SON. 45.

SON. 61.

For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But, ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leisure with my moan;

Receiving naught by elements so slow

But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.'

'The other two, slight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide ;
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide.
For when these quicker elements are gone

In tender embassy of love to thee,

My life, being made of four, with two alone
Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy;
Until life's composition be recured

By those swift messengers returned from thec,
Who even but now come back again, assured
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:

This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,

I send them back again and straight grow sad.'

Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?

Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee

So far from home into my deeds to pry,

To find out shames and idle hours in me,

The scope and tenour of thy jealousy?

O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great :

It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;

Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,

To play the watchman ever for thy sake:

For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.'

See also Nos. 27 and 28, 50 and 51, 57 and 58, 97 and 98. As Shakespeare's poem and Chester's are on the same subject, they have necessarily something in common; but in the foregoing stanza Shakespeare notices that he has there begun to refer to a condition of things that was not the condition of Chester's allegorical birds, by using the

pronoun 'this'-''Twixt this Turtle and his Queen.'

In

all other cases in Shakespeare's poem the definite article precedes the words 'Turtle' and 'Phoenix'; and it has long been the practice of editors to print it in this case too; but the pronoun is given in the original, and it has great significance.

STANZA 9.

So between them love did shine,

That the Turtle saw his right

Flaming in the Phoenix' sight;

Either was the other's mine.'1

This stanza is seen largely illustrated in the Sonnets, e.g.:

SON. 37.

'As a decrepit father takes delight

To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts do crownéd sit,

I make my love engrafted to this store:

So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,

Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give

That I in thy abundance am sufficed

And by a part of all thy glory live.

Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee:
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!'

SON. 39. O, how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?

What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is't but mine own when I praise thee:

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.
O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive!

And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
By praising him here who doth hence remain !'

"Mine," the pronoun-"my own."

SON. 40.

'Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before;
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.'

See also Nos. 22, 31, 36, 62, 133, and 134.

STANZA 10. Property was thus appalled,

That the self was not the same;

Single nature's double name

Neither two nor one was called.'

We gave examples with Stanza 7 which showed that in the Sonnets' the self was not the same,' and that there were 'two in one.' But notice that there is nothing in Chester's poem to justify this stanza.

Shakespeare is here foreseeing the effect of his Sonnets on the minds of readers: 'property,' whose basis is the distinction between 'mine' and 'thine,' may well be said to be appalled to see that in the Sonnets such distinction did not exist.

STANZA 11. 'Reason, in itself confounded,

Saw division grow together;

To themselves yet either neither,

Simple were so well compounded ;'

Shakespeare continues his prophecy. Reason has indeed long been 'in itself confounded' in trying to understand the Sonnets.

STANZA 12. That it cried, How true a twain

Seemeth this concordant one!

Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.'

He foresees that at length Reason will recognise that that which seems so 'true a twain' in the Sonnets, is 'one.'

STANZA 13. 'Whereupon it made this threne

To the Phoenix and the Dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene.'

Whereupon it (Reason) will be able to understand the whole tragic scene' of the Sonnets, and the following epitaph will be its comment:

THRENOS.

STANZA 1. 'Beauty, Truth, and Rarity,

Grace in all simplicity,

Here enclosed, in cinders lie.'

Shakespeare's work, the outcome of a Love of Beauty that Lust of Fame was not allowed to pollute, lies in his grave. He must not show Beauty for the sake of gaining Fame, but it must not be destroyed-it is the most precious thing in the world. So he manifests his unselfish devotion to Beauty, and yet makes it possible for posterity to obtain his beautiful work.

STANZA 2. 'Death is now the Phoenix' nest;

And the Turtle's loyal breast

To eternity doth rest.'

The grave is now the nest from which Shakespeare's beautiful work will rise, phoenix-like; and his (Beauty's chaste lover's) loyal breast, 'to eternity doth rest.'

STANZA 3. Leaving no posterity:

'Twas not their infirmity,

It was married chastity.'

He left not to the world his work-the offspring of his Love of Beauty; that was not through ignorance, negligence, indifference, or any other defect in him; it was because his Love of Beauty was chaste-Lust of Fame was not allowed to blend with it.

STANZA 4. 'Truth may seem, but cannot be;

Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;

Truth and Beauty buried be.'

In the works that pretend to be Shakespeare's, printed unauthorizedly, Truth and Beauty may seem to exist, but do not. In them are many imperfections, due to his hasty production in the first instance; many deformities, due to the carelessness of reproducers, the work of other hands, and to their having been cut up for acting purposes. Truth and Beauty, represented by his work as he left it, is buried.1

STANZA 5. To this urne let those repair

That are either true or fair;

For these dead birds sigh a prayer.'

He foresees that to this urne, his grave, Reason will call all who value Truth and Beauty, to act in the interest of Truth and Beauty by rescuing his beautiful work.

Listen to the outburst to which the editors of the Cambridge edition were impelled on the completion of their exhaustive collation of texts :-'The more we endeavour to fathom and to grasp the mind of Shakespeare, the more we appreciate his depth and sublimity. As our knowledge grows, so also our admiration and our pleasure in the study increase, dashed only by a growing sense of the textual imperfections and uncertainties which stand between the author and his readers. For, besides the recognised difficulties, we are convinced that there are many passages, still easily scanned and construed, and therefore not generally suspected of corruption, which nevertheless have not been printed exactly as first written. Some ruder hand has effaced the touch of the master." (Preface to vol. ix. p. xxi., ed. 1893.)