2 [1609 Quarto]
When fortie Winters shall beseige thy brow,
And digge deep trenches in thy beauties field,
Thy youthes proud liuery so gaz'd on now,
Wil be a totter'd weed of smal worth held :
Then being askt, where all thy beautie lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty daies;
To say within thine owne deepe sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftlesse praise.
How much more praise deseru'd thy beauties vse,
If thou couldst answere this faire child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse
Proouing his beautie by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art ould,.
And see thy blood warme when thou feel'st it could.
Gary Taylor has written an excellent paper on the extant manuscript versions of the 1609 sonnets. In the instance of Sonnet 2 he repeats the thirteen manuscripts of complete or partial versions cataloged in Peter Beal's Index of English Literary Manuscripts, 1450-1625 (London and New York, 1980).
Taylor, 210. citing Jackson, ] No autograph manuscripts have yet been found, but a number of transcripts from the first half of the seventeenth century survive. The Quarto was itself printed from a scribal transcript, as textual scholars have demonstrated; hence, the printed text is at least two removes from Shakespeare's hand.
Rollins, 10] Arnold Davenport (N. & Q., May 2, 1942, pp. 242-244) finds the “seed” of this sonnet in the second eclogue of Drayton’s Shepherds' Garland, 1593, lines 37-57 (1931 ed., I, 51). Six images in 2, he believes, may reproduce six in Drayton. Both poets, however, seem to me to be dealing with commonplaces about old age, though line 2 does show a close parallel with Drayton’s “The time-plow’d furrowes in thy fairest field.”
Taylor, 233] As a parallel for 1. 2 Hyder Rollins cited a line from the Second Eglog of Drayton's
"Shepheards Garland" (1593): "The time-plow'd furrowes in thy fairest field" (1.46). Whoever might be the plagiarist, Drayton's line resembles the manuscript version more closely than it does the Quarto.
GWP] As Taylor points out, there is no evidence, at present, whether Shakespeare was the one who borrowed from Drayton or vice-versa.
Evans, 110] Samuel Daniel, Delia. (1592) 4.8. “Best in my face, how cares have tild deepe forrowes.”
GWP] Those who have read my Discovered: a New Shakespeare Sonnet will be aware that my path to the new sonnets went through copies of Daniel's Sonnets to Delia pirated together, in 1591, with poems by Edward de Vere. The propinquity in print suggests a shared social milieu between Vere and Daniel, circa 1591, somehow also involving Shakespeare.
I give the text of the three most important manuscripts for a discussion of what they reveal. I take them from Alden and from Taylor's collated text.
We begin, then, with the texts and follow with introductory commentary upon some lines of the text. More will follow.
Spes Altera [B2]
When forty winters shall beseige thy brow
And trench deepe furrowes in yt louely feild
Thy youthes faire Liu'rie so accounted now
Shall bee like rotten weeds of no worth held
Then beeing askt where all thy bewty lyes
Where all ye lustre of thy youthfull dayes
To say within these hollow suncken eyes
Were an all-eaten truth, & worthless prayse
0 how much better were thy bewtyes vse
If thou coudst say this pretty child of mine
Saues my account & makes my old excuse
Making his bewty by succession thine
This were to bee new borne when thou art old
And see thy bloud warme when thou feelst it cold.
W. S.
B2 British Library Add. MS.21433, f. 114v (c. 1630s; Inns of Court)
To one that would die a maide [Y]
When forty winters shall beseige thy brow
And trench deepe furrowes in that louely feild
Thy youthes faire liuery so accounted now
Shall bee like rotten weeds of no worth held
Then beeing askt where all thy bewty lyes
Where all the lustre of thy youthfull dayes
To say within those hollow suncken eyes
Were an all-eaten truth, & worthlesse prayse
O how far better were thy bewtious vse
If thou couldst say this pretty child of mine
Saud my account & make no old excuse
Making his bewty by succession thine
This were to bee new borne when thou art old
And see thy bloud warme when thou feelst it cold
Y Yale University, Osborn Collection, b. 205, f. 54' (c. 1625-35)
To one that would die a Mayd [Dobell, F2]
When forty winters shall beseige thy brow
And trench deepe furrowes in that louely feild
Thy youth faire liuerie soe accounted now
Shall bee like like rotten cloaths of noe worth heild
Then being ask't where all thy beauty lies
Where all the lustre of thy youthfull dayes
To say within thes hollow suncken eyes
Were an alleaten truth, and worthies pleasure.
How better were thy beauties use
If thou couldst say this prittie childe of mine
Saues my account and makes my old excuse
Making his beauty by succession thine
This were to bee new borne when thou art old
And see thy bloud warme, when thou feelst it cold.
F2 Folger Shakespeare Library, MS.V.a. 170, pp. 163-4 (c.1625-35)
Sample commentary by line:
1. fortie winters]. Schmidt: I hold that this sonnet can only have been written by one who was still very young.
2. furrow imagery] Von Mauntz: Cf. Ovid, Medicamina Formae, 46: "Et placitus rugis vultus aratus erit;" and Tristia, III, vii, 33-34:
Ista decens facies longis vitiabitur annis,
Rugaque in antiqua fronte senilis erit.
4. totter'd] Bullen: A recognised form of "tattered ".
11. sum my count, etc.] Dowden: The excuse of my oldness. Tyler: The account will be . . . settled by his son, whose youthful beauty will furnish an excuse for Mr. W. H.'s oldness, or, perhaps, will furnish the old and customary excuse by proving that he has inherited the beauty of his father.
GWP] Those who know my work on the sonnets in Was Shakespeare Gay: what do the sonnets really say? know that I assert that some of the procreation sonnets were written to Queen Elizabeth I. She would have been 40 years old in 1573. Her courtiers were careful, however, to refer to her as being younger. She continued to tease her people with hopes of marriage and an heir until at least 1581 when she would have been 48 years old.
 |
Taylor reminds us that “T. W. Baldwin, first observed the connection between sonnets 1-17 and a model letter from De Conscribendis Epistolis, translated in Thomas Wilson's popular textbook The Arte of Rhetorique (1553, rev. edn. 1560) as "An Epistle to perswade a young ientleman to Mariage". Several passages in one paragraph seem to have influenced this sonnet (my italics):
what man can be greeued that he is old, when he seeth his owne countenance ... to appeare liuely in his sonne? you shall have a pretie little boie, running up and doune your house, soche a one as shall expresse your loke, and your wiues loke ... by whom you shall seme to bee newe borne.”
These particulars align quite well with my date for this sonnet of 1570-1581 — likely more toward the earlier date.
It was not until the 19th century that a not particularly capable scholar “identified” Henry Wriothesley as the recipient of majority of the 1609 sonnets. Orthodoxy requiring they were written by the Stratford man, they could not possibly be assigned to Elizabeth. The reasoning for Wriothesley, bizarre as it is, was the best option left. Seven of those who copied the thirteen manuscripts of Sonnet 2, free of that orthodoxy, addressed it to a female recipient. Five went with the ungendered title “ Spes Altera”, virtually the exact theme of Elizabeth's courtiers during her child-bearing years.
Sources Cited:
Bullen, A. H. Shakespeare's Sonnets (1921).
Davenport, Arnold. N. & Q., May 2, 1942, pp. 242-244.
Dowden, Edward. Shakespeare's Sonnets (1881).
Evans, G. Blakemore, Ed. The Sonnets (Cambridge, 2006).
Jackson, MacDonald Pairman. "Punctuation and the Compositors of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 1609". The Library, v. 30 (1975). 2-24.
Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Discovered: A New Shakespeare Sonnet (or three, actually) (2015).
Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Was Shakespeare Gay: what do the sonnets really say? (2015).
Mauntz, Alfred von. Gedichte von William Shakespeare. Berlin (1894).
Schmidt, Alexander . Shakespeare-Lexicon (1874, 1875).
Taylor, Gary. Some Manuscrpts of Shakespeare Sonnets (1985).
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Rocco Bonetti's Blackfriars Fencing School and Lord Hunsdon's Water Pipe. August 12, 2023. “... the tenement late in the tenure of John Lyllie gentleman & nowe in the tenure of the said Rocho Bonetti...”
On Shakespeare's lameness and historical-fiction biography, etc. August 5, 2023. “Those who support Sogliardo of Stratford and other authorship candidates generally stop by from time to time to remark...”
- Shakespeare CSI: Sir Thomas More, Hand-D. April 22, 2023. “What a glory to have an actual hand-written manuscript from the greatest English writer of all time!”
- Robert Greene and the Construction Shakespeare Never Used. August 9, 2022. 'Our first foray “staring intently into” the texts of Robert Greene has noted that his work utilized far fewer feminine endings than Shakespeare’s.'
A 1572 Oxford Letter and the Player’s Speech in Hamlet. August 11, 2020. “The player’s speech has been a source of consternation among Shakespeare scholars for above 200 years. Why was Aeneas’ tale chosen as the subject?”
- Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
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