Sonnet 127 Sonnet127 Or If It Wereit Bore Notbeauty's Name; and Beauty
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Sonnet 127 Sonnet 127 Sonnet J.27 begins a group of sonnets verb is not common, and would have which are chiefly about a mistress with added to the deliberate strangeness here, dark hair and dark eyes whom Shake whIch anticipates the witches In Macbeth 127 speare never calls a 'lady', let alone the 1.1.10: 'Fair Is fotil,and foul isfair'. 'dark lady' favoured by his biographical 7 no name.,. bower. no legitimate heredi critics. Scores of women with dark hair tary title (or reputation) and no sacred In the old age black was notcounted fair, and dark eyes who were cnpable of doing inner snnctum. Bower is usually glossed Or if it were it bore notbeauty's name; dark deeds have been Identlfied as her his as a vague poetlcism (so OED cites this torical original (seeSami.1e! Schoenbaum, passage under rb: 'a vaguepoetic word But now is biack beauty's successive heir, 'Shakespeare's DarkLady: A Question of for an idealized abode'), but ltCon~lnues And beauty slandered with a bastardshame: Identity' in Philip Edwards, Tnga-Stlna the poem's concern with legitimate Ewbank, and G. K. fflmter, cds., ShakP. succession and bastardy, and means 'a For since each hand hathput on Nature's power, 5 speare's Styles: Essay8 inHon(1llr of Ken bed-room' (OED 2). Not even beauty's Fairingthe foul vvith Art's false borrowed face, neth Muir (CambrIdge, 1980),·221-39). bedchamber is safe from profanation. Her appearance is designed to enable the 8 is profaned Is 4efiJed, perhaps with a sug Sweet beautyhath ho name, no holy bower, sonnets to dwell on thcpnradoxes of find gestion that her hoHest places have been Butisprofaned,lf not livesin disgrace. ing ~falr' (beautiful) something which Is Invaded 'dark'. ThIs group Is likely tocontaln the 9 Therefore because of beauty's pr(lfana Therefore my mistress' eyes areravenblack, earllest Sonnets in the sequence, for two tion (by the abuse of cosmetics) they are Her brows so suited, and they mourners seem 10 reasons: (a) two of them appear In The black Inmourning Passlonnte Pllgl·lm of 1598 (138 and 144); ravenhlack, Compare the proverb 'As Atsuthwho, not born fair, no beauty lack, (b) there are no late tflre wordsln this part black as a raven'.{DentR32.2). Sland'ringcreation with a.false esteem. of the sequence. On Which, see Hieatt, IO brows Q's repetition of 'eyes' has Hleatt, and Prescott, 'When did Shake prompted many emendations, Staunton's Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe, speare Write Sonnets 1609?' (see head is the most convincing,since black brows That every tongue says beauty should look so. not~ to Sonnet T03). (ey~brows) are elsewhere referred to by Shakespeare (L.L:L. .4.3.256-8: '0, if in I black ... fair Dmk colourIng (dark hair black my lady's brows be _decked I It 9 mlstress'] Q (Mistersse) 9-10 eyes ... brows] BROOKE (canj. Staunton); eyes ... eyes Q; and dflrk eyes) Wfl~ not con~!deredbefluti mourns thatpainting find usurping hair I eyes ... hairs cAPET.L;halrs ... eyes c(mj. Walker; brows ... eyes GLOBE (canj. Staunton); eyes ful (with apun onfall'meanlng'blonde'). Should ravish doters with a false aspect'), . brOWJNGRAM AND REDPATH 10 and] Q;thatGiLDoN; as Dyer 1857 2 ModIfieS the previoll~ Hne: 'or If it was and are often treated as expressh'e (e.g. 'I caHedfail' it wasn't Called beautiful'. see your brows are full of dIscontent', 3 successive heir the true inheritor by RIchard 114.1.320). blood. Successive is a standard term to so sulted and similarly attired, and. And describe hereditary succes,~lon (OED 3b) may mean 'As if','as though' {OED 3), as as in The Spanish Tragedy 3.1.'14: 'Your in Dream 1.2.77-8: 'I will roar you 'an King, 1 By hate deprIved of his dearest 'twere nny nightlngale'. son, I The only hope of our su'cces~ive IX At .. , lack at those who, despite not being line'. born beautlfnl, do not lack beauty 4 And beauty.. shame (a)beailty is through their use of cosmetics. BerllJty declared illegitimate; (a) beauty is pub here almost merits, Inverted commas, Uc1y shamed with havingborne a bastard. since It has been sa thoroughly contami The desire for" pflffldox here creflte~ a nated by its context. genealogical problem: beauty Is·both the 12' Sland'ring ... esteem giving. a bad name source of due sttccesslonandlts own ille to what is nnturalby making renl peauty gitImate of[~prjng; indIstIngUishable from false put on Nature's power murped an 'office 13 so In such a way (leading to that in L which is propedyNnture's (through 14)· cosmetic,~) becoming ofgrncing, suiting so well l\1th 6 Fairing the foul making the foul beautlful that thev become beautIful (or blonde), The nsf' of fall' as a transitive 14 so I.e. bfnck like the mIStress's'eyes 634 635 Sonnet 132 Sonnet 132 I as as ifthey were 5 morning punning on the eyes as 2 Knowing ... disdain a pflrenthesis: mOIln/ers 'knowing that your hcnrt torments me 7 full star Hesperus the evening star Is full 132 with Its scornful rejection of my suit', A presumably in the sense 'intense' (OED lady's disdabl' (lmplylng lack of pity and rob); otherwisenot found before 1657. insensibility to the sufferings of the 9 mourning· Q's'mornlng' highlights the Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, lover) Is a standard element in· sonnet' pun on 'morning' and 'mourning'. KnOWing thy.heart torment lIle.withdisdain, sequences. 10 beseem suit 4 pretty ruth becoming compassion. That 12 And suit, .. pity and dressyour pity in a Have put on black, and loving mourners be, pity WflS bCflutiFuI was a common argu similar way throllghout. That Is, make all Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. merit used by sonn,eteers: the beautiful your body pity me as ot present only your are supposed also to be pitiful; since the eyes do. .Andtruly not the morningsun of heaven 5 mistress ·jsheautlful she should also be 14 And all they foulllndthat all of those are Better becomes the grey cheeks ofthe east, pltlfnl,nnd pity consists' in yielding to the ugly who ... demands of her lover. See the anonymous complexion combines both 'outward Nor that full star that ushers in the even Zrpher!a Canz~n' 7: '(Though by how appearance' and 'Inner mental constitu Doth half that glory to thesober west milch the more thou beauteous art, I So tion' through the primary sense of much of pity should'st thou more compleXion, 'the combination of the four As those two mourning eyes become thy face. esteem)', Cf. Donne's 'What If this pre 'humours' of the body in a certain pro 0, let it then as well beseem thy heart IO sent were the world's Iflstnlght?' ll. 9-12: portion' (OED Ia), combined with the 'but as In my Idolatry I I said to ali my sense 'skin colour'. Cf. Merchallt 2.1.1: To mournfor me,since mourning doth thee grace, profane ml~tresses, I Beauty, of pity,foul~ 'Misllke me not for my complexion, IThe And suit thy pity like in every part. ness only is I A sign of rigour'. shadowed livery of the bunllshed sun'. Then will I swear beauty herself is black, And all they foul that thy complexion lack. 2 torment] Q; torments IlEN.QON '6 the east] GTl.DON 1714; th' East Q 9 mourning] Q (mornIng) 644 645 'RENEAU PHILLIS WHEATLEY 13 rith those charms, that must decay, Here still an aged elm aspires, e to see your future doom; Beneath whose far-projecting shade lied ..,....- nor were those flowers more gay, (And which the shepherd still admires) Dwers that did in Eden bloom; The children of the forest played! litying frosts, and Autumn's power 1leave no vestige of this flower. There oft a restless Indian queen (Pale Sbebab, with her braided hair) norning suns and evening dews And many a barbarous form is seen ~ thy little being came: To chide the man that lingers there. ling once, you nothing lose, len you die you are the same; By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews, space between, is but an hour, In habit for the chase arrayed, frail duration of a flower. The hunter still the deer pursues, The hunter and the deer, a shade! And long shall timorous fancy see The painted chief, and pointed spear, ndian Burying Ground And Reason's self shall bow ·the knee To shadows and delusions here. e of all the learned have said, ny old opinion keep; 1788 Isture, that we 'give the dead, out the soul's eternal sleep. I the ancients of these lands ~ tdian,when ftom life released, PHILLIS WHEATLEY (c. 1753-1784) is seated with his friends, lares again the joyous feast A slave ship brought Phillis Wheatley from West Africa to Boston in 1761. John VI'heatley, a ,wealthy tailor, and his v.rife, Susannah, purchased her and gave her anAmerican name. Her first ,aged birds, and painted bowl, poem appeared iri prin.t ina Newport, Rhode Island, newspaper in 1767. In 1773, thirty-nine :nison, for a journey dressed. ofher poems were published'in London as Poems on Tlf7riom; Su/rycCts, Rcligiou.r and Moral. This, lk the nature cEthe soul, her only collection of poems, was the first published book by an African-American. She was TY, that knows no rest. freed in 1778 and married a freedman, John Peters, but the marriage turned out badly.