You don’t need children to testify to your beauty, because that will live for ever in this poem. My poetry alone cannot convey your many wonders, and might be mistrusted, so have a child as well.

The last of the poems encouraging procreation - perhaps for the 17th birthday of William Herbert. 'Who will believe my verse in time to come' Everything dies, so the only way to survive is to have children.Įvidence that everything eventually perishes prompts the poet to consider that his friend is subject to the same process. 'When do I count the clock that tells the time' More usual as an argument made by a man to a woman, as part of his seduction. When you become old, you should be able to show that you have a successor to your beauty – but only if you beget a child. 'When forty winters shall besiege thy brow' Possibly the Dark Lady is an amalgam of many different women.ĭescriptions of a selection of Shakespeare's sonnets from our Artistic Director Gregory Doran drawing on Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells' new book All the Sonnets of Shakespeare (published September 2020).

The wife of John Florio, a linguist and translator of Montaigne, who may have been satirised as the pedantic Holofernes In Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Black Luce, a brothel owner in Clerkenwell.

Emilia was also a member of the Venetian Bassano family, who were musicians at court.

Emilia Lanier - mistress of Lord Hunsdon, (Henry Carey) the Lord Chamberlain, and thus Shakespeare’s boss, as patron of his company.

Mary Fitton - maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, and the mistress of William Herbert.

No one knows the identity of the 'Dark Lady' but possible candidates include:

Far from idealising a perfect woman, they feature a female lover accused of making the poet sexually obsessed, furiously jealous, of cheating on him, stealing away his boy friend, and giving him a dose of the clap. Towards the end of the series there are 28 sonnets addressed to a woman. He has the correct initials, just reversed - perhaps to conceal his identity. Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton to whom in 1593 Shakespeare dedicated his poem Venus and Adonis and later The Rape of Lucrece.His initials fit to the dedication of the book to 'Mr WH'. William Herbert - refused to marry Elizabeth Carey, granddaughter of the Lord Chamberlain, the patron of the company Shakespeare worked for.There are several candidates for this Fair Youth. The first 17 sonnets for example seem to be addressed to a fair youth, an aristocratic young man, imploring him to get married, and have children. They may be addressed to a series of different people.

WHO Did SHAKESPEARE ADDRESS WITH HIS SONNETS?

Sonnets by William Shakespeare