'Shakespeare Unlocked His Heart'

I

I AM not, as I am open to confess, much interested in the eternal debate as to who is the ‘man right fair ’ and who the ‘woman colour’d ill’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets. There is another question, however, which concerns the reader more legitimately, since it affects his pleasure in the reading thereof: What is the true order of these marvelous poems? They are obviously connected by some sort of story or chain of thought, emotion, experience; but that chain seems to be broken in quite a number of places; the reader is every now and then brought up with a jolt by some inconsequence, as if a path once clearly cut had fallen away in places or had been twisted about by an earthquake. Editor after editor has felt this disorder so forcibly that he has been driven to a reordering; but these changes have no authority save likelihood behind them, and the reader therefore falls back upon the original disorder, as lie feels it, of the original edition of 1609.

How that edition came to be printed is the secret of oblivion; but critics suppose that the manuscript was taken without any ‘by your leave’ of the poet, and, as the sheets were probably unnumbered, they got jumbled in the printing, so that, though whole batches of the sonnets run consecutively, there are others which are obviously out of place. In Elizabethan times poetry still circulated largely in manuscript, and copies were made of copies, so that the mistakes may have crept in before the poems came to the printer; or it may have been that the patron to whom they were addressed or the poet himself dislocated them, so that their story, which was probably scandalous, might not be too plain to the vulgar eye. Who knows? The fact remains that by accident or design the sonnets are disordered.

Some years ago a very ingenious attempt was made to restore this shattered mosaic to its original condition. Sir Denys Bray’s Original Order of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (London, 1925) was by no means the first emendation of the original quarto; but it was novel in this respect—that it did not depend, like its predecessors, merely on the sense, but upon a very remarkable clue in the technique of the poet.

This clue consisted in the curiously constant use of the same rhyme words and rhyme sounds in sonnets obviously consecutive. Whereas the modern sonnet writer — Dante Gabriel Rossetti, for example — endeavors to change his rhymes from sonnet to sonnet of a sequence and would think it a blemish to repeat the same rhymes in consecutive sonnets, Shakespeare, evidently with deliberation, repeated his rhymes, even the identical rhyming words, in one sonnet after another. The rhymes used in one sonnet are echoed in the next, and Sir Denys Bray had the wit to notice that this occurs in just those sonnets in the Quarto which are, by common consent, linked in sense and therefore in their true order. In those forty or so, the order of which, in relation to one another, nobody disputes, there is in every case this linking by a common rhyme word or rhyme sound. The English language is, of course, poor in rhymes, and if this repetition were only occasional it might be put down to accident or coincidence; but as it occurs in every case where the sonnets are coupled by the sense, there is hardly room for doubt that it is done, as 1 have said, with deliberate intention.

This, at all events, Sir Denys Bray believed, and, working from those which were known to be in their true juxtaposition, he proceeded to seek these rhyme links between sonnets which, in the opinion of students, should by their sense be read together, but are printed separately. Here again he found them, and so at infinite pains he gradually worked over the whole 154 until at last he had them fitted into a chain, the links of which were connected by rhyme words carried from one to another, which also satisfied the sense of the reader by the logical and orderly development of the theme.

It was unfortunate for the acceptance of Sir Denys Bray’s rearrangement that he discovered the strongest part of his case when his book was going to press, and there was no time to develop it fully in his preface. It was this: —

That not Shakespeare alone, but most of the Elizabethan sonnet writers — and there were many — practised this same device. The Elizabethan sonneteer did not conceive his fourteenline poem as a complete unit, but as part of a larger symphony to be linked together by a carillon or chime of variations and repetitions of the same rhymes.

Not only so, but many Elizabethan sonnet writers were not content with the rhyme link, but repeated either half lines or whole lines from sonnet to sonnet. And this is extremely important, for, while it is possible (although difficult) to contend that the repetition of the same rhyme word or rhyme might be mere accident, due to paucity of rhymes in the language, it is utterly impossible to argue that a whole line could be repeated by accident.

Take, for example, these two sonnets from W. Smith’s Chloris, a sonnet sequence printed in the year 1596: —

I

II

It will be noted that not only the rhyme words make and undertake are repeated in the most obviously deliberate manner, but the whole of the last line of the first is repeated as the first line of the second sonnet. And

this device is used in no less than twenty-one out of the fifty-one sonnets of the sequence.

So with others too numerous to quote. Spenser himself, who was the admired model of all the later Elizabethans, repeats the same rhyme words with deliberate intention through whole batches of his Amoretti, a sonnet sequence only less beautiful than Shakespeare’s own. Thus, for example,—

Sonnet I Might, sight, light, spright

“ II Hart, art, part, smart

“ III Write, endite Admyre, fyre View, hew, dew, true

“ IV Delight, spright, night, dight

“ V Desire, admire Pride, envide, implide, tride, pride

VI Pride, abide, dride, divide Fyre, aspire, desire;

and so ad infinitum — an interlacing, a running chime of the bells of rhyme, very pleasant to the attuned ear.

Whence was this device derived? I have traced it back into mediæval poetry, and notably to that marvelously beautiful fourteenth-century poem, The Pearl, where the last line of each stanza, with variations, is used as a refrain or link between stanza and stanza. Professor Saintsbury, in his History of English Prosody, says of this poem that it is ‘a sort of carillon — not indeed of joyful but of melancholy sweetness — a tangle, yet in no disorder, of symphonic sound, running and interlacing itself with an ineffable sweetness’; and we find this fashion running back into the metrical romances of chivalry as well as those ballades and rondeaux practised so skillfully by the Provencal poets. Those three daughters of romance, stanza, rhyme, refrain, born before the Renaissance, joined in the creation of the sonnet form. The refrain somehow faded out; but it lived long enough to give us a clue to the true order of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

II

Having gone so far by way of general explanation, let us now examine a little more closely into the working of this key in the lock of the great mystery. But first let us give one or two examples, to bring home more clearly to the mind of the reader what the key, as Shakespeare used it, exactly is. Take from the Quarto any two sonnets commonly held to be inseparable, as, for example, 46 and 47. If the reader turns to them he will find that among the rhyme words of 46 are sight, right, heart, part, and among the rhyme words of 47 are heart, part, sight, delight. In Sonnet 50 the rhyme words woe, know, mind, behind, correspond with the rhyme words find, wind, slow, know, go, in 51; in 33 and 34, face, disgrace, echo face, disgrace; in 15 and 16, stay, decay, answer way, decay; in 1 and 2, eyes, lies, correspond with lies, eyes; in 9 and 10, behind, mind, with mind, kind; and so on and so forth through all the sonnets generally held to follow by the poet’s design their neighbors in the text.

Turning from these to sonnets which arc printed apart but have been put together by the conjecture of various editors, we find the rhyme test confirming the rearrangement. Thus Sonnet 24, beginning ‘Mine eye hath play’d the painter,’ has heart, art, lies, eyes; and Sonnet 46, beginning ‘Mine eye and heart arc at a mortal war,’ responds with heart, part, eyes, lies. The same editor (Mr. Knox Pooler) who suggested that these two should be put together suggested also a connection between 27, 43, 61, and the linking rhymes in these three arc thee —see, sight—night; see—thee, bright— light; night — sight, thee — me. Mr. Knox Pooler suggests a connection between 52 and 48, and they are found to have no fewer than three separate word and rhyme links: survey with way,are with are, chest with chest. There is an obvious connection between 106, that glorious sonnet beginning with

and 59, which contains the line, —

and when we bring them together we find the link in the correspondence between the two final couplets, thus: —

and

Here the links, so marked as to be plainly deliberate, come at the end of both sonnets, but in 109 and 117 the chime is between the end of the one and the beginning of the other: —

and

These are only a few examples out of so many that we may say that, wherever the sense shows that two sonnets are either rightly together or wrongly apart, the word or rhyme link is to be found. And conversely, lest it should be thought this is a mere coincidence, when two sonnets arc obviously from different, parts of the sequence these links of rhymes are found so seldom that their appearance may confidently be put down to mere coincidence. The comparative poverty of the English language in rhymes would explain these coincidences, but is altogether inadequate to account for the correspondences we have described. Thus Sir Denys Bray proves his case even without the argument drawn from the practice of other Elizabethan sonnet writers. With that clinching evidence thrown in, his position is irresistibly strong.

So at least it seems to me. That the fashion of linking sonnets by words or whole lines existed there is no doubt; that Shakespeare followed that fashion is proved; if he followed that fashion, then obviously we have a clue to the rearrangement, and when that clue is followed, and the sonnets fall into iheir places in the poetical argument, like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, so that what was formerly dark is made clear, — when, in fact, the pudding is proved by the eating, — there is no longer room for reasonable doubt.

Let us turn now to the result, as set forth in Sir Denys Bray’s critical edition of 1925.¹

The sequence there set forth begins with 20 of the Quarto, —

and ends with 146, the last line of which suggests finality: —

Between these two sonnets there are very many changes from the Quarto order, although in one broad aspect the orders remain the same. In the Quarto the sonnets fall roughly into two cycles, the one addressed to the ‘man right fair,’ the other to the ‘woman colour’d ill’; but whereas in the Quarto the reader is continuously puzzled by breaks and changes within these cycles, in Bray’s order there is, as he claims, ‘an easy flow from sonnet to sonnet, from idea to idea, from subject to subject, each cycle forming a chain by itself, well-knit, compact; a continuous whole; a unity both in matter and form.’ There is no longer the jar of finding some pleasant trifle wedged between mighty opposites; no longer the broken chain of thought, the sudden and puzzling hiatus; the whole march of ideas is smooth and logical, continuously developing that tragic and dramatic theme: —

which is stated thus in the last sonnet but one of Bray’s order. Thus that order seems to me a discovery well worth knowing for those who, like myself, already admire Shakespeare’s sonnets ‘this side idolatry.’ Hitherto one has enjoyed them and admired them for the glorious single sonnets, which rise like sky-piercing mountain peaks out of the tangled ruck of foothills; but, thanks to Sir Denys Bray, we can now sec the chain in its true perspective, in its logical connection, balanced and united from horizon to horizon.

III

And now let us look more closely at the new order and what it discloses. The rearrangement, then, is drastic. Thus, for example, Sonnet 20 of the Quarto becomes Sonnet 1 in Bray; 91 becomes 2; 25, 3; 31, 4; 53, 5; 62, 6; 22, 7; 18, 8; 126, 9; 65, 10; and so forth. Even in the Quarto we see obscurely the main design, but this rearrangement brings it out clearly in all its details. There are in Bray’s revision, as in the Quarto, two series, the first and longer to the ‘man right fair,’ the second and shorter to the ‘woman colour’d ill’ It is the internal jumbling of these two parts that Bray sets straight, and one of his notable discoveries is that the first series (126 in all) ends with 87 in the Quarto, —

and the second series opens with the only tetrametrical sonnet in the whole series, no doubt used originally to mark the transition, —

while the last sonnet of all, ending the whole sequence, is 146 of the Quarto, the last line of which has, to be sure, an air of finality: —

Such, then, are the main punctuation marks: one sentence with a longer and a shorter clause, but within both are many phrases, hitherto dislocated and now reduced to order.

The whole sequence discloses itself as a drama, like Hamlet, of soliloquies. These soliloquies consist of chains of sonnets hitherto broken up into ones and twos or threes and mixed together and now set in their right place so that the whole tragedy develops in logical and orderly procession.

Consider this triangular drama of the Poet, the Fair Youth, and the Dark Lady. The Poet is aging, disappointed, poor,

and

The Youth is evidently the darling of fortune, noble, rich, with troops of friends. There is always something of bitterness for age in its relations with youth, but the circumstances heighten the poignancy. The Poet, we feel, warms his hands at the fire of this friendship, which is so much to him, so much less to the friend; he is pathetically grateful for his place at the hearth; he offers with humble eagerness the immortality of his poems in exchange for the gift of friendship, and solicitously tenders the advice (disinterested, since marriage is apt to separate friends) that the young man should marry. Then comes absence, neglect on the one side, bitterness on the other; slanderous tongues, the influence of a rival poet, and a darker and more sinister note, the approaching catastrophe of this tragedy: the Poet is in thrall to a mistress, and has reason to suspect both mistress and friend. About the mistress, his darling sin, he has no illusions; but that his friend should thus have betrayed him hits him more nearly, since it shows a falseness of heart where he had not expected it. Thus in Sonnet 68 (Bray’s order. Quarto 42): —

Protest, reproach, appeal, acquiescence, surrender, — tame, yet inwardly raging, — helpless jealousy, intolerable chagrin, chase one another through the wretched Poet’s mind. Le roi s’amuse! What argument can age use that will appeal to careless and heartless youth? The woman inwardly laughs as she deceives him; the patron turns coldly from his expostulation. The Poet humbly pleads for forgiveness; let friendship be restored, and ‘no bitterness that I will bitter think.’ His great friend being the source of his fortune, his patron, his only possession, as well as his idol, his adoration, his position in argument is terribly weak; he has everything to ask, nothing that is valued by the other to offer. The shame of the position tortures him: —

And so to the farewell sonnet already quoted, which ends the first act of this sonnet drama. Farewell! His friend is gone beyond recovery: —

Then in Part II (127-154) wc see the degradation of the Poet, in sexual slavery to the woman whom he despises while she enthralls him. The sonnet with which it opens (Quarto 145) shows her the accomplished and heartless flirt: —

His dalliance with this Delilah; his scorn of himself and of her; his bitter reproaches. He admits that he is bad, but she is worse: —

She is not even beautiful: but beauty does not matter, since he loves her with all his senses. He has indeed become as one of Circe’s beasts: ‘I myself am mortgag’d to thy will.’ And so, —

Then comes the bitter apostrophe to lust, —

which is 120 in the Quarto and in Bray 152. It is followed by the sonnet (144 in Quarto) which sums up the whole story: —

Then, as I have said, comes the last (Quarto 146, Bray 154), the renunciation, the turning from the world, to buy terms divine, opening with a note of self-pity, —

and ending in the refuge of the grave, or beyond, —

We are reminded of another sonnet sequence, hardly less difficult to follow: George Meredith’s Modem Love, and the lines, —

When the last drop of gall is wrung from the sponge of life, the Poet turns to death. What a tragedy! Was it Shakespeare’s own story? It looks as if it were. Or was it a fiction like his plays? We can hardly think so.

But, whether fact or fiction, it is restored to coherent and shapely order by this wonderful effort of const ruelive criticism, this Rosetta stone of Shakespearean scholarship.