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A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,
Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.
Earl of Southampton- was he the boy!
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2 comments:
Hi Richie :)
I understand that Shakespeare wrote 133 sonnets praising the girlish looking Earl of Southampton for whom he had a lot of affection.
Do you know any thing about this?
Have a nice day:)
Joseph
The sonnets do have a homosexual love expressed in them. Shakespeare may well have had homosexual feelings for Southampton or he may have had the commercial acumen to write homosexual verse for a homosexual patron- Shakespeare was making a living!
I think on balance he probably explored the homosexual side of his nature in more than verse. They are very erotic poems, on the other hand Shakespeare was a great writer with great humanity and could have just explored his nature artistically.
Shakespeare was interested in the classical period and would have been aware of the institutional homosexuality of ancient Greece. It is likely that many renaissance artists would have seen it as enriching to develop such relationships.
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