The Sonnets and Other Poems

Shakespeare became famous as a dazzling poet before most people even knew that he wrote plays. His sonnets are the English language's most extraordinary anatomy of love in all its dimensionsdesire and despair, longing and loss, adoration and disgust. To read them is to confront morality and eternity in the same breath. Produced under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today's most accomplished Shakespearean scholars,The Sonnets and Other Poemsincludes all of Shakespeare's sonnets, the long narrative poems "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece," and several other shorter works. Incorporating definitive texts and authoritative notes fromWilliam Shakespeare: Complete Works, this unique volume also includes an expanded Introduction by Jonathan Bate that places the poems in literary and historical context and illuminates their relationship to Shakespeare's dramatic writing. Also featured are key facts about the individual selections; an index of the first lines of the sonnets; a chronology of Shakespeare's life and times; and recommendations for further reading. Ideal for students and general readers alike, this modern and accessible edition sets a new standard in Shakespearean literature for the twenty-first century. From the Trade Paperback edition.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King’s New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers.” Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later under James I, called the King’s Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain’s Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.

Chapter One


Venus and ADONIS

Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AND BARON OF TITCHFIELD RIGHT HONOURABLE, I KNOW not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden; only if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart’s content, which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful expectation.

Your honour’s in all duty,

William Shakespeare

EVEN as the sun with purple-coloured face

Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,

Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase.

Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn.

Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him

And like a bold-faced suitor ’gins to woo him.

‘Thrice-fairer than myself’, thus she began,

‘The field’s chief flower, sweet above compare,

Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,

More white and red than doves or roses are:

Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,

Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.

‘Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed

And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow.

If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed

A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:

Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,

And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses.

‘And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety,

But rather famish them amid their plenty,

Making them red and pale with fresh variety:

Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty.

A summer’s day will seem an hour but short,

Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.’

With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,

The precedent of pith and livelihood,

And trembling in her passion, calls it balm,

Earth’s sovereign salve to do a goddess good:

Being so enraged, desire doth lend her force

Courageously to pluck him from his horse.

Over one arm the lusty courser’s rein,

Under her other was the tender boy,

Who blushed and pouted in a dull disdain,

With leaden appetite, unapt to toy,

She red and hot as coals of glowing fire,

He red for shame, but frosty in desire.

The studded bridle on a ragged bough

Nimbly she fastens. O, how quick is love!

The steed is stallèd up, and even now

To tie the rider she begins to prove:

Backward she pushed him, as she would be thrust,

And governed him in strength though not in lust.

So soon was she along as he was down,

Each leaning on their elbows and their hips:

Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown

And ’gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips

And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken,

‘If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.’

He burns with bashful shame, she with her tears

Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks,

Then with her windy sighs and golden hairs

To fan and blow them dry again she seeks.

He saith she is immodest, blames her miss:

What follows more, she murders with a kiss.

Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,

Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone,

Shaking her wings, devouring al

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Excerpted from The Sonnets and Other Poems by William Shakespeare
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