FURTHER COMMENTARY
SONNET XXXVII
As a decrepit father
takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,
And by a part of all thy glory live.
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
Alongside are the instances of the use of the shadow/substance imagery in the plays. It seems to be a reasonable conjecture that echoes of language between plays and sonnets might be due to a proximity in date of composition. The difficulties that immediately arise in utilising such a conjecture are that a definition of what is an echo or a similarity of language must by nature be fluid, and that usually there is no means of determining which instance came first, that is, which is the original sound and which is the echo. Another problem is that any writer may retain for years a word, phrase or sentence which he/she may wish once more to use, or may use unconsciously. So that we cannot with assurance, in the absence of supporting evidence, state that any two similar texts by an author are necessarily of the same date.
However there may be occasions in which the resemblance is more elaborate and more striking than usual, when the complexity of the similitude suggests that a closeness in date of the two texts is highly probable, even though it may not be a certainty.
In this current instance the material is somewhat more promising in that a complex and extended idea is being played with using two recurring key words, substance and shadow. Also, the instances found occur in the sonnets and only in plays which are prior to 1601. Often the verbal parallels between the sonnets and plays relate to works much later in date, sometimes even to plays written after 1609, when the sonnets were published. The approximate dates of the plays in which this substance/shadow imagery is found are as follows:
1H6 1591-2
MV 1596-7
MW 1597-1601.
Ham. 1600-1
(The dates are those given in the Signet Classic Shakespeare Series by Sylvan Barnet).One of the more curious features of the reference to shadow and substance in this sonnet is that their traditional roles are reversed. Shadow usually derives its being from substance, not vice versa. The deliberate reversal here (for it can hardly have been accidental), seems to imply that Shakespeare was using the terms not in their common and vulgar sense of shadows cast by the sun from physical bodies (substance), as in the MW quote opposite, but in a a more technical and Platonic sense. Substance corresponds to the Platonic form, or ideal, unchanging and eternal, while shadow is the earthly and unreal transient reality which is our life on earth. This set of ideas is explored again in Sonn.53, and it is given a much fuller exposition there than in this sonnet.
Of the other instances quoted alongside, that of 1H6.II.3 is a quibble on substance as military strength with shadow as unreality and weakness, a quibble by which Talbot outwits the Countess of Auvergne by bringing along soldiers who are his 'substance', whereas he himself is but a shadow. As may be seen from the extracts, the play on words continues for some time and in fact the incident occupies most of the scene.
The extract from 2H6.I.1 is fairly straightforward courtier's speech, a compliment paid by a subject to a monarch, in this case Suffolk to Henry VI. No doubt such compliments were commonplace in Elizabeth's court, but I do not think this text is particularly close to Sonnet 37.
The Hamlet episode is a quibbling exchange between Hamlet and Rozencratz, and we could I am sure prize out some resemblance between it and our current subject, but the full text reveals dreams, beggars and monarchs which are somewhat more remote than we would wish. Similarly for MW.II.2 where the substance/shadow relationship is close to that depicted by Ben Jonson in The Shadow :
Follow your shadow, it still flies you;
Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
So court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you.
Say, are not women truly, then,
Styled but the shadows of us men?That is the traditionalist proverbial approach acceded to by many others apart from Jonson, and clearly by the speaker here in MW.
The most interesting echo for our purposes is however that found in The Merchant of Venice, 3.2, where a large part of the scene is relevant not only to this sonnet, but to the sonnets as a whole. It is the scene in which Bassanio wins his love, Portia, by choosing the correct (leaden) casket. The shadow he refers to is the portrait in miniature of Portia contained within the casket. I give a more extended quote alongside. The verbal correlations are not exact, although they would score quite high on a mathematical scale. What is most striking however is the concurrence of ideas, for we find that shortly after Bassanio wins his love, Portia, she proceeds to wish for herself that she be better, not ten times better it is true, but treble twenty times, a thousand times, ten thousand times, and that 'in virtue, beauties, livings, friends, she might exceed account. The parallels from Sonn37 are that the speaker wishes for his friend 'the best' and is ten times happy as a result. He presumes beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit in his beloved. And of course there is the echo of the substance/shadow usage.
I note also that Helen Vendell quotes the song from this scene as being relevant to the whole ethos of the sonnets:
"The infatuation of the speaker with the young man is so entirely an infatuation of the eye - which makes a fetish of the beloved's countenance rather than of his entire body - that gazing is this infatuation's chief (and perhaps best and only) form of intercourse. Shakespeare's insistence on the eye and sight as the chief mover of sexual attraction is everywhere present in the Sonnets, as in the plays:
Tell me where is fancy bred
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, How nourished?
Reply, reply.
It is engendered in the eyes,
With gazing fed, and fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies. MV.III.2.63ff.I don't mean to slight the aura of privilege surrounding the young man as an enhancement of his beauty; but everything in the sonnets suggests that it was the youth's beauty of countenance (remarked upon, and attractive to others) which caused the helpless attachment recorded in the poems. Shakespeare, was, after all, a man subdued to the aesthetic." HV. Intro. p.15.
Echoes to other lines are found elsewhere in the sonnets. Thus, although they are by no means verbal copies, I would single out something such as
...but the full sum of me
Is sum of something, which to term in gross etc.
as being constructively parallel to,say
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show 43.
The use of verbal quibbles and puns is comparable, and the sheer exuberance of the language.There are other points of contact in this MV scene with the sonnets. Bassanio, on seeing Portia's portrait, lists the beauties of her face, eyes, lips, breath and hair, then eyes again. In Sonnet 130 the list is eyes, lips, breasts, hairs, cheeks, breath. (See opposite above) In the sonnet evidently the motive is not traditional praise, as in Bassanio's encomium, but it is nevertheless a praise of his mistress's beauty. The parts of Bassanio's speech dealing with Portia's eyes have many echoes in the sonnets. Mine eye hath played the painter 24 (and almost all of this sonnet). But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive 14 If I could write the beauty of your eyes 17. Portia herself early in the scene speaks in a way which is reminiscent of the tortuous introspection of some of the sonnets adjacent to this one.(See opposite, below). The play on mine and yours and being a divided person, yet united with one's beloved, brings to mind similar thoughts from the sonnets, often from a different and more painful scenario, but all of them part of the sweet hour's of love's delights, though fraught with uncertainty, as Portia's situation is here. These are some of the similar instances found in the sonnets.
And thou (all they) hast all the all of me. 31.14
Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one 36.1-2.
But do not so; I love thee in such sort
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report 36.13-14.
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise 38.14
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this, let us divided live 39.3-5
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more 40.2-4
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right. 46.1-4
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine
Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.
108.7
Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me
For in my gallery thy picture hangs;
But now the substance shall endure the like
And I will chain these arms and legs of thine 1H6.II.3.36-39Countess of A. Then have I substance too.
Talbot. No, no, I am but shadow of myself:
You are deceived, my substance is not here; 1H6.II.3.49-51How say you madam? Are you now persuaded
That Talbot is but shadow of himself?
These are his substance, sinews, arms and strength, 1H6.II.3.61-3To your most gracious hands, that are the substance
Of that great shadow I did represent; 2H6.I.1.13-14Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very
substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. Ham.II.2.256-8That I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath taught me to say this:
'Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues'. MW.II.2.206-9.....Yet look how far
The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
In underprizing it, so far this shadow
Doth limp behind the substance. MV.III.2.126-9What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend? Sonn.53Here follows The Merchant of Venice episode at greater length.
BASS What find I here?
[Opening the leaden casket]
Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god
Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,
Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips,
Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider and hath woven
A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men,
Faster than gnats in cobwebs; but her eyes,--
How could he see to do them? having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his
And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look, how far
The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
In underprizing it, so far this shadow
Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll,
The continent and summary of my fortune.
PORTIA You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am: though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish,
To wish myself much better; yet, for you
I would be trebled twenty times myself;
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;
That only to stand high in your account,
I might in virtue, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account; but the full sum of me
Is sum of something, which, to term in gross,
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised;
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
PORTIA. ....Beshrow your eyes!
They have o'erlooked me and divided me:
One half of me is yours, the other half yours -
Mine own I would say; but if mine then yours,
And so all yours! Oh these naughty times
Puts bars between the owners and their rights!
And so, though yours, not yours. 14-20. etc
Some of these are undoubtedly only distant relatives of the words spoken by Portia, but I think the majority are closely linked thematically, if not distinctly verbally. It is interesting to discover that the majority of echoes are clustered around this sonnet which we are looking at (37), which first led us to the MV scene. One notices also the repetition of sweet in Bassanio's speech.
Here are sever'd lips,
Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends.Although the use of sweet in Shakespeare is not uncommon, its prevalence in the sonnets has been noted. With 84 uses of sweet and its cognates, it is a word that to some extent typifies them, and one is reminded by the above lines of Meres' mention of Shakespeare's sugred sonnets among his private friends. This may not exhaust the full list of verbal and thematic parallels between MV and the Sonnets, indeed I'm sure it does not. But I think the list above is fairly substantial and suggest that they were written at a period when certain ideas and topics were easily entertained and could be given an airing in differing forms. Of course none of this is proof of composition of any or all of the sonnets at any one date, but I am inclined to the view that it indicates a strong probability that this group of sonnets, say 35-47, and probably others, were written at about the same date as MV, that is 1596-7. I find evidence for a later date in sonnet 104, but it may be a date referring to some event connected to the publishing of the sonnets, rather than their date of composition.
(See commentary on 104).
HV finds this sonnet (37) somewhat vacuous. "The vacuity of some lines, (Or any of these all, or all, or more; Look what is best, that best I wish in thee; / This wish I have), together with the repetiveness of argument, makes this a sonnet hard to explain except as an early, unengaged effort or one constructed on the basis of a game I have not succeeded in finding." (p.195). While I would not claim that this was one of the great sonnets, I must put in a counter claim for the poetic merit of some of these lines and the engaging interest of the whole. The two lines
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,enchant by their seeming breathlessness. The staccato and almost stumbling rhythm, which replicates the lameness of line 3, leads to a great sense of expectation. Then the somewhat banal
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee
does not perhaps appear so flat and forlorn to all comers. I discovered it recently written in an autograph album of 1902, with a watercolour painting above it. Two friends living in that year must have thought it a sufficiently rich sentiment and worthy of an exchange between them. All in all I would not consider this sonnet an apprentice piece. But then, who would not have wished to have written one of Shakespeare's apprentice pieces?
Below are some of the parallels between the Sonnets and Merchant of Venice III.2.
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
130.Mine eye hath play'd the painter.. 24
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give 37
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:
This wish I have; then ten times happy me! 37For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, 37
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse 2
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live 4
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this, let us divided live 39.3-5
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more 40.2-4BASSANIO...Move these eyes?
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,
Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips,
Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider and hath woven
A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men,
Faster than gnats in cobwebs; but her eyes,--
How could he see to do them? having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his
And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look, how far
The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
In underprizing it, so far this shadow
Doth limp behind the substance.
PORTIA You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am: though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish,
To wish myself much better; yet, for you
I would be trebled twenty times myself;
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;
That only to stand high in your account,
I might in virtue, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account; but the full sum of me
Is sum of something, which, to term in gross,
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised;
PORTIA. ....Beshrow your eyes!
They have o'erlooked me and divided me:
One half of me is yours, the other half yours -
Mine own I would say; but if mine then yours,
And so all yours! Oh these naughty times
Puts bars between the owners and their rights!
And so, though yours, not yours. 14-20. etc
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