Poems (1637)

An Elegy on the death of that famous Writer and Actor, Master William Shakespeare

I dare not do thy memory that wrong

Unto our larger griefs to give a tongue;

I’ll only sigh in earnest, and let fall

My solemn tears at thy great funeral,

For every eye that rains a show‘r for thee 5

Laments thy loss in a sad elegy.

Nor is it fit each humble muse should have

Thy worth his subject, now thou’rt laid in grave;

No, it’s a flight beyond the pitch of those

Whose worthless pamphlets are not sense in prose.

Let learnèd Jonson sing a dirge for thee,

And fill our orb with mournful harmony;

But we need no remembrancer; thy fame

Shall still accompany thy honoured name

To all posterity, and make us be

Sensible of what we lost in losing thee,

Being the age’s wonder, whose smooth rhymes

Did more reform than lash the looser times.

Nature herself did her own self admire

As oft as thou wert pleased to attire

Her in her native lustre, and confess

Thy dressing was her chiefest comeliness.

How can we then forget thee, when the age

Her chiefest tutor, and the widowed stage

Her only favourite, in thee hath lost,

And nature’s self what she did brag of most?

Sleep, then, rich soul of numbers, whilst poor we

Enjoy the profits of thy legacy,

And think it happiness enough we have

So much of thee redeemed from the grave

As may suffice to enlighten future times

With the bright lustre of thy matchless rhymes.

Anonymous (before 1638), in Shakespeare’s

Poems (1640)

To Shakespeare

Thy muse’s sugared dainties seem to us

Like the famed apples of old Tantalus,

For we, admiring, see and hear thy strains,

But none I see or hear those sweets attains.

To the same

Thou hast so used thy pen, or shook thy spear,

That poets startle, nor thy wit come near.

Thomas Bancroft, Two Books of Epigrams and

Epitaphs (1639)

To Master William Shakespeare

Shakespeare, we must be silent in thy praise,

‘Cause our encomiums will but blast thy bays,

Which envy could not; that thou didst so well,

Let thine own histories prove thy chronicle.

Anonymous, in Wit’s Recreations (1640)

To the Reader

I here presume, under favour, to present to your view some excellent and sweetly composed poems of Master William Shakespeare, which in themselves appear of the same purity the author himself, then living, avouched. They had not the fortune, by reason of their infancy in his death, to have the due accommodation of proportionable glory with the rest of his ever-living works, yet the lines of themselves will afford you a more authentic approbation than my assurance any way can; to invite your allowance, in your perusal you shall find them serene, clear, and elegantly plain, such gentle strains as shall recreate and not perplex your brain, no intricate or cloudy stuff to puzzle intellect, but perfect eloquence, such as will raise your admiration to his praise. This assurance, I know, will not differ from your acknowledgement; and certain I am my opinion will be seconded by the sufficiency of these ensuing lines. I have been somewhat solicitous to bring this forth to the perfect view of all men, and in so doing, glad to be serviceable for the continuance of glory to the deserved author in these his poems.

John Benson, in Shakespeare’s Poems (1640)

Of Master William Shakespeare

What, lofty Shakespeare, art again revived,

And Virbius-like now show‘st thyself twice lived?

’Tis Benson’s love that thus to thee is shown,

The labour’s his, the glory still thine own.

These learnèd poems amongst thine after-birth,

That makes thy name immortal on the earth,

Will make the learnèd still admire to see

The muses’ gifts so fully infused on thee.

Let carping Momus bark and bite his fill,

And ignorant Davus slight thy learnèd skill,

Yet those who know the worth of thy desert,

And with true judgement can discern thy art,

Will be admirers of thy high-tuned strain,

Amongst whose number let me still remain.

John Warren, in Shakespeare’s Poems (1640)

THE COMPLETE WORKS

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

THE accomplished elegance of the lyrical verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, as well as the skilful, theatrically effective prose of Lance’s monologues, demonstrates that Shakespeare had already developed his writing skills when he composed this play. Nevertheless—and although the earliest mention of it is by Francis Meres in 1598—it may be his first work for the stage; for its dramatic structure is comparatively unambitious, and while some of its scenes are expertly constructed, those involving more than, at the most, four characters betray an uncertainty of technique suggestive of inexperience. It was first printed in the 1623 Folio.

The friendship of the ‘two gentlemen’—Valentine and Proteus—is strained when both fall in love with Silvia. Proteus has followed Valentine from Verona to Milan, leaving behind his beloved Julia, who in turn follows him, disguised as a boy. At the climax of the action Valentine displays the depth of his friendship by offering Silvia to Proteus. The conflicting claims of love and friendship illustrated in this plot had been treated in a considerable body of English literature written by the time Shakespeare wrote his play in, or shortly before, 1590. John Lyly’s didactic fiction Euphues (1578) was an immensely popular example; and Lyly’s earliest plays, such as Campaspe (1584) and Endimion (1588), influenced Shakespeare’s style as well as his subject matter. Shakespeare was writing in a fashionable mode, but his story of Proteus and Julia is specifically (though perhaps indirectly) indebted to a prose fiction, Diana, written in Spanish by the Portuguese Jorge de Montemayor and first published in 1559. Many other influences on the young dramatist may be discerned: his idealized portrayal of Silvia and her relationship with Valentine derives from the medieval tradition of courtly love; Arthur Brooke’s long poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562) provided some details of the plot; and the comic commentary on the romantic action supplied by the page-boy Speed and the more rustic clown Lance has dramatic antecedents in English plays such as Lyly’s early comedies.