with a passage taken from Ovid’s “Ars amatoria” would clearly indicate that he had lost his marbles: “Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo / Pocular Castalia plena ministret aqua.” -In English: “Let vile people admire vile things; may fair-haired Apollo serve me goblets filled with Castalian water.” Or, to cite Marlowe’s translation: “Let base conceited wits admire vile things,/ Fair Phoebus lead me to the muses’ springs.”
Is that what we expect from the “upstart Crow” -or the “blue Kestrel”?
“Venus and Adonis” was dedicated to a young lord. The dedication, however, was written in a manner that only a fellow aristocrat would employ. There was a strict law in those days that forbade all commoners from dressing in the same clothes as the aristocrats. It was forbidden, even dangerous, to act like an aristocrat or to talk like one. Will Shaksper, the actor would have to have been both raving mad and incomprehensibly conceited to have done such a thing. He begins with the words: „Right Honourable, I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship ... only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account my self highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour.“
The author uses the term “unpolished lines” as a deliberate understatement. He knows that he is speaking of 199 verses of brilliant poetry. What follows, however, would have been the epitome of madness had it come from the pen of Will Shaksper: An actor scrapes a living learning lines, rehearsing, performing and travelling through the provinces. He then says that he is going to “take advantage of all idle hours”. Only an aristocrat would have written poems in his “idle hours” A free lance actor didn‘t have “idle hours”. All of his hours were spoken for. An aristocrat spent his working time dealing with the affairs of state, supervising his own estate and when necessary, fighting wars. If he then chose to write poetry he would do so in his “idle hours”.
By way of comparison, let’s look at Edmund Spenser’s dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh:
SIR, that you may see that I am not alwaies ydle as ye thinke, though not greatly well occupied, nor altogither undutifull, though not precisely officious, I make you present of this simple pastorall, unworthie of your higher conceit for the meanesse of the stile, but agreeing with the truth in circumstance and matter. The which I humbly beseech you to accept in part of paiment of the infinite debt in which I acknowledge my selfe bounden vnto you, for your singular favours and sundrie good turnes shewed to me at my late being in England, and with your good countenance protect against the malice of evill mouthes, which are alwaies wide open to carpe at and misconstrue my simple meaning. (Colin Clout’s Come Home Againe, 1591.)
Or Samuel Daniels dedication to Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke:
„I desire onely to bee graced by the countenance of your protection: whome the fortune of our time hath made the happie and iudiciall Patronesse of the Muses” (Delia. Contayning certayne Sonnets, 1592.)
When we read William Shakespeare’s dedication we dont find a word about the „infinite debt and protection” of which Edmund Spenser mentions. What we do find is a dedication, far more personal and familiar in its tone: “What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours“ (Rape of Lucrece, Dedication). Or, more explicitly: What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours; you being part in all I have, being devoted, yours.
We are reminded of the famous “begetter” in Thomas Thorpe’s dedication of sonnets “To the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets – Mr. W.H. - all happinesse and that eternitie, promised by our ever-living [=defunct] poet“? (It would appear that the printer Thomas Thorpe is quoting from a dedication to W.H. - id est Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton- that was already in existence.)
These sonnets give us definite proof, that Will Shaksper was not William Shakespeare. That a commoner should write such sonnets and dedicate them to the young Earl of Southampton, is historically impossible.
And hardly anybody thinks that “Mr. W.H.” could possibly be anyone other than Henry Wriothesley.
1. The description of the youth in the sonnets and the description of Adonis in Shakespeare’s epic poem, “Venus and Adonis“ (1593) are identical. The two young men are both described as being enigmatic, fascinating and self-enamoured; the epitome of androgynous beauty, a mixture of Narcissus, Hermaphroditus and Adonis, who still doesn’t react to the allures of women. Just like the youth in the first seventeen sonnets, Adonis is advised to seek a mate and have children so that his beauty may defeat “devouring time”.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And tender churl mak’st waste in niggarding
are the words directed at Wriothesley in Sonnet 1. - In “Venus and Adonis”, Venus, the goddess of love tenderly scolds Adonis with the words:
Upon the earth’s increase why shouldst thou feed,
Unless the earth with thy increase be fed?
By law of nature thou art bound to breed,
That thine may live when thou thyself art dead;
And so in spite of death thou dost survive,
In that thy likeness still is left alive.
(Venus and Adonis, 169-174)
Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (1573–1624)
2. Two years before “Venus and Adonis” was published, John Clapham wrote a Latin poem with the title “Narcissus” (1591) and dedicated it to Southampton. Clapham’s Narcissus is suddenly transferred from Greek mythology to a fairy-tale England, where Venus welcomes him with open arms and Amor teaches him the art of love. Narcissus is splashed with the waters of the river Lethe, causing him to forget everything he ever knew. He mounts a wild horse named “Lust” which carries him far away and throws him off by the fountain of self desire. Narcissus drinks from the fountain, falls in love with the reflection that he sees of himself in the water and drowns.
John Clapham wasn’t just an aspiring amateur; he was a member of Lord Burghley’s household and probably one of Southampton’s teachers. This means that the young man was not only given a poetical, but also a practical lesson in life, after his refusal to marry Elizabeth de Vere, against Lord Burghley’s advice.
3. In his preface to “The Unfortunate Traveller” (1594), the satirist Thomas Nashe, a literary contemporary made a bold comment on Southampton’s erotic magnetism:
“A dear lover and cherisher you are, as well of the lovers of poets as of poets themselves. Amongst their sacred number I dare not ascribe myself, though now and then I speak English.”
Nashe went a step further by dedicating a ribald poem by the name of “The Choosing of Valentines” to “Lord S.” In the dedication Nashe plays on the phonetic similarity between Wriothesley and ROSE-ly; with the words: “Pardon sweet flower of matchless poetry,/
