Shakespeare's Sonnets — William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's Sonnets SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. EDITED BY WILLIAM J. ROLFE. Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy ( Sonn. 33). SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. Edited, with Notes, BY WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A.M., FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. WITH ENGRAVINGS. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1883. ENGLISH CLASSICS. Edited by WM. J. ROLFE, A.M. Illustrated. 16 mo, Cloth, 56 cents per volume; Paper, 40 cents per volume. Shakespeare's Works. Othello. Julius Cæsar. The Merchant of Venice. A Midsummer-Night's Dream. Macbeth. Hamlet. Much Ado about Nothing. Romeo and Juliet. As You Like It. The Tempest. Twelfth Night. The Winter's Tale. King John. Richard II. Henry IV. Part I. Henry IV. Part II. Henry V. Richard III. Henry VIII. King Lear. The Taming of the Shrew. All's Well that Ends Well. Coriolanus. The Comedy of Errors. Cymbeline. Antony and Cleopatra. Measure for Measure. Merry Wives of Windsor. Love's Labour's Lost. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Timon of Athens. Troilus and Cressida. Henry VI. Part I. Henry VI. Part II. Henry VI. Part III. Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The Two Noble Kinsmen. Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, etc. Sonnets. Goldsmith's Select Poems. Gray's Select Poems. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. ☞ Any of the above works will he sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price. Copyright, 1883 , by Harper & Brothers. PREFACE. In this volume, as almost every page of the Introduction and the Notes bears witness, I have been under special obligations to Professor Dowden's excellent editions of the Sonnets. I have not, however, drawn at all from Part II. of the Introduction to his larger edition (see the footnote on p. 11), which condenses into some seventy-five pages the entire literature of the Sonnets. For the critical student this careful résumé answers a double purpose: as a bibliography of the subject, directing him to the many books and papers that have been written upon the Sonnets, if he is moved to read any or all of them; and as a compact and convenient substitute for these books and papers, if he wants to know their gist and substance without the drudgery of wading through them. I doubt not that the majority of students will be thankful that Professor Dowden has relieved them of this drudgery by compressing many a dull volume or magazine article into a page or a paragraph. I have said on page 11 that I am not fully satisfied with the theory that the Sonnets are all autobiographical, and that 1–126 form a regular series: but the more I study them the more I am inclined to that theory. The work I have done since the Introduction was sent to the printer, in revising the Notes and seeing them through the press, has steadily forced me towards an agreement with Dowden and the many poets and critics (see page 22) who believe that Shakespeare "unlocked his heart" in the Sonnets. But I still see difficulties in this theory, and still doubt whether Shakespeare had anything to do with bringing out the edition of 1609. If "Mr. W. H." was the person who collected and arranged the poems for the press, he seems to have known enough of their origin and their meaning to enable him to get them nearly in their proper order; but I suspect that if Shakespeare had read the proof-sheets, he might have made some transpositions. If he could only have prefixed the "argument" of them, as in the case of the Lucrece! I will only add that the text of the Sonnets , like that of the Poems , is given without omission or expurgation. Cambridge , March 1, 1883. in her maiden hand The fairest votary took up that fire Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd ( Sonn. 154). CONTENTS. Nor that full star that ushers in the even Doth half that glory to the sober west As those two mourning eyes become thy face ( Sonn. 132). SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. TO . THE . ONLIE . BEGETTER . OF . THESE . INSVING . SONNETS . Mr . W. H. ALL . HAPPINESSE . AND . THAT . ETERNITIE . PROMISED . BY . OVR . EVER-LIVING . POET . WISHETH . THE . WELL-WISHING . ADVENTVRER . IN . SETTING . FORTH . T. T. Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end ( Sonn. 60). Introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. I. THEIR HISTORY. The Sonnets were first published in 1609, with the following title-page (as given in the "Cambridge" ed.): SHAKE-SPEARES, | Sonnets. | Neuer before Imprinted. | at london. | By G. Eld for T. T. and are | to be solde by William Aspley. | 1609. In some copies the imprint is as follows: AT LONDON | By G. Eld for T. T. and are | to be solde by Iohn Wright , dwelling | at Christ Church gate. | 1609. At the end of the volume A Lover's Complaint was printed. In 1640 the Sonnets (with the exception of Nos. 18, 19, 43, 56, 75, 76, 96, and 126), re-arranged under various titles, with some of the pieces in The Passionate Pilgrim , A Lover's Complaint , and sundry translations from Ovid and other poems ascribed to Shakespeare, but evidently none of his, were published with the following title: POEMS: | Written | by | Wil. Shake-speare. | Gent. | Printed at London by Tho. Cotes , and are | to be sold by Iohn Benson , dwelling in | St. Dunstans Church-yard. 1640. There is an introductory address "To the Reader" by Benson, in which he asserts that the poems are "of the same purity the Authour himselfe then living avouched," and that they will be found "seren, cleere and eligantly plaine." He adds that by bringing them "to the perfect view of all men" he is "glad to be serviceable for the continuance of glory to the deserved Author." The order of the poems in this volume is followed in the editions of Gildon (1710) and of Sewell (1725 and 1728); also in those published by Ewing (1771) and Evans (1775). In all these editions the sonnets mentioned abov