high birth to me,

Richer than wealth, prouder than garments’ costs,

Of more delight than Hawks and Horses be,

And having thee, of all men’s pride I boast,

Harry, your love is more valuable to me than aristocratic birth, wealth, expensive clothes, hawking or riding to hounds. Because I have you as a lover, I have the pride men take in themselves, their possession and their activities all wrapped up in one thing – yourself.

‘All men’s pride’ also has a sexual connotation. ‘Pride’ = ‘sexual arousal’ – so Shakespeare is obliquely stating that all men love Harry.

c.f. Sonnet: 19. (20) in which Shakespeare says Harry ‘steals all men’s eyes.’.

Wretched in this alone: that thou mayst take,

All this away, and me most wretched make.

The only thing that makes me miserable is the thought that you might one day reject me – and that would make me even more miserable.

Shakespeare then rallies – and challenges Harry to leave him.

106. (92)

But do thy worst to steal thy self away,

For term of life thou art assured mine,

And life no longer than thy love will stay,

For it depends upon that love of thine.

But DO reject me! You will be my lover for all of my life! Because if you leave me, I will instantly die!

Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,

When in the least of them my life hath end;

I see a better state to me belongs

Than that, which on thy humour doth depend.

I don’t have to fear the worst thing you could do to me since the smallest slight will kill me. I would be better off dead (and in heaven) rather than be dependent on your whims and your character.

Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,

Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie.

Oh what a happy title do I find,

Happy to have thy love, happy to die!

You can’t upset me with your fickleness because, if you leave me, I will die instantly. I am in a very fortunate state. Your love pleases me – and so would death, because I’d go to Heaven.

But what’s so blessed fair that fears no blot?

Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.

But what state is so happy and beautiful that it doesn’t fear something will go wrong? You might have already been unfaithful to me and I not know about it.

Shakespeare divines that something is up at Court……

But he determines to carry on as though Harry is still faithful to him.

107. (93)

So shall I live, supposing thou art true,

Like a deceived husband; so love’s face

May still seem love to me, though alter’d new,

Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.

I have decided to carry on as though you were faithful to me – like a husband whose wife is deceiving him – so that ‘love’s face’  [(1) Love’s appearance (2) The genital area] will still seem loving, though it has changed, and you look at me even if you are thinking about somebody else.

Shakespeare is talking about having sex with Harry while Harry is wishing it were somebody else…..

Also Shakespeare takes the masculine role of the husband in this Sonnet – and Harry the female role.

For there can live no hatred in thine eye,

Therefore in that I cannot know thy change;

In many’s looks, the false heart’s history

Is writ in moods, and frowns, and wrinkles strange;

Shakespeare says he cannot tell from Harry’s face what has been going on. His eyes are too beautiful to let hatred appear in them. In many other people, infidelity will show in the face, in the shape of strange contortions and lines….

But heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,

What ere thy thoughts, or thy heart’s workings be,

Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.

But Heaven created Harry differently. Love will always reside in Harry’s face no matter what he is thinking about or feeling – he will always look like sweetness itself.

How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow,

If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!

But Shakespeare ends with a warning. Harry’s beauty will be like Eve’s apple, that looked attractive but brought death and catastrophe into Eden, if Harry’s character does not match his looks.

Shakespeare then prepares for the moment when Harry might reject him….

108. (49)

Against that time (if ever that time come)

When I shall see thee frown on my defects,

When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,

Call’d to that audit by advis’d respects;

Shakespeare, in preparation for the time when Harry, finally aware of Shakespeare’s faults, frowns on them and when Harry throws his last penny at Shakespeare, advised to do so by older and wiser men….

‘The utmost sum’ is a reference to the huge sum of money that Harry gave Shakespeare in 1594 – and continues to give him now.

The ‘utmost sum’ can also = ‘last seminal emission’ in making love to Shakespeare for the final time.

Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,

And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,

When love, converted from the thing it was

Shall reasons find of settl’d gravity;

Anticipating the moment when Harry treats Shakespeare as a stranger and does not look at him as they pass each other – and love converts into something else and the two men treat each other with a distant formality…

‘Eye’ can = ‘genitals’ and ‘thing’ can = ‘penis’. So ‘Love converted from the thing it was’ can = ‘the erection of our penises in love making’ . And the ‘settled gravity’ can = ‘flaccid penises after love-making’.

Against that time do I insconce me here

Within the knowledge of mine own desert,

And this my hand, against my self uprear,

To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:

Shakespeare imprisons himself in the cell of his knowledge of his own worthlessness. And testifies to his unworthiness by (1) Raising his hand to make a vow on the Bible against himself (2) Attacking himself physically in an act of suicide (3) Masturbating to get used to the idea that Harry will desert him as a sexual partner.

‘Self’ can = ‘penis’.

To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,

Since why to love, I can allege no cause.

Harry has a very good legal reason to desert Shakespeare because Shakespeare cannot think of any reason for Shakespeare to love him.

109. (56)

Harry, in his pursuit of Elizabeth Vernon, is losing sexual interest in Shakespeare.

Sweet love renew thy force: be it not said

Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,

Which but to-day by feeding is allay’d,

To-morrow sharpen’d in his former might.

Shakespeare is asking Harry to refrain from sex while he is away from Shakespeare so that his sexual energy can be renewed. He is worried that Harry’s appetite for sex has become weaker than his appetite for food – which is assuaged by eating but returns with full force the next day.

So love be thou: although to-day thou fill

Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fulness,

To-morrow see again, and do not kill

The spirit of Love with a perpetual dullness.

Be the same: your ‘eyes’ (can = genitals) are satiated – so much so that they want to sleep. But tomorrow make them open again, i.e. become sexually hungry – and do not kill my love for you by never being sexually excited and active. ‘Dullness’= ‘limpness’.

Let this sad Intrim like the Ocean be

Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,

Come daily to the banks, that when they see

Return of love, more blest may be the view.

Let this time of sexual abstinence be like a tidal river that parts two ‘engaged’ lovers on either bank – who can only gaze at each other when the tide is in – but then finally make love to each other when the river is crossed – like Hero and Leander in Christopher Marlowe’s poem….

As call it Winter, which being full of care,

Makes Summer’s welcome thrice more wish’d, more rare.

Or call this sexual abstinence a winter which makes the return of summer (sexual activity) all the more valuable.

110.(57)

Harry was always a poor time-keeper – but, pre-occupied with Elizabeth Vernon, he has stood Shakespeare up. Shakespeare’s response is bitterly ironic.

Shakespeare is, however, Harry’s ‘slave’ because he has accepted the £1,000 gift from him in 1594.

Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Upon the hours, and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend,

Nor services to do, till you require.

Shakespeare is treated by Harry as a slave – to be at Harry’s beck and call and always in attendance. Harry treats Shakespeare as though he has nothing important to do – or any duties to fulfil – except tend to Harry’s needs.

Nor dare I chide the world without end hour

Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,

Nor think the bitterness of absence sour

When you have bid your servant once adieu.

Shakespeare says he is so subservient to Harry that he cannot even curse the time he wastes, watching the clock as he waits for Harry. Nor is he allowed to find Harry’s absence ‘sour’ when Harry has said ‘Goodbye’ to his servant.

‘World without end’ is a quote from Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

The implication is that Harry has taken on the status of a God.

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,

Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,

But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought

Save, where you are, how happy you make those.

Shakespeare claims that, as a slave, he is not even able to think where Harry is or what he is doing, but simply think how happy Harry must be making those he is with.

So true a fool is love, that in your Will,

(Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.

Love is a ‘true fool’ = (1.) A complete fool (2.) A faithful fool. Because in Harry’s ‘Will’ = (1) Will Shakespeare (2) Harry’s wilfulness (3) Harry’s penis – though Harry ‘do any thing’ = (1) Commit any action or (2) Make love to any set of genitals – he thinks there can be no ‘ill’ = (1) Moral ill (2) Venereal disease.

111. (58)

That God forbid, that made me first your slave,

I should in thought control your times of pleasure,

Or at your hand th’account of hours to crave,

Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.

Cupid by Cranach, 1530

May the God of Love, Cupid, that first turned me into your slave, forbid me control your times of fun even in my thoughts – or even dare to ask you to tell me what you have been doing in your absence: I am your vassal and so my whole job is to wait till you summon me.

Note: In Sonnet 25. (154) Don Armado – in the cancelled Sonnet from Love’s Labour’s Lost – refers to Cupid as ‘the little Love-God’.

Oh let me suffer (being at your beck)

Th’imprison’d absence of your liberty,

As my job is to be at your beck and call, it is right that I should suffer for your liberty, which keeps me in prison waiting for you.

And patience tame, to sufferance bide each check,

Without accusing you of injury.

Shakespeare asks Cupid to convert any protest he might want to make to submissive patience – and not blame Cupid for causing any harm to Shakespeare.

Be where you list, your charter is so strong

That you your self may privilege your time

To what you will; to you it doth belong

Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.

Go wherever you like, Harry, your power over me is so strong that you can do whatever you like. You have the power to pardon ‘self-doing crime’ i.e. (1) Crimes you commit yourself (2) Any sexual misdemeanours. ‘Self’ can = ‘Harry’s penis.’

I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,

Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.

Shakespeare’s duty is to ‘wait’ on Harry i.e. (1) Hang around for Harry (2) Serve Harry as a waiter. He is in no position to condemn Harry’s pleasure, whether it is innocent or harmful.

To read ‘Shakespeare’s Gay Infidelity’. Part 35, click: HERE