Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

entire love for his friend. (Compare the deaththoughts in Hamlet and Measure for Measure.) 10 LXXV.-LXXVII. Shakspere's love, and always writing on one theme, his Will; with the present of a table-book, dial, and pocket looking-glass combined in one.

11

LXXVIII.-XCIII. a LXXVIII.-LXXXVI. Shakspere on his rivals in Will's love. (G. Chapman, the rival poet.)

B LXXXVII.-XCIII. Shakspere's farewell to Will : most beautiful in the self-forgetfulness of Shakspere's love.

12 XCIV.-XCVI. Will vicious.

13

14

XCVII.-XCIX. Third Absence. Will's flower-like
beauty and Shakspere's love for him; followed
by faults on both sides, and a separation ended
by Will's desire, cxx., 1. 11.
C.-CXXI. a C.-CXII. Renewing of love, three years

after the first Sonnets (CIV.). Shakspere's love
stronger now in its summer than it was in its
spring, CII., 1. 5; cxIx., ll. 10–12. Note the
"hell of time," cxx., 1. 6, that Will's unkind-
ness has made Shakspere pass.

B CXIII., CXIV. Fourth Absence. Shakspere sees
Will in all nature.

y CXV.-CXXI. Shakspere describes his love for
Will, and justifies himself.

15 CXXII.-CXXVI. Shakspere excuses himself for giving away Will's present of some tables; again describes his love for Will, and warns Will that he too must grow old.

SECTION SONNETS

Group II. Sonnets CXXVII.-CLIV.

1 CXXVII. Of his mistress's dark complexion, brows, and eyes. (Cf. Berowne on his dark Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost.)

2

3

CXXVIII. On her, his music, playing music (the virginals).

CXXIX. On her, after enjoying her. He laments his weakness.

4 cxxx. On her, a chaffing description of her. (Cf. Marlowe's Ignoto; Lingua, before 1603, in Dodsley, ix. 370; and Shirley's Sisters: "Were it not fine," etc.

5 CXXXI., CXXXII. Though plain to others, his mistress is fairest to Shakspere's doting heart. But

[ocr errors]

her deeds are black, and her black eyes pity him.

6 CXXXIII.-CXXXVI. She has taken his friend Will from him (cf. XL.-XLII.). He asks her to restore his friend (CXXXIV.), or to take him as part of her (and his) Will (cxxxv.). If she'll but love his name, she'll love him (Shakspere), as his name, too, is Will (cxxxvI.).

7

CXXXVII.-CXLV. Shakspere knows his mistress is not beautiful, and that she's false, but he loves her (CXXXVII.). Each lies to and flatters the other (CXXXVIII.). Still, if she'd only look kindly on him, it'll be enough (CXXXIX.). She must not look too cruelly, or he might despair and go mad, and tell the world that ill of her that it would only too soon believe (CXL.). He loves

SECTION SONNETS

She has

her in spite of his senses (CXLI.).
broken her bed-vow; then let her pity him
(CXLII.). She may catch his friend if she will
but give him a smile (CXLIII.). He has two
lovers, a fair man, and a dark woman who'd
corrupt the man (CXLIV., the Key Sonnet). She
was going to say she hated him; but, seeing his
distress, said, not him (CXLV.).

8 CXLVI. (? Misplaced.) A remonstrance with himself, on spending too much, either on dress or outward self-indulgence, and exhorting himself to give it up for inward culture. (The blank for two words in line 2, I fill with "Hemmed with," cf. Venus and Adonis, 1022, "Hemm'd with thieves.") CXLVII., CXLVIII. Shakspere's feverish longing drives him mad, his doctor-Reason-being set aside (CXLVII.). Love has obscured his sight (CXLVIII.). CXLIX.-CLII. He gives himself up wholly to his mis

10

tress: loves whom she loves, hates whom she hates (CLXIX.). The worst of her deeds he loves. better than any other's best (CL.). The more he ought to hate her, the more he loves her. He is content to be her drudge, for he loves her (CLI.). Yet he's forsworn, for he's told lies of her goodness, and she has broken her bed-vows; he has broken twenty oaths (CLII.).

11 CLIII, CLIV. (May be Group III., or Division 2 of

Group II.) Two Sonnets lighter in tone. In both Cupid sleeps, has his brand put out in (CLIII.) a fountain (CLIV.), a well which the

brand turns into medical baths. Shakspere comes for cure to each, but finds none.

He

wants his mistress's eyes for that (CLIII.). Water cools not love (CLIV.).

G. S. CALDWELL.

[Sir Walter Raleigh the Author of Shakspere's Plays and Sonnets. [By G. S. Caldwell.] Melbourne, Stillwell and Knight. 1877. 32 pp.]

to my

"The Sonnets LXXI., LXXII., LXXIII., and LXXIV., mind afford proof than which nothing could be stronger of the identification of Raleigh as the author. With most unwavering confidence I advance the proposition that these Sonnets were addressed by Raleigh to his wife, when he was lying under sentence of death, in 1603."

Some of the Sonnets are addressed by Raleigh to Queen Elizabeth: Sonnet XXXVII. is a tribute to Prince Henry.

Raleigh before 1596 had a limp; in that year he was wounded, and became lame for the rest of his life. (See Sonnets XXXVII. and LXXXIX.)

PROF. GOEDEKE.

[Ueber Sonette Shakespeare's. Von Karl Goedeke (in Deutsche Rundschau. Marz, 1877. pp. 386-409).]

In the first 126 Sonnets 73 use (as an address to the friend) "thou" and "thee; and "thee;" 30 use "you;" 23 have neither "thou" nor "you." Of these 23 add 11 to the "thou" sonnets, we get 84; the "you" sonnets, we get 42.

add the remaining 12 to Suppose Shakspere wrote

his Sonnets in books or groups of 14 each (14 perhaps because there are so many lines in a sonnet), then there are six books of "thou" Sonnets and three books of "you" Sonnets, in the total 126. But there remain 28 Sonnets (CXXVI.-CLIV.), i.e., two more books of 14 Sonnets each.

The Sonnets are a miscellaneous gathering written at various times, addressed to various persons, real and imaginary, and thrown together in chance-medley disorder. Many of the Sonnets treat of imaginary persons and incidents similar to some of those in Shakspere's plays and poems (e.g., the dark woman and Rosaline of Love's Labour's Lost; the opening sonnets, and Venus and Adonis). XXXVIII. is addressed to Queen Elizabeth; XXIX., XLIV., XLV., XLVIII., L., LI., XCVII., to Shakspere's wife; CVIII. to his son Hamnet.

W. M. ROSSETTI.

[Lives of Famous Poets. London, 1877. pp. 50-56.]

Mr. Rossetti accepts the "personal theory" of the Sonnets; he inclines to identify the youth rather with Pembroke than Southampton, noting the fact that Pembroke was very like his mother. (See Sonnet III.)

T. A. SPALDING.

[Shakspere's Sonnets. An article in The Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1878. 18 pp.]

The main object of the article is to show that the first hundred and twenty-six sonnets, at any rate, are arranged,

« НазадПродовжити »