SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS
Never before Imprinted:
By G. Eld for T.T. 1609
TO.THE.ONLY.BEGETTER. OF.
THESE. INSVING. SONNETS.
Mr W.H. ALL. HAPPINESS.
AND. THAT. ETERNITIE.
PROMISED.
BY.
OVR. EVER.LIVING. POET.
WISHETH.
THE. WELL.WISHING.
ADVENTURER. IN.
SETTING.
FORTH.
T.T.
As I said in my previous chapter, Our Ever-Living Poet, I must now propose and interpretation for the second part of the Dedication: Who is the well-wishing adventurer, setting forth?
The coincidence of dates, as well as the word adventurer, makes it inevitable to consider the facts related to The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the First Colony of Virginia.
This elaborate title distinguished between two types of people involved in the “Virginia Company”: Adventurers and Planters. The term Adventurers was used for the stockholders, the entrepreneurs, who rarely went to the Colony but followed the progress of their investment from London. The term Planters referred to the men who actually went to Virginia as settlers, and for this they received a share in stock. They included craftsmen, artisans and gentlemen, as well as their women and children.
As I said, the coincidence of dates in 1609 is interesting. The sonnets were entered into the Stationers' Register on May 20 (and published by Thorpe the same year).1 The Second Charter of the Virginia Company was signed by King James three days later on May 23, and the Flagship The Sea Venture2 sailed towards America ten days later, on June 2, together with eight other vessels.
A digression: The Sea Venture was wrecked in Bermuda on July 28, four days after the fleet was hit by a storm. In September 1610 a ship arrived in England bringing a detailed report written by one William Strachey, with the title: A True Reportory of the Wracke. This document, written as a private letter to an unidentified lady, was dated July 15, 1610 but was not published until 1625, so it is unlikely that anyone not connected to the Company of Adventurers (or with the lady in question) would have been able to read it. Orthodox scholars have observed the similarities between Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Strachey’s document; I entirely agree that such similarities exist, in my opinion beyond reasonable doubt of simple coincidence. Moreover, I think that another report (anonymous), published by the company in 1610, also found its way into the play. However, this is matter for another essay.
But how could all this transoceanic business have anything to do with Shake-speares Sonnets? In any case, if the well-wishing adventurer were connected with this particular “venture," he would be someone who had shares in the company, not necessarily someone who was setting forth on his way to America.
So, who WISHETH what to whom? As T.T. is the author of the Dedication, he should be the well-wishing adventurer, setting forth; also, the Dedication is unambiguously addressed to Mr WH. Therefore, leaving aside elaborate conjectures as to possible hidden meanings, and considering only the syntactic/grammatical point of view, it seems that Thomas Thorpe is the adventurer who wisheth all those nice things to Mr WH. Thus:
THE. WELL.WISHING.ADVENTURER, THOMAS THORPE,
(IN. SETTING. FORTH.)
WISHETH TO. Mr W.H.
(THE.ONLY.BEGETTER. OF.THESE. INSVING. SONNETS.)
ALL. HAPPINESS.AND. THAT. ETERNITIE.
PROMISED. BY. OVR. EVER.LIVING. POET.
Perhaps the way to understand the second part of Thorpe’s Dedication is to simply set our minds back to 1609: The Virginia Company, with its jargon of adventurers and planters, would probably have been the talk of the town for months, so that the word adventurer could have become the trendy adjective to be applied familiarly to anyone embarking (no pun intended) in a (daring) commercial enterprise.
If Pembroke’s reaction was such as may perhaps be inferred by the withdrawal of the volume,3 it is possible that Thorpe saw the publication of Shake-speares Sonnets as a daring adventure. The reference to an adventurer, meaning an investor or an entrepreneur, such as a publisher, may have been clear to Thorpe’s contemporaries if not to us.
In his letter to Blount, on the publication of Marlowe’s Lucan, in 1600, Thorpe already used a convoluted, sarcastic and somewhat cryptic language to complain about the negative behaviour of some prospective patrons. It seems that Thorpe had been expecting one of Blount’s former patrons (in the circle of your Patronage), to take an interest in Marlowe’s work (the First Book of Lucan in this case). As books in those days were dedicated to aristocrats, I think we may assume that such was Thorpe’s intention, as his letter to Blount indicates; it also suggests that his eventual decision to dedicate the volume to Blount was due to the evasive and discourteous behaviour of one or more of such patrons.
Whether Thorpe’s letter is referring to Southampton, Pembroke or Thomas Walsingham, we will probably never know. But what we might infer from its content is that by 1600, the year the Lucan was published, Marlowe’s name had become too embarrassing socially and/or too dangerous politically, so that his former friends among the nobility may have been wishing to distance themselves from it as much as possible.
Which raises the question as to whether perhaps the use of the hyphenated name for Shakespeare happened to be in some way indicative of the changing value of Marlowe-shares, or Marlowe-prospects, over the years.
If this were the case, we might wish to consider the fact that although some printers, such as Valentine Simmes and Richard Field, and some publishers, such as Edward Blount and Matthew Law, were more or less consistent in the form they spelt the name, there seems to be no repetitive pattern in the choice of any one form of spelling which might be attributed to simple inertia or automatic repetition on the part of printers and/or publishers.
A sort of pattern emerges, however, when we consider the dates.4 During 1598/1599, when the name of Shakespeare appears in the plays for the first time, the hyphenated form is used in about half of the non-anonymous Shakespeare Quartos published in those two years. The percentage drops to zero for the thirteen Quartos of plays published between 1600 and 1602; not a hyphen in sight, except for the poem, The Turtle and the Phoenix, printed by Richard Field for Edward Blount in 1601. Within those years, the disgrace and execution of the Earl of Essex would have left Marlowe lost in the continent, without a patron and without a job; so what did he do to survive, and was it something so questionable that his London friends turned their backs on him?
The percentage in the hyphenation goes back to an approximate 50% between 1603 (so after the Queen’s death) and 1607, and, in 1608 it raises to an unprecedented 100% for the three Quartos published that year, including 1Q King Lear. Then, in 1609 Shake-speares Sonnets was the only volume to appear with the hyphenated name against 1Q Pericles and 1Q Troilus and Cressida, which bore the full name, plus an anonymous 3Q Romeo and Juliet.5
Does this basic schedule for the use of the hyphenated name tell us anything? I honestly don’t know, but the figures I have just quoted may give us food for thought. (A proper analysis of a hypothetical, date-based pattern would exceed the scope of this essay.)
So let’s go back to the sonnets. By the expression the well-wishing adventurer, Thorpe might be referring both to his own adventure in publishing a book of sonnets by Marlowe (that EVER LIVING POET combined with the name Shake-speare was a give-away), and to the Adventurers in the Virginia Company, the list of whom was headed by the Earls of Southampton and Pembroke (whose initials, by the way, happen to be HW and WH, respectively).
But leaving aside all the uncanny coincidences, if the Mr WH of the seventeen sonnets was William Herbert after all, Thorpe’s good wishes were perhaps no less appropriate for being cryptically worded. And if the publisher had already been offended nine years earlier by the evasive and impolite treatment of some of Marlowe’s former patrons, that may have tempted him to write his equivocal Dedication to one of them.
So let me re-interpret:
TO THE ONLY BEGETTER OF THESE INSVING (seventeen) SONNETS: Mr WH. (Master William Herbert)
ALL HAPPINESS AND THAT ETERNITIE (immortality)
PROMISED (to Master William Herbert, in the said sonnets)
BY OVR EVER LIVING POET (Christopher Marlowe).
WISHETH THE WELL WISHING ADVENTURER (Thomas Thorpe), IN SETTING FORTH (launching this book).
© Isabel Gortázar, January 2011
Isabel Gortázar is an independent scholar, specializing in Shakespeare and Marlowe studies. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Marlowe Society (UK) and a founding member of the International Marlowe Society. She divides her time between London and Bilbao, Spain.
who wrote shakespeare's sonnets?emmerichdevere
Notes
1I cannot seriously consider the date, May 20 - the date of Marlowe's arrest - to be anything but an uncanny coincidence.
2A colleague has argued that Marlowe went to America in The Sea Venture. See: Gamble, C. Shake-speare’s Voyage to America. (Capella Archive, 2006).
3Shortly after publication, Thorpe’s volume disappeared from circulation; in 1640 one John Benson used all but eight of the sonnets as the basis for a badly compiled book called Poems: Written by Will Shake-speare. Gent., which included poems by other people. Thorpe’s Quarto texts were not properly published again until 1709. Ref: Booth, Stephen: Shake-speare’s Sonnets (Yale NB, 2000).
4I wish to thank Ros Barber for sharing with me her detailed chart, in reference to the publication of Shakespeare’s Quartos and Octavos. 5Printed by John Windet for John Smithewick. As an example of the apparent randomness in the publishing pattern: In 1622, two Quartos of Romeo and Juliet, both printed by William Standby also for John Smethwicke, appeared, one anonymous, the other with the author’s name hyphenated.Emmerich Rylance Anonymous Shakespeare
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35 comments:
I've read your two parts very carefully, Ms. G. This seems quite reasonable to me. Blount is an interesting fellow, wouldn't you say?
but it's a leap of faith for me on the Marlowe authorship matter. I'm not there yet!
On May 28, 1609, Robert Gray, a minister, published a pamphlet called "A Good Speed to Virginia." The dedication to this work begins as follows: "To the Right Noble and Honorable Earles, Barons and Lords, and to the Right Worshipfull Knights, Merchants and Gentlemen, Adventurers for the plantation of Virginea, all happie and prosperous successe, which may either augment your glorie, or increase your wealth, or purchase your eternitie." The dedication ends: "Your Honours and Worships in all affectionate well wishing, R.G." The similarity of language has led some to believe that "advance copies" of the Sonnets were circulating well before their publication date, and that Gray may have borrowed some of his phrasing from them. It certainly shows some connection with the Virginia Company and the author the Sonnets' dedication.
"daver852" said... "It certainly shows some connection with the Virginia Company and the author the Sonnets' dedication."
Yes indeed, but the letter dedicating it to the Council was actually dated 28 April and the work itself was registered with the Stationers' Company on 3 May, seventeen days before the Sonnets' registration. Where did the 28 May date of publication come from?
Whenever it was, it is reasonable to assume that the Council members themselves (particularly the two whose names headed the list of its members) would have seen this dedication, if nothing else, before that publication.
As I argued on this blog about a year ago, I believe that the Sonnets' dedication was written on the instructions (and on behalf) of one of those two noblemen - "the well-wishing adventurer" - and this would explain very clearly why it so obviously reflected Robert Gray's words.
Peter
You're right, of course, Peter. April 28 is the correct date. Old age and gargle are clouding my brain.
Hi Everybody: Sorry I have been horribly busy.
Thanks 68Maxwell for your comment. Yes, Blount seems quite interesting; I wish I knew more about him. Sorry to hear you are not "there yet"; pls keep reading our stuff and perhaps we'll persuade you.
Hi daver852:
Gray's pamphlet is priceless and, as I see it, practically proves my point. Thank you very much.
The coincidence in the wording (including that "eternitie" meaning immortality), as in TT's Dedication, I think proves beyond reasonable doubt that the two texts are linked.
Now, who "copied" whose text is irrelevant.
Whether his Dedication was registered in the Stationer's Company together with the sonnets, or added at the time of publication, Thorpe would have had ample time to read Grey's pamphlet and more or less paraphrase it.
So, I stick to my guns (sorry Peter), and thank you Daver852 again for your valuable contribution. I will amend my essay accordingly by and by, and will be most happy to credit you (d852) for the information if you will kindly give me your name.
Isabel
Thanks Isabel. You have presented a good argument which, as I said, has helped me a lot in sorting out my own view of what this is all about. That we yet again come up with different conclusions is hardly surprising!
I have little to say about this second part. The basic argument about the "well-wishing adventurer" is very much the same as Katherine Duncan-Jones offered in her Arden edition of the Sonnets (pp.56-9) and is, I am sure, just how the general reader was supposed to read it. But whereas I think that there was a deliberate ambiguity hiding the true meaning, you don't. Let's leave it at that for the time being.
Where I am beginning to have real problems with your overall interpretation, however, comes from my having looked again at exactly what those first seventeen sonnets actually 'promised' and how this might have been taken by William Earl of Pembroke in 1609, rather than 1597. The whole sequence concerned the need for him to beget children, and the dire consequences of ever failing to do so: his beauty lost for ever, only "worms thine heir", dying "unlooked on", that he would "barrenly perrish" "Harsh, featureless, and rude, with no defence against "Time's scythe", and his end being "Truth's and Beauty's doom and date".
A bit of biographical information might help us. In 1600 he had had an affair with Mary Fitton, from which liaison a son was born in late March 1601 but who died almost immediately. In November 1604 he married Lady Mary Talbot (d. 1650), daughter of Gilbert Talbot, seventh earl of Shrewsbury, but they had only one child, a boy who died at less than a month old.
In 1609, therefore, over four years after a marriage which had produced no heir and which now clearly showed little sign of doing so, can we really think that Thomas Thorpe would want to remind the Earl of Pembroke of just what had been predicted for him if he failed to produce one? I really don't think so, do you?
Peter
Peter:
"it is reasonable to assume that the Council members themselves (particularly the two whose names headed the list of its members) would have seen this dedication, if nothing else, before that publication."
You are saying that Southampton and/ or Pembroke would have seen, and possibly instigated Thorpe's Dedication, even though it included their plain initials, which, if nothing else might create confusion. Also, if one of the earls was doing his usual Patron-of- the- Arts- job, why hide his light under a bushel?
Your suggestion seems particularly unlikely if those seventeen sonnets had been dedicated to one of those earls. The title was after all "Shake-speares Sonnets" so he should have assumed that all of S's Sonnets would be included. If in doubt, "Mr WH" would have made sure that the first seventeen were omitted.
To be continued.
Peter:
“In 1609, therefore, over four years after a marriage which had produced no heir and which now clearly showed little sign of doing so, "etc.
Thorpe is taking care to veil the identity of Mr WH, except to those in the know; those who knew that those sonnets had been written when Herbert was only seventeen.
Thorpe may have been clumsy, or deliberately impertinent. In any case, the withdrawal of the publication suggests that somebody influential enough may have been seriously offended (which BTW would prove both your point and mine).
To be continued.
I
Peter:
Herbert had refused to marry Bridget de Vere in 1597. Then, unlike Southampton, who married Elizabeth Vernon when she was pregnant, he rejected Mary Fitton and her child (he had no way of knowing the child would die), and one wonders why on earth he chose to marry poor Mary Talbot, a deformed woman for whom he could not have felt much physical attraction; she must have been immensely wealthy.
However, he did have several illegitimate children who would prevent "his beauty being lost for ever", his dying "unlooked on", with no defense against "Time's scythe", etc”.
Somebody defending the theory that William Herbert was himself illegitimate, might argue that he did not choose to pass the title on to a “legitimate” child of his, but made sure it would go to his brother.
I am not defending this theory, but, if I keep an open mind, I find that Herbert’s proclivity to beget illegitimate children, instead of legitimate ones is curious enough.
As a result of this, and together with the other considerations, expressed before, I cannot really find Pembroke's lack of a legitimate heir as an obstacle to read Thorpe’s dedication the way I do.
And I certainly cannot imagine either earl instigating such a dedication.
Isabel: "You are saying that Southampton and/ or Pembroke would have seen, and possibly instigated Thorpe's Dedication, even though it included their plain initials, which, if nothing else might create confusion."
I am saying that, as with the Stratford monument, the dedication was worded deliberately to have two different meanings, an overt one making it appear to have been written by Thorpe, and a covert one in which one of those two nobles, more likely to have been Southampton, was the real 'well-wishing' originator of the message. In fact Kerrigan (p.168) refers to '...the possibility that Thorpe sought to be misconstrued when dedicating the Sonnets; many have thought his words a blind.'
Isabel: "Also, if one of the earls was doing his usual Patron-of- the- Arts- job, why hide his light under a bushel?"
They were written to him and, because of a lot of the personal content, he may not have wanted it to be so obvious?
Isabel: "Your suggestion seems particularly unlikely if those seventeen sonnets had been dedicated to one of those earls. The title was after all "Shake-speares Sonnets" so he should have assumed that all of S's Sonnets would be included. If in doubt, "Mr WH" would have made sure that the first seventeen were omitted."
I'm sorry, but I just don't follow who you are saying would or wouldn't have done what.
Isabel: "Thorpe is taking care to veil the identity of Mr WH, except to those in the know; those who knew that those sonnets had been written when Herbert was only seventeen."
The point is that, under your theory, Herbert himself would have known that those sonnets given pride of place in the collection had been addressed to him, that several people (including Meres, for example) knew this, and that they now appeared to be deliberately placed at the very beginning to draw attention to his failure to produce an heir, together with all the negative results which would arise from that fact. As you yourself argue, the word 'INSVING' even points them out as having been begotten by your 'Mr.W.H.'.
Isabel: "Thorpe may have been clumsy, or deliberately impertinent."
But he wasn't stupid. That would have been a deliberate insult to one of the greatest literary patrons of the day.
Isabel: "In any case, the withdrawal of the publication suggests that somebody influential enough may have been seriously offended (which BTW would prove both your point and mine)."
I can think of several possible reasons for there being no second edition before 1640, the withdrawal of the first being only one of them. For example, Blakemore Evans writes that 'Thorpe possibly hoped to cash in, belatedly, on what was by then a waning interest in the form.'
Isabel: "However, he [Herbert] did have several illegitimate children who would prevent "his beauty being lost for ever", his dying "unlooked on", with no defense against "Time's scythe", etc."
Not in 1609 he didn't, unless the DNB has got it wrong. At that time there had been only the two sons (one legitimate, the other not) both of whom had died within a month of their birth. That he probably also had an illegitimate son and daughter a few years later is hardly relevant.
Isabel: "I find that Herbert’s proclivity to beget illegitimate children, instead of legitimate ones is curious enough."
Somehow I rather doubt that the outcome was what he had intended or wanted in either case!
Peter
Peter:
I am no longer sure what it is you are arguing:
a) That despite the fact that he had no heir, Pembroke might have instigated the Dedication.
b) That because he had no heir, Pembroke would have been offended by the Dedication.
So far you have given me no convincing reason to reject my interpretation, even if Pembroke’s illegitimate children were born after 1609, which I am taking on trust, because I know you usually get your facts right, even if I don’t always agree with the conclusions you derive from those facts.
Look what I’ve found in Wikipedia.
“Since Herbert, some years Shakespeare's junior, was a patron of the playwright, and since his initials match with the dedication of the Sonnets to one "Mr. W.H.", "the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets", he is a popular candidate, although Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton has also been popular. E. K. Chambers, who had previously considered Southampton to be the Fair Youth changed his mind when he encountered evidence in letters that around 1595 young Herbert had been urged to wed Elizabeth Carey, granddaughter of Henry Carey, the Lord Chamberlain who ran Shakespeare’s company. But he refused to marry her.[2] In her Arden Shakespeare edition of the Sonnets, Katherine Duncan-Jones argues that Herbert is the likelier candidate.”
So that’s another girl WH refused to marry!
In any case, it seems I have not invented anything after all, and Mr WH was William Herbert for both Chambers and Duncan Jones. These Stratfordians do sometimes get it right, even if they don't make the connection to Bridget de Vere,
Isabel,
I'm sorry if it isn't clear precisely what I'm arguing. This is because my ideas about it are still developing and - as I said before - have already been affected by our discussion. In particular, my reexamination of just what those 17 sonnets 'promise' has significantly changed my view of which of those two earls was probably behind the whole thing, and I must now doubt that Herbert had anything to do with the publication, whether as dedicator or dedicatee.
So, if I may attempt a summary, my current preference would be that the 'dedication' is deliberately worded so as to allow at least two different meanings. The true one in fact relates to Southampton having been the original addressee of the majority of the Sonnets - which I had thought anyway - and having received copies of the others (the first seventeen and the "dark lady" ones). To mark the setting forth of the nine ships of the Virginia Company, of which he is a major investor (i.e. adventurer), he is having the Sonnets together with A Lovers Complaint published as a gift to their author.
1) The covert (i.e. real) meaning is that Thorpe is writing on behalf of the "adventurer" Southampton to the Sonnets' true "begetter", Marlowe, whose current identity has the initials "W.H.". It wishes him happiness and the sort of eternity promised by "our ever-living poet" Ovid in his elegy "To the envious, that the fame of poets lasts forever" - as translated by an also "ever-living" Marlowe.
2.a) The way in which members of the general public were intended to read it, however, is that the "adventurer" Thorpe is wishing happiness - and that eternal life promised to us by God - to the true inspirer of the Sonnets, some unknown gentleman with the initials "W.H."
2.b) Within this group, however, may have been a few who knew that seventeen of those sonnets were written for William Herbert's 17th birthday, so the wording (and having them at the beginning) also allows an interpretation which limits the 'inspiring' to just those 17, and which, because of the shared initials, could at a stretch be taken as referring to him.
In these circumstances, Southampton may not have considered the possibility of Pembroke being offended (since they weren't really being dedicated to him and were known about by very few people) but he probably was, and protested. Rather than reprint it without the offending sonnets and reference to them, which would have served to draw attention to the situation even more, it might have seemed more sensible simply to print no further editions.
You said "In any case, it seems I have not invented anything after all, and Mr WH was William Herbert for both Chambers and Duncan Jones. These Stratfordians do sometimes get it right, even if they don't make the connection to Bridget de Vere."
The problem for Stratfordians is that the ubiquitous conceit in such dedications that the parent, father, sire or begetter of a work was its author simply cannot apply if the known author's initials are "W.S." and the begetter's "W.H.". They are compelled to look for another possible meaning for the word "begetter" and for a "W.H." to whom it might refer. Duncan-Jones goes 100% for William Herbert, and argues quite convincingly on his behalf (pp.52-64), but it is all forced upon her by that initial problem, which Marlovians need not have.
Incidentally, she does include the following words (p.55): "Two years later, in the summer of 1597, a further attempt was made to match him suitably, this time to Bridget Vere... This too collapsed after some months of negotiation."
Peter
Peter:
Once again, in what already seems like an established tradition, you and I read the same facts/texts and reach a different conclusion.
I stick to my guns (as usual). The 17 sonnets could not have been dedicated to Southampton on his 17th birthday, when Marlowe was alive and kicking; and if, as seems to be the meaning in Meres' comment, those sonnets were read among Southampton's friends, (Meres, apparently included) I don't see why he would have attributed them to "Shakespeare" eight years later.
Unless of course you believe either that Marlowe was using the pseudonym already in 1590, or that Meres knew who Shake-speare was (despite his various references to Marlowe separately); but if "the secret" was no secret at Meres level, then, so many people would have shared his knowledge, that for Thorpe to include them in a book called Shake-speares Sonnets would have been suicidal.
Isabel,
You say "The 17 sonnets could not have been dedicated to Southampton on his 17th birthday".
Did you really look at what I just said? I thought that I had made it fairly clear that I believed those 17 sonnets to have addressed to William Herbert!
Peter
Apologies, Peter.
I was in a hurry and obviously read your message too fast.
I find your discourse difficult to follow.
Peter: "In particular, my reexamination of just what those 17 sonnets 'promise' (...) I must now doubt that Herbert had anything to do with the publication, whether as dedicator or dedicatee."
And:
"So, (...) my current preference would be that the 'dedication' is deliberately worded so as to allow at least two different meanings. The true one in fact relates to Southampton having been the original addressee of the majority of the Sonnets -etc.
And:
"Within this group, however, may have been a few who knew that seventeen of those sonnets were written for William Herbert's 17th birthday, so the wording (and having them at the beginning) also allows an interpretation which limits the 'inspiring' to just those 17, and which, because of the shared initials, could at a stretch be taken as referring to him."
So, you are saying that, although Southampton was the addressee of the majority of the sonnets, the first seventeen were dedicated to Herbert (as I proposed) and that Southampton supported Thorpe in a Dedication that clearly points at Herbert as dedicatee of those first seventeen sonnets, without consulting Herbert at all.
Is that it?
Isabel said..."So, you are saying that, although Southampton was the addressee of the majority of the sonnets, the first seventeen were dedicated to Herbert (as I proposed) and that Southampton supported Thorpe in a Dedication that clearly points at Herbert as dedicatee of those first seventeen sonnets, without consulting Herbert at all. Is that it?"
Not really. I am indeed saying that Southampton was most probably the fair youth addressed in Sonnets 18-126 (which had been sent to him as 'letters in verse' over several years); that Sonnets 1-17 were nevertheless written for William Lord Herbert's birthday in 1597 (an occasion which Southampton may well have attended); and that he had been given copies of the 'dark lady' ones (127-153) too. I further suggest that Southampton at least had a big hand in writing the 1609 dedication (and choosing the order of the sonnets) if not actually devising the whole thing himself.
However I deny that the dedication "clearly points at Herbert as dedicatee of those first seventeen sonnets". What I said was that the wording "allows an interpretation which limits the 'inspiring' to just those 17, and which, because of the initials, could at a stretch be taken as referring to him". However, this would occur only to those few people who already knew that they had been written for him, and they would in any case have been puzzled over the title "Master".
As for whether Herbert had been consulted or not, with no evidence one way or the other I have no idea. All one can say is that if he hadn't been consulted he may well have protested, whereas if he had been then there must have been some other reason (such as a lack of demand) for there apparently being no further print runs. It is really of minimal importance to the scenario I am proposing.
Peter
Peter:
“As for whether Herbert had been consulted or not, with no evidence one way or the other I have no idea.”
The other day you were laying particular stress on the fact that in 1609 Pembroke had not legitimate heirs, so publishing the first 17 sonnets coupled with a dedication to a Mr WH would have been an impertinence (which, I agree, it was).
It would be reasonable to assume that the two most important “Adventurers” were possibly friends as well as close business associates; as a friend, Southampton would have been far more aware than Thorpe, as to whether Pembroke was concerned, or not, about his lack of an heir.
As for your scenario in which Southampton was involved in the collecting and publication of the Sonnets, I’d like to know if you have any evidence for this. I am not emphatically saying it is not true, I am just curious as to where you get it from. In 1608/9 Southampton would have been extremely busy with the Virginia affairs; I don’t see him in the evenings poring over the MSS of the sonnets and deciding how to group them.
BTW, as I understand Mary Fitton was dark-skinned. I am not saying she was the Dark Lady, (I have not studied the puzzle of the Dark Lady yet), I am just pointing out the coincidence.
My conclusion is still that Southampton, even if he may have been the addressee of some of the Sonnets, had nothing- or little- to do with any of this; that Mr WH was Master William Herbert in 1597, whose seventeenth anniversary was the ONLY cause why the ENSVING 17 sonnets were written at all; that the Ever Living Poet was Marlowe, the author of the Shake-speare’s Sonnets, and that Thorpe was the Well-Wishing Adventurer.
Isabel said..."The other day you were laying particular stress on the fact that in 1609 Pembroke had not legitimate heirs, so publishing the first 17 sonnets coupled with a dedication to a Mr WH would have been an impertinence (which, I agree, it was)."
No I wasn't. I was saying that in 1609 it would have been stupid for Thomas Thorpe to dedicate a volume with those 17 sonnets at the front to Master William Herbert, even if the dedicatee was called only "Mr.W.H.", which you were proposing. My scenario has the volume dedicated to the true author, Christopher Marlowe by the Earl of Southampton.
Isabel: "It would be reasonable to assume that the two most important "Adventurers" were possibly friends as well as close business associates; as a friend, Southampton would have been far more aware than Thorpe, as to whether Pembroke was concerned, or not, about his lack of an heir."
Precisely. So where it would have been stupid for Thorpe to have done so, it "would be reasonable to assume" that Southampton had a fair idea about just how concerned Pembroke would have been. But he could have still been wrong!
Isabel: "As for your scenario in which Southampton was involved in the collecting and publication of the Sonnets, I’d like to know if you have any evidence for this."
My scenario is one in which most of the sonnets were written to him (an opinion which has been shared by countless Shakespearian scholars, inferred from the dedications of Venus & Adonis and Rape of Lucrece). To this I add a high probability that he would have been a guest at the celebration of William Lord Herbert's 17th birthday (and have therefore received a copy of any sonnets written for that occasion), and simply assume that the poet would have made sure that he saw the ones apparently addressed to the 'dark lady' too. To argue that the latter may have been Mary Fitton is nothing but circular reasoning.
That's why I claim that Southampton could have been in possession a full set (although God knows where Sonnets 154-5 came from!). So what better "evidence" do you have for how Thorpe got hold of them? Incidentally, I can see Marlowe having written The Lover's Complaint for Southampton, but what evidence do you offer in support of Thorpe's ability to get hold of a copy?
Isabel: "In 1608/9 Southampton would have been extremely busy with the Virginia affairs; I don’t see him in the evenings poring over the MSS of the sonnets and deciding how to group them."
How much "poring" would be needed to instruct Thorpe to put the sonnets in the order they were written (i.e. how they were filed) but to put those seventeen "marriage" ones at the beginning and the "dark lady" ones (plus the two oddities) at the end? Beyond that, a bit of extra tweaking would have taken no more than a single reading.
Peter
Peter:
Isabel said..."The other day you were laying particular stress on the fact that in 1609 Pembroke had not legitimate heirs, etc”
Peter: No I wasn't. I was saying that in 1609 it would have been stupid for Thomas Thorpe to dedicate a volume with those 17 sonnets at the front to Master William Herbert, even if the dedicatee was called only "Mr.W.H.", which you were proposing. My scenario has the volume dedicated to the true author, Christopher Marlowe by the Earl of Southampton.
Isabel says now: I fail to see the difference between what you are saying and what you say you were saying. For the record, my scenario cannot see the Earl of Southampton anywhere, specifically in the sonnets. That is not to say he may not be the dedicatee of some of them.
Peter: “My scenario is one in which most of the sonnets were written to him (an opinion which has been shared by countless Shakespearian scholars, inferred from the dedications of Venus & Adonis and Rape of Lucrece).
Isabel now: Those countless Shakespearians are building their theories around WS of Stratford. Southampton is the only aristocrat that they can associate to Shake-spear, on the basis, as you say, of the two Poems dedicated to the Earl. But we can look at other possibilities and, in fact, if you believe Marlowe wrote those sonnets, not just Pembroke (37 and 89, at least, as well as the first 17), but Walsingham (34) and Essex (26), for example, as well as other less aristocratic dedicatees, including WS (81) and one of the Bacon brothers (20), must be considered. For the record, I don't believe the Sonnets were printed in the order they were written.
(To be continued.)
Peter
“To this I add a high probability that he would have been a guest at the celebration of William Lord Herbert's 17th birthday-
AGREED
(and have therefore received a copy of any sonnets written for that occasion)
NO EVIDENCE, AND I DOUBT MARY SIDNEY WOULD HAVE BOTHERED TO MAKE COPIES FOR ALL THE GUESTS, INLCUDING MERES.
and simply assume that the poet would have made sure that he saw the ones apparently addressed to the 'dark lady' too.
NO EVIDENCE, AS WE DON’T KNOW WHO THE DARK LASY WAS.
(...) To argue that the latter may have been Mary Fitton is nothing but circular reasoning.
I FAIL TO SEE THE CIRCULAR REASONING, EVEN IF I HAD ARGUED THAT, WHICH I DIDN’T. I MERELY SAID THAT MARY FITTON WAS DARK-SKINNED WHICH I FIND AN INTRIGUING COINCIDENCE DESERVING FURTHER STUDY.
THEREFORE:
I think we’ve reached a dead end, PETER. T I don’t have any evidence as to how Thorpe, or Blount, or Iaggard, or anyone else got hold of Marlowe’s MSS, and neither have you. Once again, in what seems a well-established tradition, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Thanks for your comments, anyway. I always learn something from you even if our minds seem to work in entirely different ways.
Isabel,
Peter: "...and simply assume that the poet would have made sure that he saw the ones apparently addressed to the 'dark lady' too."
Isabel: "No evidence, as we don't know who the dark lady was."
We don't 'know' who any of them were. However, since there appears to have been some sort of love triangle involving the poet, the fair youth and the dark lady, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the youth (whoever that was) would have at some point seen those sonnets addressed to the lady (ditto).
Isabel: "I merely said thay Mary Fitton was dark-skinned which I find an intriguing coincidence deserving further study."
I'd like to start by knowing where you get the information that she was dark-skinned. According to the DNB, "In his article on Mary Fitton in the Dictionary of National Biography, Sidney Lee pronounced [the theory that she was the 'dark lady'] 'ingenious' but yet to be proven; long before the second edition of 1908, in which he discounted it altogether, he and others had changed their minds. The chief cause was the appearance in 1897 of Alice Emily Newdigate-Newdegate's Gossip from a Muniment Room, which included reproductions of portraits of Mary at Arbury Hall. In an extended discussion appended to the second edition of this work (1898), G. C. O. Bridgeman supported Lady Newdigate-Newdegate's suggestion that Mary's colouring, with brown rather than black hair and light eyes, rendered her an unlikely 'dark lady', and others, reviewing this and the shaky identification of 'W. H.', concurred."
Isabel: "...I think we’ve reached a dead end, Peter. I don’t have any evidence as to how Thorpe, or Blount, or Jaggard, or anyone else got hold of Marlowe’s MSS, and neither have you."
No, I can't give you direct evidence for any of this - only the facts from which I infer the most probable explanation of the various anomalies we find in the epigraph. We are only talking probabilities here, not proof.
Isabel: "Thanks for your comments, anyway. I always learn something from you even if our minds seem to work in entirely different ways."
You can say that again! :o)
Peter
Peter:
Thanks again for clarifying my vague info about Mary Fitton.
As I said, I have not got into Who Was the Dark Lady yet. I don't even see in what way Mary Fitton could be the woman in question, but I was intrigued by the unproven information that she was dark-skinned. I think i got that from a Baconian book.
No other comments. As Armado says at the end of LLL:
"You that way: (I) this way."
Isabel, I'm sorry. I just realised that I failed to address the first of your last two posts, which certainly merited an answer!
You said... "Those countless Shakespearians are building their theories around WS of Stratford. Southampton is the only aristocrat that they can associate to Shake-spear, on the basis, as you say, of the two Poems dedicated to the Earl."
That's right, although I see no mention of Stratford in either of the dedications. And whilst it is certainly possible that some were written to someone else, this is the best bit of evidence we have as to whom most of them probably addressed. In particular, the similarity of the dedication to the Rape of Lucrece and (sorry!) Sonnet 26 has often been cited as a reason for inferring the same addressee, and in the absence of clear evidence supporting any other, a conclusion that Sonnets 18-126 were all addressed to the one person is inescapable.
Isabel: "But we can look at other possibilities and, in fact, if you believe Marlowe wrote those sonnets, not just Pembroke (37 and 89, at least, as well as the first 17)..."
But doesn't that require an acceptance of your theory that in the "lame sonnets" Marlowe was addressing his son (or "like a son") William Herbert through the historically lame Tamburlaine? I'll pass on that one if you don't mind!
Isabel: "...but Walsingham (34)"
I confess that I find that one more tricky than almost any other, given the role that all of us ascribe to Thomas Walsingham in Marlowe's faked death. Unfortunately, the difference in the ages reflected in so many Sonnets rules him out as the fair youth, whilst the similarity of emotion expressed here with all the others makes it clear (for me) that Southampton must also have encouraged Marlowe to accept the deal or means of escape being offered him.
Isabel: "...and Essex (26), for example,"
No, I'm sorry. Even though the evidence for a possible connection between Marlowe and Essex comes mainly from research with Dolly Wraight by yours truly, it really is insignificant in comparison with the Rape of Lucrece dedication. Southampton wins hands down on that one.
Isabel: "...as well as other less aristocratic dedicatees, including WS (81)
I must say that I do like that one, and would love it to have been addressed to him, but since we cannot exclude the possibility of Marlowe genuinely believing that people would eventually find out the identity of the fair youth, but not his own, we cannot really exclude the possibility of it being him to whom Marlowe was referring. Mind you, I am entirely sympathetic to the idea that Sonnet 145 (with its possible pun on Hathaway) could have actually been by William Shakespeare, or as a parody of his verse - Marlowe capable of being quite unpleasant at times!
Isabel: "and one of the Bacon brothers (20), must be considered."
Not with Southampton already in the frame. Just look at his portrait!
Isabel: "For the record, I don't believe the Sonnets were printed in the order they were written."
Nor do I. As I said, I think that (with exception of the relocation of one or two here and there) they were published mostly in the order they were written, other than those recommending marriage which were put at the front, and those to the dark lady which were put at the end together with those two unclassifiable ones. My reasons for thinking this are given in considerable detail at http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/sonnets.htm. Why do you reject this argument?
Peter
Isabel said...
"I was intrigued by the unproven information that she was dark-skinned. I think I got that from a Baconian book."
I see. In which case - whilst I have no reason to doubt what you say - I'd appreciate your letting us know where your claim that William Herbert's wife, Mary Talbot, was 'deformed' came from!
Peter
Peter:
Peter:
From Wikipedia (For what it is worth):
(William Herbert):
At the age of twenty, he had an affair with Mary Fitton (who has been suggested as a possible model for the Dark Lady of the sonnets), whom he impregnated. Admitting paternity, he refused to marry her and was sent to Fleet prison where he wrote verse. In 1601, Mary gave birth to a boy who died immediately (perhaps from syphilis, which it is believed Pembroke may have suffered from. He petitioned Sir Robert Cecil and was eventually released, though he and Mary were both barred from court.
He married Mary Talbot the dwarfish and deformed daughter of Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury on 4 November 1604.
His affair with Lady Mary Wroth, daughter of Robert Sidney (his uncle) led to the birth of two children (after her husband, Robert Wroth's death) – William and Catherine.
He died in 1630, aged 50 and his titles passed to his brother, Philip Herbert.
Isabel,
Thanks. I see that this information was added to the William Herbert entry on 14 March 2007 by someone using the name "Curtangel", and that at the same time they also added a book to the bibliography - Alan Haynes's 1997 Sex in Elizabethan England (ISBN 0-905-778-359) - so I guess that's where it came from. I wonder where he got it?
Peter
Peter:
"I wonder where he got it?"
I haven't any doubt you'll find out eventually; perhaps when you do, you'll be kind enough to tell us.
BTW, in the same Wikie article there is a direct link to Mary Talbot; in that article her deformity is not mentioned but it does say she had no children.
Are you sure she had one?
Isabel said "...it does say she had no children. Are you sure she had one?"
I'm pretty sure.
Dictionary of National Biography:
"On 4 November he further advanced his fortunes with his marriage to Lady Mary Talbot (d. 1650), daughter of Gilbert Talbot, seventh earl of Shrewsbury. (...) Their union produced only one child, a boy who died at less than a month old."
Cracroft's Peerage (online):
"William [Herbert], 3rd Earl of Pembroke, KG
born 8 Apr 1580
mar. 4 Nov 1604 Lady Mary Talbot (...)
only child 1. Hon Henry Herbert, styled Lord Herbert (b. bef. 21 Apr 1620; dvp. an infant)"
I have corrected the Wikipedia entry.
Peter
Thanks, Peter.
Now for the deformity. I have no doubt you'll ferret out the info.
Isabel
Isabel: "I have no doubt you'll ferret out the info."
Oh, I think I've already helped you with your homework quite enough! :o)
Peter
So far as I have been able to determine, all the references to Mary Talbot being "dwarfish and deformed" stem from a remark by the Earl of Clarendon: "For he [Pembroke] paid much too dear for his wife's fortune, by taking her person into the bargain." Her portrait is available online, and she does not seem unattractive.
On a completely different subject, William Herbert was the Grand Master of Free Masonry in England from 1618 until his death. Could he have become a Master Mason in 1609? This could be another explanation for "Mr. W.H." especially if Thorpe were himself a Mason.
Thanks again, daver. Interesting information. Unfortunately, painters used to flatter their sitters, particularly the wealthier ones, so that Clarendon’s remark seems more reliable than the portrait.
As for Pembroke being a Grand Master Mason, that seems to be the case although all Masonic records of the period have disappeared; I don’t know how reliable is your source.
Your is an intriguing suggestion, but I think a reference to Pembroke as a Master Mason would have been even more indiscreet and impertinent on Thorpe’s part
I don't think all records of the period have vanished. This is my source for William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, being the Grand Mater of Masonry in England from 1618 onwards:
http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/preston_illustrations_masonry_book4.html
This also proves that Pembroke was already a Mason by 1607, since he took part in a ceremony that year.
Daver:
About the records, I was informed at the Freemasons’ Hall (or whatever it’s called) in London that there are no records of the period, and certainly none until well after Pembroke's death. (I am sorry I cannot be more precise because I am travelling and have not my notes with me.)
In this visit I was accompanied by a Freemason, so I was well received and the Librarian tried to be helpful.
Therefore, if there are any records covering the mid seventeenth Century, either they are being kept under wraps, or the English Lodge does not know about them, which I can hardly believe.
Nevertheless, you are not the first person to tell me that Pembroke was Grand Master at about the time you mention, so there must be a record somewhere.
In any case, my conclusion derived from the plays is that Marlowe was disappointed with the Freemasons and, in his usual unwise manner, he said so. Whether that was partially the reason why the cover up was so thorough, I couldn’t say.
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