2 Lame, poor and despised Sonnet 37

May be you can relate to it, to Edward de Vere aka Shakespeare’s Sonnet 37, even in the modern day – “Lame, poor and despised” (because you have been ‘dispossessed’) fits perfectly with Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (in contrast, there is no evidence Willie Shaxper was lame, but he was a successful businessman/grain merchant, and he seems to have only been despised by his wife, who he bequeathed his “second best bed” in his Will):

• Firstly, we have to note for us fellow LPDs that most scholars date Sonnet 37 to the mid 1590s when Vere/Oxford found himself over 40!

• Oxford was ‘lame’ since sustaining a leg injury in the 1582 fray with Sir Thomas Knyvet over the honour of his niece Anne Vavasour.

• The street fighting between Oxford’s and Knyvet’s servants, including some deaths, resemble the Montague/Capulet dynamics in Romeo and Juliet.

• Edward’s letter of 25 March, 1595 to Lord Burghley:
“When Your Lordship shall have best time and leisure if I may know it,
I will attend Your Lordship as well as a lame man may at your house.”

‘…In the Sonnets (for instance, Sonnet 37 includes almost the very same phrase: “so I, made lame by fortune’s dearest spite”) the bard portrays himself several times as lame; Oxford, in his letters several times refers to his lameness or infirmity); in the Quarto version of King Lear [Act IV, Scene 6 (213-221)], Edgar describes himself to Gloucester as:
“A most poor man, made lame by fortune’s blows”…’
Brief Chronicles Vol. II (2010)
http://www.briefchronicles.com/ojs/index.php/bc/article/download/49/110

And just a bit more on King Lear: as with most of his plays, it was clearly a rework – likely at King’s Place, Hackney, during the Elizabeth Trentham Prospero/Tempest like 12 year exile from 1592 to Vere’s death in 1604 https://deveresocietyaustralia.wordpress.com/vere-letter-tempest-prosperous-gale/ – of Vere’s earlier The True Chronicle History of King Leir, registered in 1594; Lear/Leir [you can see the initial attraction of the name in the rhyme, especially with his preoccupation with being lame, and both surnames have 4 letters, Leir/Lear = L(ame V)ere; not to mention Tamburliane = Timur the Lame] had 3 daughters (and an illegitimate son) so did Vere; and both signed over their major estates to their daughters (Vere under pressure from Burghley, their grandfather); and there are clear parallels between Susan de Vere and Cordelia – Mark Anderson, p354 – the telltale ‘nothing’ lines re the de Vere family motto (Vero Nihil Verius = nothing truer than truth) in King Leir (c. 1594) / King Lear Redux and John Davies’ masque in Francis Davison’s Poetical Rapsody 1608; Warren Hope’s Lear’s Cordelia, Oxford’s Susan & Manningham’s Diary; and Nathaniel Baxter’s (was in Italy with Vere, also friend of Philip Sidney) poem Ourania about her father to Susan: “Vera Nihil Verius Susanna Nihil Castius” (Nothing truer than truth, nothing chaster than Susan).

William Farina notes that a key source of King Leir / Lear and Philip Sidney’s Arcadia is An Aethiopian Historie by Heliodorus, translated by Thomas Underdowne in 1569 (reprinted many times). He dedicated his book to 19 year old Edward de Vere (in contrast, not one book was dedicated to Stratford businessman Guillem Shaksper). Underdowne’s fascinating dedications is reproduced here:
https://deveresocietyaustralia.wordpress.com/king-lear-aethiopian-historie-dedication-vere-1569/

Those reworks by the way, stem all the way back to when Vere was 12 in 1562 and wrote “The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet” under the pen name Arthur Brooke, not to mention the problem Stratfordians have with the earlier version of Hamlet penned with one of Vere’s many Silexedra (Fisher’s Folly) ‘secretaries’ in the 1580s, Thomas Kyd – The Spanish Tragedy fits in here as well; and that connotes The Spanish Maze and The Tempest (Roger Stritmatter and Lynne Kositsky http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/wp-content/oxfordian/Strit-Kos-Maze.pdf); a young Christopher Marlowe followed Thomsa Watson to the haunt and out of that ‘collaboration’ came the ultimate monument in Play form to Vere’s obsession with being lame – Tamburlaine (aka Timur the Lame); heck, might as well throw in that “Eva Turner Clark is probably right in opining that The Merchant of Venice was first acted at court, on  2 February, 1580, by the Lord Chamberlain’s servants, under the title of The History of Portio (Portia) and Demorantes – that last word being, perhaps, a mistranscription for The Merchants”; could go on like this forever…

• Oxford/Vere had become just about bankrupt (in contrast, Willie Shaksper of Stratford continued to be a successful businessman, and that’s about all we can be sure of!) including having lost a small fortune on the NorthWest Passage venture to Michael Lok, cf. Shy-lock, Merchant of Venice. See also Vere – Hogan Letter 21 May 1578:
https://deveresocietyaustralia.wordpress.com/de-vere-hogan-letter-1578/

• Vere to Burghley, 13 July 1581 letter “…a shadow they can make a substance…” cf. Sonnet 37 “this shadow such substance give“.

• The author of Sonnet 37 uses the word “parts” to refer to a person’s attributes or qualities. Vere in a  8 September 1597  letter to Burghley uses that word in the same way, “hath many good parts in him”. The letter is about marrying off his daughter, the subject of several Sonnets. Even some Stratfordians concede these Shakespearean Sonnets are about de Vere’s daughter, and they even date these Sonnets to this same year too – 1597. See the full letter here:
https://deveresocietyaustralia.wordpress.com/letters/

• In 1597 de Vere moved to King’s Place, Hackney (next to the London suburb of Stratford), he would die there 7 years later in 1604. It was purchased under the names of Elizabeth Trentham and her brother Francis, Edward being broke. At this time 4 year old Henry de Vere – his only son and heir after 3 daughters – was running around in his study. Elizabeth sold King’s Place in 1609. In that same year a William Hall (Mr W.H.) of Hackney no less (Hall also ‘procured’ A Four-Fold Meditation 1606 – same printer as Sonnets, viz George Eld) got his hands on the Sonnets… “OVR.EVER.LIVING.POET” is a tribute to a genius that is already dead (Willie Shaksper died in1612) but has become immortal.

Even diehard Stratfordians agree the Sonnets are very much about the Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley (1573-1624; pron. ‘Risley’) . Prince Tudor theory even suggests he was the illegitimate son of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford and Queen Elizabeth. Such scholars agree the first 17 sonnets are about getting him to marry Elizabeth de Vere (who Edward may have thought was not his, as the birth was during his estrangement from 1st wife, m. 1571, Anne, of the powerful Cecil family; some say it was not Southampton at all, but William Herbert, but again it involved another daughter, Bridget de Vere). Amusingly, these Stratfordians (like Strato Dover Wilson) have to try to figure out how to put Willie Shaxper in the picture – why would they need him, why would Edward de Vere a “documented” poet of renown – he had the same advanced education as his rival Philip Sidney who wrote the 108 sonnets of ‘Astrophel and Stella’ (note: Philip Sidney accepted it was not prudent to publish under his own name, all his works were published after his death) –  young Lord Edward could even write a letter in French at the age of just 13 (to Burghley 1563):

Oxford to Burghley, 19 August 1563 (in French)
Monsieur treshonorable
Monsieur i’ay receu voz lettres, plaines d’humanite et courtoysie, & fort resemblantes a vostre grand’amour et singuliere affection enuers moy. comme vrais enfans dueument procreez d’une telle mere. pour la quelle ie me trouue de iour en iour plus tenu a v. h. voz bons admonestements pour l’obseruation du bon ordre selon voz appointemens, ie me delibere (dieu aidant) de garder en toute diligence comme chose que ie cognois et considere tendre especialement a mon propre bien et profit, vsant en cela l’aduis et authorite de ceux qui sont aupres de moy. la discretion desquels i’estime si grande (s’il me conuient parler quelque chose a leur aduange) [sic] qui non seulement ilz se porteront selon qu’un tel temps le requiert, ains que plus est seront tant que ie me gouuerne selon que vous aues ordonne et commande. Quant a l’ordre de mon estude pour ce que il requiert vn long discours a l’expliquer par le menu, et le temps est court a ceste heure, ie vous prie affectueusement m’en excuser pour le present. vous asseurant que par le premier passant ie le vous ferai scauoir bien au long. Cependant ie prie a dieu vous donner sante.
Edward Oxinford 

English Translation:
My very honorable Sir Sir, I have received your letters, full of humanity and courtesy, and strongly resembling your great love and singular affection towards me, like true children duly procreated of such a mother, for whom I find myself from day to day more bound to your honor. Your good admonishments for the observance of good order according to your appointed rules, I am resolved (God aiding) to keep with all diligence, as a thing that I may know and consider to tend especially to my own good and profit, using therein the advice and authority of those who are near me, whose discretion I esteem so great (if it is convenient to me to say something to their advantage) that not only will they comport themselves according as a given time requires it, but will as well do what is more, as long as I govern myself as you have ordered and commanded. As to the order of my study, because it requires a long discourse to explain it in detail, and the time is short at this hour, I pray you affectionately to excuse me therefrom for the present, assuring you that by the first passer-by I shall make it known to you at full length. In the meantime, I pray to God to give you health. 
Edward Oxinford. 

And he was the nephew of Henry Howard, the father of the English Sonnet. 
Why would he need the Stratford businessman to write Sonnets for him?
Then in 1593 suddenly after 3 daughters and almost giving up, along comes his legitimate hier and 18th (cf. abrupt change of pace with Sonnet 18 “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?”) Earl of Oxford, who he may well have named Henry (not used previously in the long Vere line; 1593-1625) in honour of Southampton. This second Henry grows up to have a “documented” close relationship with his half-brother, as captured by the following etching of 1621 – “Two Most Noble Henries”:

Also note the Henry de Vere’s factor in the First Folio publication of 1623 – used by his sister Susan de Vere (wife of one of ‘incomparable pair of brethren’ it was dedicated to, and sons of key player and likely Shakespeare/Vere editor, Mary Sidney, 1561-1621, also brother of Philip above) to get him out of the Tower, see our original, unbutchered by Stratfordians, Wikipedia biography here:
http://australiansofarabia.wordpress.com/susan-de-vere/

• The Sonnets really are a dead give-away that Edward de Vere is Shakespeare, even Stratfordians agree there were no Sonnets written later than 1604, the year de Vere died (cf. Willie Shaxper d. 1612).

See also 3 Dead Giveaways Vere is Shakespeare:
https://deveresocietyaustralia.wordpress.com/telltale-signs-vere-is-shakespeare/

Sonnet 37 – SASI Theme Song

As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by fortune’s dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth. 4

For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store. 8

So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am sufficed,
And by a part of all thy glory live. 12

  Look what is best, that best I wish in thee.
  This wish I have; then ten times happy me. 14

*                                  * * *                                     *

The structure of a sonnet is highly complex and mathematical. There are 14 lines in a sonnet. The first 12 lines are divided into 3 quatrains with 4 lines each. In the 3 quatrains the poet establishes a theme or problem and then resolves it in the final 2 lines, called the couplet. The rhyme scheme of the quatrains is abab cdcd efef. The couplet has the rhyme scheme gg. Each sonnet line consists of 10 syllables. The syllables are divided into 5 pairs called iambic feet.

Obviously this composition requires a highly educated author, especially in Elizabethan times when 80% of the population was illiterate. There is no evidence Willie Shaksper, or any of his family, could read or write.

@HyphenMaskDaugh

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This page is dedicated to
Peter R. Moore
1949 – 2007

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