Part 23 (1/2)

That is Shakespeare's ement of Lord Herbert's betrayal

The third mention of this sonnet-story in a play is later still: it is in ”Twelfth Night” The Duke, as we have seen, is an incarnation of Shakespeare himself, and, indeed, the finest incarnation we have of his temperament In the fourth scene of the first act he sends Viola to plead his cause for him with Olivia, much in the same way, no doubt, as Shakespeare sent Pembroke to Miss Fitton The whole scene deserves careful reading

”Cesario, Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd To thee the book even of ait unto her Be not denied access, stand at her doors, And tell therow Till thou have audience

_Vio_ Sure, my noble lord, If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow As it is spoke, she never will admit me

_Duke_ Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds Rather than make unprofited return

_Vio_ Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then?

_Duke_ O, then unfold the passion of my love, Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith: It shall become thee well to act my woes; _She will attend it better in thy youth Than in a nuncio's of rave aspect_

_Vio_ I think not so, my lord

_Duke_ Dear lad, believe it; For they shall yet belie thy happy years, That say thou art a man: Diana's lip Is not an, shrill and sound; And all is seht apt For this affair Some four or five attend him; All if you will; for I myself am best When least in company”

I do not want to find e si some one to plead his love was constantly in Shakespeare's mind in these years The curious part of the matter is that he should pick a youth as ae He can discover no reason for choosing such a boy as Viola, and so simply asserts that youth will be better attended to, which is certainly not the fact Lord Herbert's youth was in his mind: but he could not put the truth in the play that when he chose his ah position and personal beauty and charm, and not because of his youth The whole incident is treated lightly as so of small iht” ritten about 1601, a year or so later than ”Much Ado”

I do not want to labour the conclusion I have reached; but it must be admitted that I have found in the plays, and especially in ”The Two Gentlemen of Verona” and ”Much Ado,” the saed into the plays, where, indeed, its introduction is a grave fault in art and its treat but personal Here in the plays we have, so to speak, three views of the sonnet-story; the first in ”The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” when the betrayal is fresh in Shakespeare's :

”Thou common friend that's without faith or love”

The second view is taken in ”Much Ado About Nothing” when the pain of the betrayal has been a little salved by time Shakespeare now moralizes the occurrence He shows us hoould be looked upon by a philosopher (for that is what the lover, Claudio, is in regard to his betrayal) and by a soldier and man of the world, Benedick, and by a Prince

Shakespeare selects the prince to give effect to the view that the fault is in the transgressor and not in the man who trusts The h which Shakespeare's mind moved, and the result is to me a more complete confession than is to be found in the sonnets Finally the story is touched upon in ”Twelfth Night,” when the betrayal has faded into oblivion, but the poet lets out the fact that his aives for this is plainly insufficient If after these three recitals any one can still believe that the sonnet-story is iument

CHAPTER IV THE SONNETS: PART II

Now that we have found the story of the sonnets repeated three times in the plays, it may be worth our while to see if we can discover in the plays anything that throws light upon the circuular drama At the outset, I must admit that save in these three plays I can find no mention whatever of Shakespeare's betrayer, Lord Herbert He was ”a false friend,” the plays tell us, a ”common friend without faith or love,” ”a friend of an ill fashi+on”; young, too, yet trusted; but beyond this summary superficial characterization there is silence _Me judice_ Lord Herbert made no deep or peculiar iive pause to the scandal-ers For there can be no doubt whatever that Shakespeare's love, Mistress Fitton, the ”dark lady” of the sonnet-series froain in play after play, profoundlythe poet's outlook upon life and art

Before I take in hand this identification of Miss Fitton and her influence upon Shakespeare, letthe reader to bear in mind the fact that Shakespeare was a sensualist by nature, a lover, which is as rare a thing as consuenius The story of his idolatrous passion for Mary Fitton is the story of his life This is what the commentators and critics hitherto have failed to appreciate Let us now get at the facts and see what light the drae of the story, Mistress Fitton The study will probably teach us that Shakespeare was the most impassioned lover and love-poet in all literature

History tells us that Mary Fitton becae of seventeen From a letter addressed by her father to Sir Robert Cecil on January 29th, 1599, it is fairly certain that she had already been e of sixteen; the union was probably not entirely valid, but the ests a certain recklessness of character, or overpowering sensuality, or both, and shows that even as a girl Mistress Fitton was no shrinking, timid, modest maiden Wrapped in a horseht to h twice itimate child by Herbert, and two later by Sir Richard Leveson

This extraordinary woman is undoubtedly the sort of woman Shakespeare depicted as the ”dark lady” of the sonnets Nearly every sonnet of the twenty-six devoted to his ainst her; and all these charges are ainst one and the same woman First of all she is described in sonnet 131 as ”tyrannous”; then in sonnet 133 as ”faithless”; in sonnet 137 as ”the bay where all men ridethe orld's commonplace”; in sonnet 138 as ”false”; in 139, she is ”coquettish”; 140, ”proud”; ”false to the bonds of love”; ”black as hell dark as night”--in both looks and character; ”full of foul faults ”; ”cruel”; ”unworthy,” but of ”powerful” personality; ”unkind--inconstant unfaithful forsworn”

Now, the first question is: Can we find this ”dark lady” of the sonnets in the plays? The sonnets tell us she was of pale complexion with black eyes and hair; do the plays bear out this description? And if they do bear it out do they throw any new light upon Miss Fitton's character?

Did Miss Fitton seem proud and inconstant, tyrannous and wanton, to Shakespeare when he first met her, and before she knew Lord Herbert?

The earliest mention of the poet's mistress in the plays is to be found, I think, in ”Romeo and Juliet” ”Romeo and Juliet” is dated by Mr

Furnival 1591-1593; it was first mentioned in 1595 by Meres; first published in 1597 I think in its present form it must be taken to date from 1597 Romeo, who as we have already seen, is an incarnation of Shakespeare, is presented to us in the very first scene as in love with one Rosaline This in itself tells ; but the proof that Shakespeare stands in intiirl called Rosaline comes later, and so the first introductory words have a certain significance for me Romeo himself tells us that ”she hath Dian's wit,”

one of Shakespeare's favourite comparisons for his love, and speaks of her chastity, or rather of her unapproachableness; he goes on:

”O she is rich in beauty, only poor That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store”