Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
William Shakespeare
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
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Fliss: Well met, John! And here we are again in the company of our friend William Shakespeare, meeting the Dark Lady, as she is commonly termed. I’ve been looking forward to making her acquaintance! Perhaps we could begin in a similar manner to our conversation about the Fair Youth last month. So, here we have another Shakespearean sonnet, which seems apt! Is much known about the Dark Lady’s identity?
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John: Hail and well met, Fliss! Well, there remain to this day many candidates for the Dark Lady, including the idea that she is a convenient fiction. It does, however, seem certain that she was not his wife Anne Hathaway, given his themes of deception, infidelity, lust, and betrayal. Doctor Who explained that she was the Doctor’s assistant! The Dark Lady had dark eyes and skin and dark, likely curly, hair.
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F: How interesting, John. Hot on the heels of the Fair Youth, another mystery! On first reading the sonnet in the context of the Dark Lady coming after the fair young man, I wondered whether this might be some sort of literary device, a demonstration of Shakespeare’s range, perhaps. But I’m very open to the possibility the Dark Lady was based on a lady he knew. Is there a candidate who strikes you as most likely, maybe?
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J: Ah! Well, my own favorite candidate, beyond the good Doctor's assistant, who is obviously a frontrunner, is probably the wife of John Florio, the man who translated Montaigne brilliantly into English, writing the immortal line, “the world moves all on wheels.” But truly, none of the half-dozen or so candidates seems to have a critical mass of evidence behind them. It seems quite possible that Shakespeare would have enjoyed the thought that we are still puzzled four centuries later.
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F: Yes, he’s probably having a little chuckle about it, why not! But I wonder whether all the speculation caused any embarrassment at the time, a husband of one of the candidates being labelled a ‘cuckold’, for example, due to the possibility his wife was getting busy with the Bard. I think I came across that word while very briefly studying Chaucer, though, and perhaps these were different times?
J: Chaucer can be very bawdy! But yes, Shakespeare also uses the term ‘cuckold’ – for instance, Laertes uses it in Hamlet. The theme of cuckoldry, and the horns associated with it, were perhaps important in patriarchal societies where divorce was difficult if not impossible, such as were typical before the early modern period. As for the Dark Lady, perhaps that is one reason Shakespeare didn’t spell out who she was, as you hint; nobody needed to feel targeted in the sonnet cycle. W.H., the dedicatee, is Mr. W.H., so not someone’s wife.
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F: Yes, that’s true, John, and I suppose the same concern didn’t come to me while we were meeting the Fair Youth last month because that character didn’t seem real. I don’t know whether I’m being especially cynical about all this, but I can imagine the question of the identity of both persons elicited a lot of intrigue at the time, so a lot of interest in the sonnets overall. But that isn’t to say I have no interest in the Dark Lady, of course. And I’m glad you suggested we look at this sonnet in particular, as it feels like quite a departure from ‘Summer’s Day’! I recall from our discussion that the sonnet addressed to the Fair Youth encompasses thoughts on the immortality of Art, whereas here we have an earthier approach, on the whole. What do you think?
J: That’s interesting about the Fair Youth not seeming real! Certainly in Sonnet 130, Shakespeare seems to be putting some effort into saying this is a real lady who really exists. I don’t think it’s cynical to imagine that there was gossip around the people in the sonnets; Shakespeare was not the name he is now, but he was indeed famous in his lifetime. That would be an interesting topic of research! Most of the Dark Lady candidates I’ve seen were, however, named some time after his death. I also agree 100 per cent that this poem is earthier than the Fair Youth sonnet we read; though it seems only fair to mention that both get mileage out of contrasting the natural realm with a supernatural one. It makes for lively reading!
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F: Lively indeed, John. Live wires, I tend to think, considering the Dark Lady’s hair. Perhaps the exotic elements of her appearance were fodder for gossips too? In physical terms, she’s a significant departure from the Fair Youth. Incidentally, I’m not sure I understand the final line, so maybe you could help with this? It might be due to the heatwave here, but I’m in a bit of a tangle with it at the moment!
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J: Her hair is an interesting detail, isn’t it? There has been some speculation that the Dark Lady may have been Black or Mediterranean, largely due to the description of her skin and hair, though I think too much can be read into that, given the context of the whole. After all, he says, “If hairs be wires” to open the hair metaphor. And hairs are not wires. His bottom line is that she is lovely, and wires on someone’s head don’t suggest that to me at least. She and the Youth are quite different, but then, Shakespeare in his plays is a great player with contrasts! So, the last line: he thinks her rare – unusually lovely – and as rare as anyone or anything falsely compared to her, such a comparison would be belying them. Every element of Creation, I think, is unique in itself, and all comparison is false almost by definition.
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F: Oh, I see, John; thank you! Funny thing about the hairs line – when I first read it, I wondered whether the repetition might be a mistake. Shakespeare sets up a contrast through lines 1 to 3, between what strike me as conventional attributes of female beauty of the time, and how the Dark Lady appears. So I expected something like ‘silks’ instead of ‘wires’, I think. After that, he’s back on track again, to the point I feel rather annoyed with him and minded to write something of a response piece, let’s say. But along comes the couplet and… well, alright. What do you think of the hairs line, John?
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J: I too find the wires line both odd and unflattering. I think a response piece is a splendid idea, and you should do it! As you say, the line is also somewhat jarring amid the whole. It is a bit reminiscent of Metaphysical wit, as practiced by the slightly later Donne. But for me, Shakespeare’s great trait is empathy, not wit. This poem leans towards the latter, perhaps regrettably.
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F: Yes, I can see that, and I wonder whether the surfeit of wit accounts for my feeling that the Dark Lady isn’t entirely real. She could certainly be based on a real person, though, likewise the Fair Youth. I’ve heard there’s another character who pops up in the sonnets, John – the Rival Poet! So this adds even more intrigue to the sequence, I think, in terms of Shakespeare’s place in the poetry scene back then. How ambitious was our Bard?
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J: I like your argument that the wit adds a feeling of unreality to the proceedings! That seems both true and novel to me. Yes, it does seem quite possible that he had people in mind for each of them, but they suffered a sea-change in the writing and became fictitious. Prof. Wiki tells me that the Rival Poet sonnets are numbers 78–86. People have thought of Christopher Marlowe here, the man who wrote, “Was this the face that launched ten thousand ships?” Marlowe, however, was murdered in 1593, early for the sonnets to look to him as a rival. Webster is later, and Shakespeare’s contemporaries – Kyd, say, who died in 1594, or Beaumont and Fletcher – likely influenced Shakespeare but could not, in our terms, compete with him. In 1592, so quite early for Shakespeare, a rival – possibly Thomas Nashe – called him “an upstart crow beautified with our feathers.” I would, however, say that by 1600, Shakespeare had no rival. The sonnets were published in 1609.
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F: So, an interesting background to the sonnets too, John, fraught with all this rivalry! I’m sure that would have played into the sequence as well, impacting the ways the characters are presented. Thanks for appreciating my thoughts on wit and unreality! Of the poets you mention here, I remember Marlowe from my schooldays, just Dr. Faustus, but the others are only names to me. Returning to the Dark Lady, does she have a happy ending, at least? And has she exerted any influence over the poetry that followed Shakespeare, would you say?
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J: Yes indeed, Fliss, rivalry and emulation seem very much in the air among the Elizabethan playwrights. I suspect you are quite right to predict this situation’s impact on the sonnet cycle. Your thoughts also seemed to me both new and true. Marlowe went to my own school, in Canterbury, and Dr. Faustus was naturally my source for his quotation. The others are mostly names to me as well. Kyd I think wrote The Spanish Tragedy; Webster wrote The Duchess of Malfi, which is great. In Shakespeare’s final sonnet, number 154, Cupid’s torch or brand is put into water:
This brand she quenchèd in a cool well by,
Which from Love’s fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy
For men diseased; but I, my mistress’ thrall,
Came there for cure, and this by that I prove:
Love’s fire heats water; water cools not love.
So, Shakespeare in the end is not cured of his love, he remains “my mistress’ thrall.” As for the Dark Lady’s influence, George Bernard Shaw and Ngaio Marsh wrote works in which she features prominently. Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal has a cycle de la Vénus noire, a cycle in that collection of love poems addressed to a dark (or Black) Venus. But Shakespeare’s sonnets in general became the model for almost all English-language sonnets thereafter, rejecting the Petrarchan tradition – two quatrains and two tercets – for three quatrains and a couplet. In that sense, the Dark Lady is very much alive and well today.
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F: Hooray! Well, this is all fascinating, John. Whoever or whatever she was to Shakespeare, I’m glad the Dark Lady has a legacy of sorts. There’s plenty to add to my never-shortening Reading List here, and of course I’ll have to put together that response-piece at some stage. Many thanks for meeting the Dark Lady with me; it has been very interesting indeed.
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J: You’re very welcome, Fliss! Yes, it has been an excellent meeting. Well met, all!
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A full biography of William Shakespeare is available at the Poetry Foundation, here.
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