English Wordplay ~ Listen and Enjoy
Previous Sonnet
Sonnet 127
 |
Please click
to listen |
|
| Mary Fitton |
From The Shakespeare Miscellany by David and Ben Crystal (see below): "The woman referred to in this sonnet and in 130, 131 and 132 has never been identified, but several have been proposed:
- Mary Fitton, a lady-in-waiting at Queen Elizabeth's court, who ardently pursued William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.
Herbert is one of the main candidates for the identity of the Fair Youth, a character who betrays the poet by having an affair with
the Dark Lady, hence the claim that Fitton might be the lady.
- Emilia Bassano Lanier was the first Englishwoman to assert herself as
a professional poet. She was the daughter of a court musician from Venice, and the mistress of Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon,
Shakespeare's company patron.
|
Emilia Bassano
by Nicholas Hilliard |
- Lucy Morgan, "abbess" of Clerkenwell and a courtesan. She is said to have set up a bawdy house, where she entertained students from Gray’s Inn with a choir of “black nuns.” She is mentioned in records of the Queen’s Bench in 1596, but seems to have avoided prosecution for several years.
- Jennett, wife of John Davenant, vintner at the Crown Tavern, Oxford, whose son William claimed to be Shakespeare's illegitimate son. She was described as "a very beautiful woman, and of a very good wit, and of conversation extremely agreable."
- Rose, the wife of John Florio, Italian secretary to the Earl of Southampton.
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 slander'd 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 profan'd, 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,
Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.
Next Sonnet: 128
We recommend the following: