The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 130

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: Metaphoric parody
Content: A marvellous parody of the typical Petrarchan and Elizabethan sonnets that likened the subject's features to nature, but a sonnet that claims to be more honest than the poems it parodies.

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.

Whatever is beautiful in nature, and normally what the subject's beauty is compared to, Shakespeare's subject in this sonnet does not have those qualities.

The subject is surely the Dark Lady introduced in Sonnet 127 who is now revealed to have a black complexion as well as black eyes and brows: her breasts are dun and black wires grow on her head.

Hair in Elizabethan times was often referred to as wires but is an especially fitting analogy here for a negro woman.

Ample repetition and assonance with her...her...her, If...if, be...be, red...red, white...why, wires...wires.

The reference to the lady's 2 lips is suitably present in line 2.

The word pairings counter the metaphorical qualities that other poets assign to their subjects with the real qualities that the author's subject does not have: coral-red lips with lips that aren't red, snow-white breasts with dun breasts, hair like wires with black wires for hairs.

Negativity is represented in nothing and hidden within snow.

The blackness of the subject appears to be being deliberately reinforced by the several words that contain black's k, especially with the couplet's choice of think instead of the equally suitable, but phonetically negative, know: like...black...damasked...cheeks...reeks...speak...know...walks...think.

I have seen roses damasked, 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.

white appears again, this time as a white rose, in the context of what the subject is not, again consistent with the female subject being a negro woman.

But no such roses see I in her cheeks is again consistent with the subject having a negro complexion on which rosy cheeks would not be visible.

The comments on the subject's complexion can be seen as descriptive, but the commentary now deteriorates to the reality of the subject's reeking breath.

The breasts of Q1 now morph to breath in Q2.

Negativity continues in no.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.

The disparaging, but honest, comments continue with the subject having a less pleasing speaking voice than music but love is now introduced as an emotion felt by the author towards the subject. As the hyperbole of other poets decreases, the reality of the subject's status and the author's love of her increases.

Unlike Petrarch's Laura, Shakespeare's female subject is not likened to a divine spirit but is instead someone who is no goddess and simply walks on the ground.

Negativity continues hidden in know.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

The sonnet resolves on an ironic but honest and positive note of the author's subject being someone who is real but as rare as the imaginary creatures that other poets falsely compare their subjects to.

The falseness of what other subjects are compared to is enforced in belie.

Each quatrain refers to my mistress whilst the couplet resolves to my love.

The head of Q1 and hear of Q2 now morph to heaven.

Negativity is now deliberately absent in the resolving couplet, especially with the choice of think instead of know.

In Shakespeare's own works we find material that he parodies on in the above sonnet:

In Sonnet 49 he likens the subject's eyes to the sun:

And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye

In The Rape of Lucrece we have:

Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,
Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.

And in The Taming of the Shrew, Act 1, Scene 1:

Lucentio: "Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,
And with her breath she did perfume the air."

The following are 2 examples of Petrarch's (1304-74) sonnets (translated by Mark Musa) that eulogise their subjects with sun,
snow, white and hair imagery that Shakespeare parodies:

Petrarch's Sonnet CCXIX

The early singing and the weeping birds
In the valleys at dawn resound so tender,
And the murmur of crystal water-words
On brooks lucid and liquid, fresh and slender.
She, whose face is of snow, whose hair of gold,
In whose love never were deceits or chances,
Awakes me with the sound of loving dances
Combing the white fleece of her lover old.
Then I wake up and I salute the Dawn
And her Sun, and the other I love more,
Who dazzled me and does it as before.
I saw them both sometime shine on the lawn
In the same moment, the same point and hour;
One extinguished the stars, one the sun's power.

Petrarch's Sonnet XC
The golden hair was loosened in the breeze
That in many sweet knots whirled it and reeled,
And the dear light seemed ever to increase
Of those fair eyes that now keep it concealed:
And the face seemed to colour, and the glance
To feel pity, who knows if false or true;
I who had in my breast the loving cue,
Is it surprising if I flared at once?
Her gait was not like that of mortal things,
But of angelic forms; and her words' sound
Was not like that which from our voices springs;
A divine spirit and a living sun
Was what I saw; if such it is not found,
The wound remains, although the bow is gone.

The following are examples of sonnets by Shakespeare's contemporaries, who were influenced by Petrarch,
that eulogise their subjects with flattering coral, red, rose, snow, heaven imagery that Shakespeare parodies:

Richard Barnfield (1574-1620)

Cherry-lipped Adonis

Cherry-lipped Adonis in his snowy shape,
Might not compare with his pure ivory white,
On whose fair front a poet's pen might write,
Whose rosiate red excels the crimson grape.
His love-enticing delicate soft limbs,
Are rarely framed t' intrap poor gazing eyes;
His cheeks, the lily and carnation dyes,
With lovely tincture which Apollo's dims.
His lips ripe strawberries in nectar wet,
His mouth a hive, his tongue a honeycomb,
Where muses (like bees) make their mansion.
His teeth pure pearl in blushing coral set.
Oh how can such a body sin-procuring,
Be slow to love, and quick to hate, enduring?

William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649)
Sonnet XIII

O sacred blush, impurpling cheeks' pure skies
With crimson wings which spread thee like the morn;
O bashful look, sent from those shining eyes,
Which, though cast down on earth, couldst heaven adorn;
O tongue, in which most luscious nectar lies,
That can at once both bless and make forlorn;
Dear coral lip, which beauty beautifies,
That trembling stood ere that her words were born;
And you her words, words, no, but golden chains,
Which did captive mine ears, ensnare my soul,
Wise image of her mind, mind that contains
A power, all power of senses to control;
Ye all from love dissuade so sweetly me,
That I love more, if more my love could be.

Barthlomew Griffin - from Fidessa (1596)

My Lady's hair is threads of beaten gold,
Her front the purest crystal eye hath seen,
Here eyes the brightest stars the heavens hold,
Her cheeks, red roses, such as seld have been,
Her pretty lips of red vermilion dye,
Her hand of ivory the purest white,
Her blush Aurora, or the morning sky.
Her breast displays two silver fountains bright,
The spheres, her voice; her grace, the Graces three,
Her body is the saint that I adore,
Her smiles and favours, sweet as honey be.
Her feet, fair Thetis praiseth evermore.
But Ah, the worst and last is yet behind,
For of a griffon she doth bear the mind!

The following are 2 sonnets from Sir Philip Sidney's (1554-86) landmark classic Astrophel and Stella that
Shakespeare parodies:

Sidney's Sonnet VIII

Love, born in Greece, of late fled from his native place,
Forc'd, by a tedious proof, that Turkish hardened heart
Is not fit mark to pierce with his fine-pointed dart,
And pleas'd with our soft peace, stayed here his flying race:
But, finding these north climes too coldly him embrace,
Not used to frozen clips, he strove to find some part
Where with most ease and warmth he might employ his art;
At length he perch'd himself in Stella's joyful face,
Whose fair skin, beamy eyes, like morning sun on snow,
Deceiv'd the quaking boy, who thought, from so pure light,
Effects of lively heat must needs in nature grow:
But she, most fair, most cold, made him thence take his flight
To my close heart, where, while some firebrands he did lay,
He burnt un'wares his wings, and cannot fly away.

Sidney's Sonnet LXXI

Who will in fairest book of Nature know
How virtue may best lodg'd in Beauty be,
Let him but learn of Love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly,
That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
And, not content to be Perfections heir
Thy self, doest strive all minds that way to move,
Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair:
So while thy beauty draws the heart to love,
As fast thy virtue bends that love to good:
But, ah, Desire still cries, Give me some food.

This is a section of Ovid's Metamorphoses that touches on similar themes:
Her well-turn'd neck he view'd (her neck was bare)
And on her shoulders her dishevel'd hair;
Oh were it comb'd, said he, with what a grace
Would every waving curl become her face!
He view'd her eyes, like heav'nly lamps that shone,
He view'd her lips, too sweet to view alone,
Her taper fingers, and her panting breast;
He praises all he sees, and for the rest
Believes the beauties yet unseen are best:

Finally though, the poem that Shakespeare is surely parodying the most on here is Thomas Watson's (1557-92)
The Hekatompathia or Passionate Centurie of Love, particularly with Shakespeare's remarkable reversal of
Watson's Her lips more red than any coral stone with Coral is far more red than her lips' red.

Hark you that list to hear what saint I serve:
Her yellow locks exceed the beaten gold;
Her sparkling eyes in heaven a place deserve;
Her forehead high and fair of comely mould;
Her words are music all of silver sound;
Her wit so sharp as like can scarce be found:
Each eyebrow hangs like Iris in the skies;
Her eagle's nose is straight of stately flame;
Her lips more red than any coral stone;
Her neck more white, than aged swans that moan;
Her breast transparent is, like crystal rock;
Her fingers long, fit for Apollo's lute;
Her slipper such as Momus dare not mock;
Her virtues all so great as make me mute:
What other parts she hath I need not say,
Whose face alone is cause of my decay.