`The Winter's Tale of Reunion and Redemption

Leontes has everything a man could want: power, wealth, a loving family and friends. But he is not at peace. Inside he harbours a bitter jealousy that drives him to destroy all he holds dear. 

Many years later in a distant country a journey begins that may ultimately heal his pain and reunite his family in Shakespeare's uplifting tale of reconciliation and forgiveness.

I read `The Winter's Tale just once, and what I took from it was the improbable, romantic tale of reunion, miracle and repentance.  King Leontes is proud and powerful, and jumps to the terrible conclusion that his wife Hermione was unfaithful and that the baby she bears was by King Polixenes.  He throws Hermione into prison and orders the baby to be left to die somewhere far.  What ensue are shades of tragedy and twists of comedy, the latter of which I don't remember much at all.

Sonnet 138, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told:
     Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
     And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

Sonnet 138, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

In Western culture, we pay such lip service to truth, and honesty, and openness, coming thus across as naive in the reality of life.  A couple in love may choose to dispense with the truth of age - frank wrinkles, lackluster hair - in order to forge their romance.  Interestingly, while there is a striking difference in age between the two, even the younger of the two is evidently conscious, albeit privately, of her age.  Finally, a tour de force of a pun around "lie" is perfect for the sexual denouement in the couplet.  

Sonnet 65, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
     O! none, unless this miracle have might,
     That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Sonnet 65, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

The setting of the Berlin Wall puts political weight to a sonnet so full of weight already from stone, and earth, and steel.  Even the meter is laden with heaviness, that is, from such spondees as "strong hand," "black ink," and "shine bright."  It is about the power of time to overcome and erode all of this, however.  There is a glimmer of hope in the final couplet, which, though subjunctive, is as definitive of statement than anything in the sonnet that precedes it.  

Sonnet 134, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

So now I have confessed that he is thine,
And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous, and he is kind;
He learned but surety-like to write for me,
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer, that put'st forth all to use,
And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
     Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:
     He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

Sonnet 134, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

This is really good.  I wouldn't have seen this sonnet as one about giving up a baby for adoption.  But as it is, it is painful, and real, and apropos for the kind of life event (I imagine) a young, disadvantaged city woman is likely to face.

Sonnet 141, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
     Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
     That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

Sonnet 141, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

I wondered if Carlo Alban, as the tortured lover, would jump from that hill.  No, that would've been out-of-keeping with the sonnet.  The point is Romantic pain, and for it to be Romantic, it must keep on.  It must live.

Sonnet 2, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a totter'd weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
     This were to be new made when thou art old,
     And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

Sonnet 2, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

It is purely by accident - rather, what I call synchronicity - that this sonnet follows the same theme of life and aging from the previous sonnet.  What was implicit, though, is made explicit in this piece.  It is the prowess of Shakespeare to turn the commonplace passing of the generations into uncommon poetry.

Sonnet 7, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract, and look another way:
     So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon
     Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.

Sonnet 7, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

It's a very curious sonnet.  What happens in a given day is a lifetime.  From a coming of age, to a reeling from all that age.  But what sustains us, literally, is our progeny.  Our progeny comes only from a relationship, without which we do not simply die: We cease to exist.

Sonnet 107, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:
     And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
     When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

Sonnet 107, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

This one reminds me of WB Yeats' `Sailing to Byzantium, particularly the last stanza:

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

True, the Irish poet speaks about mortality vis-a-vis immortality, while the English sonnet master dwells on life and death in particular.  Still, the outcome seems the same: John Kinsherf fashions himself into monument, much as Yeats' old man longs to be a statue.  

Sonnet 151, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
     No want of conscience hold it that I call
     Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

Sonnet 151, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

This is the classic Romantic battle between the mind (conscience) and the heart (love) and between the soul and the body.  Shakespeare weaves it all in 14 lines of poetry, as Richard Price, seemingly longing for her from afar, finally gives in to his desire for... uhm... the Coney Island hot dog.  There is comic relief, after all, in the midst of high Romanticism.

Sonnet 51, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Thus can my love excuse the slow offence
Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:
From where thou art why should I haste me thence?
Till I return, of posting is no need.
O! what excuse will my poor beast then find,
When swift extremity can seem but slow?
Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind,
In winged speed no motion shall I know,
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace.
Therefore desire, (of perfect'st love being made)
Shall neigh, no dull flesh, in his fiery race;
But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade-
     Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,
     Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.

Sonnet 51, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

I am happy to get acquainted with Shakespeare's sonnets, after focusing for decades on his plays.  This one is yet another of his deft poetic efforts.  He captures well that tension desire creates, that dullness love feigns, that motionlessness high speed lends.  It is positively Einstein in reference, long before Einstein was anyone to reference: that is, Theory of Special Relativity, where time stops, when one travels at the speed of light.  Finally, it was a fine cinematic touch to refer to the elevated train as the modern day horse, that Brian Vaughan gives leave to go, as he rushes excitedly to his lover.