Sonnet 127
by William Shakespeare
Sonnet 127
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were it bore not beauty's name:
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame,
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,
At such who not born fair no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem,
Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.
[William Shakespeare (1610)]
The English playwright and poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616) needs no further introduction. With 38 plays, 154 sonnets and a number of longer poems, he has exerted an enormous influence on the English language, in which hundreds of words, phrases and quotations can be attributed to him.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even whether the works attributed to him were perhaps written by others.
How original Shakespeare's oeuvre is, is also clear from his sonnets. Although published as a set in 1609, Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his career. The 1609 sonnets are divided into two contrasting series: one about conflicted love for a fair young man (the "fair youth" called Mr W.H., possibly William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke), and one about uncontrollable lust for a married woman of dark complexion (the "dark lady"). It is unclear if these figures represent real individuals, and if the authorial "I" who addresses them represents Shakespeare himself.
The originality is of course that the first long series of 126 sonnets is not dedicated to a lady, but to a man, and that the second series (127-152) does not sing the praise of a fair blue-eyed beauty with golden hair (as was the norm since Petrarca and his sonnets dedicated to Laura, but a woman with dark eyes, black hair and, anyway, someone with a dark image - perhaps like the femme fatale from later ages.
The fact that the poet is attracted to a woman who is not beautiful in the conventional sense, makes the Dark Lady sequence defiant of the sonnet tradition. The excuse he gives is that because of the use of cosmetics (something new in the England of Shakespeare's time) one can no longer discern between true and false beauty, so that true beauty has been denigrated. The past in which "black was not counted fair" refers to traditional Elizabethan era priority of light skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. Shakespeare emphasizes his mistress's cruel and "black" state.
The Dark Lady sequence distinguishes itself from the Fair Youth sequence with its (somewhat) overt sexuality. The Dark Lady suddenly appears (Sonnet 127), and she and the speaker of the sonnets, the poet, are in a sexual relationship. She is not aristocratic, young, beautiful, intelligent or chaste. Her complexion is muddy, her breath “reeks”, and she is ungainly when she walks. There is no consensus about the identity of the "dark lady," the Sonnets give no information at all about age, background or station in life.
Sonnet 127 quoted from The Sonnets by William Shakespeare at Gutenberg.org. Public Domain text.
Photos:
Portrait Shakespeare: John Taylor , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
