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The first edition of the 4 volume set William Shakespeare's Sonnet Philosophy [2005] is still available. |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S |
A 1 A 2 A 3 A 4 A 5 A 6 A 7 A 8 A 9 |
Truth and beauty in Q Sonnet terms in prefaces and poems from 1599 to 1640 Logically connected sonnets Numerological references in Q Judgment and knowledge in Q The Rose and the Muse in Q Capitals in Q The 'eye' in Q Concordance of selected words |
465 468 469 473 474 475 476 477 |
1.2 That thereby beauty’s Rose might never die,
2.2 And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
2.5 Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
2.9 How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use,
2.12 Proving his beauty by succession thine.
4.13 Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
5.11 Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
6.4 With beauty’s treasure ere it be self killed:
7.7 Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
9.11 But beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,
10.14 That beauty still may live in thine or thee.
11.5 Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,
12.9 Then of thy beauty do I question make
12.11 Since sweets and beauties do them-selves forsake,
13.5 So should that beauty which you hold in lease14.11 As truth and beauty shall together thrive
14.14 Thy end is Truth’s and Beauty’s doom and date.
17.5 If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
17.10 Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,19.12 For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
21.2 Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
22.5 For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
24.2 Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart,37.4 Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
37.5 For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,41.3 Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,
41.10 And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,
41.12 Where thou art forced to break a two fold truth:
41.13 Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
41.14 Thine by thy beauty being false to me.48.14 For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.
53.7 On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,54.1 Oh how much more doth beauty beautious seem,
54.14 When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.60.11 Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
62.6 No shape so true, no truth of such account,
62.14 Painting my age with beauty of thy days.63.6 And all those beauty’s whereof now he’s King
63.12 My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life.
63.13 His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
65.3 How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
65.12 Or who his spoil or beauty can forbid?
66.11 And simple-Truth miscalled Simplicity,
67.7 Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
68.2 When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
68.8 Ere beauty’s dead fleece made another gay:
68.12 Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,69.4 Uttering bare truth, even so as foes Commend.
69.9 They look into the beauty of thy mind,70.3 The ornament of beauty is suspect,
72.8 Then niggard truth would willingly impart:
77.1 Thy glass will show thee how thy beauty’s were,
79.10 From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give
83.11 For I impair not beauty being mute,
93.13 How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow,
95.3 Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name?
95.11 Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot,101.2 For thy neglect of truth in beauty died?
101.3 Both truth and beauty on my love depends:
101.6 Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,
101.7 Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay:104.3 Such seems your beauty still: Three Winters cold,
104.14 Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.
106.3 And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
106.5 Then in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
106.8 Even such a beauty as you master now.
110.5 Most true it is, that I have looked on truth
115.7 Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,
127.2 Or if it were it bore not beauty’s name:
127.3 But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
127.4 And Beauty slandered with a bastard shame,
127.7 Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,
127.11 1 At such who not born fair no beauty lack,
127.14 That every tongue says beauty should look so.
132.13 Then will I swear beauty her self is black,
134.9 The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,137.3 They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
137.12 To put fair truth upon so foul a face.138.1 When my love swears that she is made of truth,
138.8 On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
147.12 At random from the truth vainly express’d.
152.10 Oaths of thy love, thy truth thy constancy,
152.14 To swear against the truth so foul a lie.
Some heaven born goddess said to be their mother.
(John Weever, 1599)
So much and such savoured salt of wit is in his comedies that they seem, for their height of pleasure, to be born in that sea that brought forth Venus.
(Anon, 1609)
Within this monument: Shakespeare, with whom quick nature died.
(Shakespeare Monument, 1616)
Who, as he was a happy imitator of nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together, and what he thought he uttered with that easiness that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers.
(Heminges, Condell, 1623)
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joyed to wear the dressings of his lines,
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As since she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please,
But antiquated and deserted lie
As they were not of nature’s family.
Yet must I not give nature all; thy art,
...
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet’s matter nature be,
His art does give the fashion;
(Ben Jonson, Folio, 1623)
And more than nature takes our hands shall give.
(I.M.S., 1632)
Next, nature only helped him.
(Leonard Digges, 1640)
Beware, delighted poets, when you sing
To welcome nature in the early spring.
(Sir William Davenant, 1637)
Nature herself did her own self admire
As oft as thou wert pleased to attire
Her in native luster, and confess
Thy dressing was her chiefest comeliness.
How can we then forget thee, when the age
Her chiefest tutor, and the widowed stage
Her only favourite, in thee hath lost,
And nature’s self what she did brag of most?
(Anon, 1640)
Honey-tongued Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue
I swore Apollo got them
...
They burn in love, thy children; Shakespeare het them;
Go, woo they muse more nymphish brood beget them.
(John Weever, 1599)
And honesty thou sow’st, which they do reap
So to increase their stock which they do keep.
(John Davies, 1610)
But to praise thee aright, I want thy store,
(Thomas Freeman, 1614)
For a good poet’s made as well as born.
And such wert thou. Look how the father’s face
Lives in his issue.
(Ben Jonson, Folio, 1623)
This book,
When brass and marble fade, shall make thee look
Fresh to all ages. When posterity
Shall loathe what’s new,
(Leonard Digges, Folio, 1623)
Rare Shakespeare to the life thou dost behold.
(Anon, 1623)
And all the muses still were in their prime
…
Upon the muses’ anvil,
(Ben Jonson, Folio, 1623)
Improved by favour of the ninefold train.
The buskined muse,
(I.M.S., 1632)
Thy muses’ sugared dainties.
(Thomas Bancroft, 1639)
The muses’ gifts so fully infused on thee.
(John Warren, 1640)
Say they are saints although that saints they show not.
(John Weever, 1599)
To lodge all four in one bed make a shift,
Until doomsday
…
But if precedency in death doth bar
A fourth place in your sacred selpulchre,
…
Possess as lord, not tenant, of thy grave,
that unto us or others it may be
Honour hereafter to be laid by thee.
(William Basse, 1616-1622)
It was no fault to approach their gods.
(Heminges, Condell, 1623)
On God’s name may the Bull or Cockpit have Your lame blank verse. (Leonard Digges, 1640)
Note: Milton does not mention God in the Epitaph for the 1632 Folio. Comment: Other than the name God used as an oath there is no mention of Christianity or its pantheon of Gods such as Christ, the Holy Spirit, or Mary in these dedications written by those who knew Shakespeare.
1 The Mistress sequence (28 sonnets) and the Master Mistress sequence (126 sonnets) derive logically from the complete set of 154 sonnets, as the sovereign mistress, or Nature.
2 The increase sonnets, 1 to 14, are a logically coherent group of 14 sonnets.
3 The poetry and increase sonnets, 15 to 19, are a logically coherent group of 5 sonnets.
4 The Alien Poet sonnets, 78 to 86, are a logically coherent group of 9 sonnets.
5 The logic of beauty is presented in sonnets 127 to 137, and the logic of truth in sonnets 137 to 152.
6 Throughout the set there are 2 or 3 sonnets joined by a logical conjunction such as but, so, then.
5 and 6 then
15 and 16 but
20 and 21 so
27 and 28 then
44 and 45 if
50, 51 and 52 thus, so
57 and 58 that
67 and 68 thus
73,74 and 75 but, so
80 and 81 or
89 and 90 then
91,92 and 93 but, so
98 and 99 thus
113 and 114 or
133 and 134 so
135 and 136 if
In this presentation of Shakespeare’s philosophy, it has been suggested he worked
on perfecting the set of Sonnets over a period of twenty or so years, but more
particularly in the years 1600 to 1609. As he organised the available sonnets into
the logical order evident in the edition of 1609 he would have reworked some
and added others to make up the desired numbers.
There seems evidence for this supposition in the large number of sonnets
that reflect aspects of the final numerological pattern. The 1, 10, or 11, for nature,
the 1, 10, or 2 for the Mistress, the 9 for the Master Mistress, and the play on
the process of mystic addition with its process of addition that provides tens,
ones, noughts, none, etc., are apparent throughout the set. This is particularly so
of sonnets that differ from the standard pattern such as sonnets 20, 38, 99, 126,
135, 136, 144, and 145.
That’s for thy self to breed an other thee,
Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee,
(Sonnet 6.7-10)
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:
Mark how one string sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each in mutual ordering;
Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee thou single wilt prove none.
(Sonnet 8.8-14)
As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow’st,
In one of thine, from that which thou departest,
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow’st,
Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,
(Sonnet 11.1-4)
Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
(Sonnet 20.10-12)
My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date,
(Sonnet 22.1-2)
Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which though it alter not love’s sole effect,
(Sonnet 36.1-7)
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,
This wish I have, then ten times happy me.
(Sonnet 37.13-14)
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to out-live long date.
(Sonnet 38.8-12)
Even for this, let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give:
That due to thee which thou deserv’st alone:
…
And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
By praising him here who doth hence remain.
(Sonnet 39.5-14)
Where thou art forced to break a two fold truth
Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine by thy beauty being false to me.
(Sonnet 41.12-14)
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross,
But here’s the joy, my friend and I are one,
Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.
(Sonnet 42.11-14)
Since every one, hath every one, one shade,
And you but one, can every shadow lend:
…
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear,
And you in every blessed shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you for constant heart.
(Sonnet 53.2-14)
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
(Sonnet 76.5-8)
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,
Than both your Poets can in praise devise.
(Sonnet 83.13-14)
All these I better in one general best.
(Sonnet 91.8)
Our blushing shame, an other white despair:
A third nor red, nor white, had stolen of both,
(Sonnet 99.8-9)
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence,
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,
Fair, kind and true, varying to other words,
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.
Which three till now, never kept seat in one.
(Sonnet 105.2-14)
Who ever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in over-plus,
More than enough am I that vex thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
…
So thou being rich in Will add to thy Will,
One will of mine to make thy large Will more.
Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,
Think all but one, and me in that one Will.
(Sonnet 135)
I fill it full with wills, and my will one,
In things of great receipt with ease we prove,
Among a number one is reckoned none.
Then in the number let me pass untold,
Though in thy store’s account I one must be,
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,
That nothing me, a some-thing sweet to thee.
Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
And then thou lov’st me for my name is Will.
(Sonnet 136.6-14)
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still,
The better angel is a man right fair:
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
…
But being both from me both to each friend,
I guess one angel in an other’s hell.
Yet this shall I ne’er know but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
(Sonnet 144)
The words judgment and knowledge are introduced together, and in that order,
in sonnet 14, the last of the increase sonnets and the pivotal sonnet of the whole
set. The process of judgment between right and wrong to gain knowledge is
basic to the truth and beauty dynamic, which derives logically from the increase
dynamic out of nature.
The words judgment and knowledge have precise logical meanings in the
Sonnets. These meanings correct their illogical use in systems of belief and in
the apologetic philosophy that attends the rationalisation of faith. Much of the
confusion over the meaning of the Sonnets has centered on words that sound
like their counterparts in religious dogma. Shakespeare, in the heat of the
English Reformation, would have been keenly aware of their illogical use and
the need to bring them under the scrutiny of a consistent philosophy.
14.1 Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,
55.13 So till the judgment that your self arise,
87.12 Comes home again, on better judgment making.
115.3 Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,
131.12 Thy black is fairest in my judgment’s place.
137.8 Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
148.3 Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,
14.9 But from thine eies my knowledge I derive,
49.10 Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
82.5 Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
1.2 That thereby beauty’s Rose might never die,
35.2 Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,
54.3 The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
54.6 As the perfumed tincture of the Roses,
54.11 Die to themselves. Sweet Roses do not so,
67.8 Roses of shadow, since his Rose is true?
95.2 Which like a canker in the fragrant Rose,
98.10 Nor praise the deep vermilion in the Rose.
99.8 The Roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
109.14 Save thou my Rose, in it thou art my all.
130.5 I have seen Roses damaskt, red and white,
130.6 But no such Roses see I in her cheeks,
21.1 So is it not with me as with that Muse,
32.10 Had my friend’s Muse grown with this growing age,
38.1 How can my Muse want subject to invent
38.9 Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
38.13 If my slight Muse do please these curious days,
78.1 So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,
79.4 And my sick Muse doth give an other place.
82.1 I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,
85.1 My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
85.4 And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
100.1 Where art thou Muse that thou forget’st so long,
100.5 Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
100.9 Rise resty Muse, my love’s sweet face survey,
101.1 Oh truant Muse what shall be thy amends,
101.5 Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,
101.13 Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,
103.1 Alack what poverty my Muse brings forth,
The words in Italics are as they appear in Q.
1 2 3 4 5 7 8 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 24 25 |
Rose Winters April Image Nature Audit Summer Orient Music Summers Times Father Son Astronomy Princes Truth Beauty Stars Time Time Poet Poet Antique Summer May Summer Summer Lion Tiger Phoenix Time Woman's Master Mistress Hews Muse Sun Moon April Painter Painter Image Sun Princes |
28 29 30 31 32 33 35 37 38 41 45 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 |
Marigold Day Sun Advocate Fortune Lark Heavens Kings Sessions Love Loves Lover Muse Sun Suns Roses Moon Fortunes Muse Muse Muse Will Elements Embassy Jewels Adonis Helen Grecian Rose Canker Rose Rose Princes Statues Mars Love Intrim Ocean Winter Summer Will God Sun Nativity |
61 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 73 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 |
Image Ages King Spring Ages Ocean Kingdom Time Jewel Nothing Folly Doctor Truth Simplicity Captain Rose Rose Nature Art Commend Crow Canker Sun West Deaths Sun Time Muse Alien Majesty Arts Muse Poet Ocean Epitaph Pen Muse Rhetoric Poet's Poets Pen Muse Character Muses |
87 91 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 |
Amen Hymns Charter King Hawks Hounds Horse Eve's Lord's Rose Queen Jewel Lambs Lamb Wolf Winter December Autumn Lords Orphans Summer Winter April Saturn Lilies Rose Winter Lily Rose Muse Muse Muse Satire Muse Muse Muse Philomel Muse Three Winters Autumn April Dial Idolatry |
106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 119 120 123 124 125 126 127 128 |
Chronicle Ladies Knights Pen Moon Augers Olives Ink Universe Rose God Dyers Eisel All Abysm Adders Crow Dove Alchemy Kings Babe Love Love Time Love Siren Limbecks Spheres Nerves Time Time Heretic Informer Boy Nature Audit Quietus Beauty Nature Arts Mistress Raven Creation Jacks |
129 130 131 132 135 136 139 140 142 143 145 147 153 154 |
Spirit Mistress Sun Coral Roses Roses Mistress Music Mistress Jewel Sun Heaven East Star 'Even West Will Will Will Will Will Will Will Will Will Art Physician Love Will Loves Physician Physic Reason Cupid Diane's Cupid Love God Nymphs Legions General Virgin Well Mistress |
1 2 3 5 7 9 12 14 15 16 17 18 20 23 24 |
eyes eyes see see eye eyes eye sight eyes eye see eyes stars thine eye sight eyes eyes eyes eye see eyes eye eyes eyes eye thine eye see |
25 26 27 29 30 31 33 38 43 46 47 49 |
star eye (their 1) star (their 1) eyelids see looking eyes eye eye eye seen see (their 1) eyes see (their 4) eyes eye sight eye sight eye thine eye see |
55 56 59 61 62 63 64 68 69 75 78 81 83 88 92 93 |
eyes eyes see see eye sight eye sight seen see seen seen (their 1) eyes eye view sight see eyes thine eyes eyes eyes eye see eye thine eye |
95 96 97 99 104 106 113 114 119 121 123 125 126 127 130 132 |
eyes seen seen see eye seen eyes eye see eye sight see eye sight eyes eyes sight see seen eyes eyes see seen eyes thine eyes |
133 137 139 140 141 142 148 149 150 152 153 |
eye eyes see eye thine eye sight eyes thine eyes eyes eyes thine eyes eyes eye sight see eyes thine eyes see sight see eyes eye see eyes eye |
The words selected for the concordance occur with some frequency throughout
the text of Volume 1 and in the commentaries of Volume 2. They are either
words basic to the natural logic of Shakespeare’s philosophy or words that
commentators emend or misunderstand. Because concordances such as
Spevack’s Harvard Concordance accept the sixty or so emendations introduced
by Malone in 1790, and other emendations added by subsequent editors, their
lists are inaccurate.
Of particular interest are the 75 occurrences of the word ‘their’. Editors
claim that the compositors misread 14 or so instances of the word ‘thy’ as ‘their’,
yet the editors do not account for the 60 instances that the compositors set
correctly. When the vast majority of ‘theirs’ can be shown to have perfect sense,
the accusation of error is a slander on the defenseless compositors.
Alchemy Argument Art Arts Astronomy Audit Autumn Beauteous Canker Die Eat Fair God Hate Image Judgment Know Lack Mad Name O'er Painted Queen Rarities Saint
Tell Unbred Verse Wear Year
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33.4, 114.4 38.3, 76.10, 79.5, 100.8, 103.3, 105.9 14.10, 24.4, 24.13, 29.7, 53.7, 66.9, 68.14, 78.13, 125.11, 139.4 78.12, 127.6 14.2 4.12, 49.4, 126.11 97.6, 104.5 4.5, 10.7, 27.12, 34.1, 41.6, 54.1, 54.13, 84.13, 104.5 35.4, 54.5, 70.7, 95.2, 99.13 1.2, 9.3, 11.14, 12.12, 25.8, 66.14, 81.6, 92.12, 94.10, 124.14 1.14, 99.13, 146.8 2.10, 3.5, 6.13, 13.9, 16.11, 18.7, 18.7, 18.10, 19.9, 21.4, 21.4, 21.10, 25.5, 26.10, 43.11, 45.12, 46.8, 54.3, 68.3, 69.12, 70.2, 78.2, 82.4, 82.5, 82.11, 83.2, 83.13, 87.7, 92.13, 95.12, 104.1, 105.9, 105.10, 105.13, 108.8, 127.1, 127.11, 135.8, 135.13, 137.12, 144.3, 147.13, 148.5, 152.13 58.1, 110.12, 154.1 10.5, 10.10, 35.12, 89.14, 90.1, 7.12, 124.3, 142.1, 142.2, 145.2, 145.9, 145.13, 143.13, 149.13, 150.10, 152.4 3.14, 24.6, 59.7, 61.1 14.1, 55.13, 87.12, 115.3, 137.8, 148.3 13.13, 24.14, 50.7, 51.8, 53.12, 76.9, 77.7, 92.14, 93.6, 112.6, 130.9, 137.3, 137.3, 138.2, 138, 140.8, 144.13, 149.13, 151.1 30.3, 106.14, 127.11, 132.14 129.8, 140.9, 140.12, 140.12, 147.10 36.12, 39.6, 71.11, 72.11, 76.7, 80.2, 81.5, 95.3, 95.8, 108.8, 111.5, 127.2, 127.7, 136.13, 136.14, 151.9 12.4, 30.10, 107.12, 108.6, 115.11, 128.11 16.8, 20.1, 21.2, 47.6, 53.8 96.5 60.11 144.7 3.1, 14.3, 14.5, 28.9, 30.10, (76.7,) 84.7, 89.12, 93.12, 98.7, 103.12, 139.5, 140.6, 144.10, 151.7 104.13 17.1, 19.14, 21.2, 38.2, 54.14, 60.13, 71.9, 76.1, 78.2, 79.2, 81.9, 86.1, 86.8, 103.13, 105.7 15.8, 55.12 11.8, 52.6, 53.9, 73.1, 97.2
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