Rival Poet

THE RIVAL POETS


Why write I still all one, ever the same, ... O know, sweet love, I always write of you And you and love are still my argument; Who is it that says most, which can say more Than this rich praise - that you alone are you, You are my all-the-world, and I must strive To know my shames and praises from your tongue To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed Such seems your beauty still.		Wrong not, dear Empress of my heart, The merit of true passion, ... Since, if my plaints serve not to prove The conquest of your beauty, It comes not from defect of love, But from excess of duty. To serve, to live, to look upon those eyes, To look, to live, to kiss that heavenly hand, To sound that wit, that doth amaze the wise, Those eyes for clearness do the stars surpass, Those hairs obscure the brightness of the sun, Those hands more white than ivory was, That wit even to the skies hath glory won!
	Elizabeth I Semper Idem [Ever the Same] It was The Queen who was the source of rivalry between her two foremost poets at court.

Rivalry between Shakespeare/de Vere and another poet is evident in the lines of several Sonnets that occur in the sequence between Nos. 79 and 86. Fortunately, there are clues to this rival's identity, and it is these that should be the first and proper object of every enquiry. Unfortunately, past, commentators have leapt to the conclusion that Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the Sonnets, and that he attracted a rival poet for the patronage of the 3rd Earl of Southampton. This has led to a variety of guesses as to the identity of the mysterious rival, none of which have carried much conviction. Since recent evidence now indicates the name Shakespeare to have been an allonym for the Earl of Oxford, the object of rivalry is unlikely to have been Southampton. Consequently, the search for a rival poet in that direction was always bound to end in failure.

By accepting Oxford's authorship of the Sonnets, it is an easy matter to deduce that some of his verses were addressed to Queen Elizabeth. It was her expectation that any talented poet would see her as a suitable subject for admiration, if not adulation. And, indeed, any study of that age will confirm the Queen to have been greatly praised by the poets of her day. The rival poet is therefore a person who vies with Oxford for the Queen's favour.

Fortunately, there are clues to this rival's identity. He is adept with words; he has enjoyed a period of addressing, poetically, the Queen, whom it would appear had previously been the focus of Shakespeare/de Vere's verses. On several occasions, naval allegories have been deemed appropriate as references to him. And he may even possess his own ship. He also has a reputation for excellent pride, as well as being associated with a tall building, which at one time became his abode. And he has recognizable connections with spiritualist practices.

It is a matter of fact, easily verifiable, that every one of these attributes, when considered singly, can be applied to Sir Walter Raleigh. That they should be collectively applicable to Raleigh, within just two of Shakespeare/de Vere's sonnets, makes compelling evidence that it is he to whom one should look for the identity of the rival poet.

Raleigh was an accomplished man of words and a first class poet when the mood was upon him. His renown as a sailor is foremost on the list of his achievements. He was the owner of the Bark Raleigh, and in 1592 he was raised to the status of full admiral. In that same year, his squadron of ships captured the prize Portuguese carrack, Mother of God, on its way home from the East Indies. The Queen helped herself to a major part of the prize.

Raleigh was also famously known for his pride. It was a consistent feature of his personality and referred to by contemporaries ranging from anonymous epigram writers to the Countess of Shrewsbury. It was also thought sufficiently important by Aubrey for him to include this fact in Raleigh's biography.

In 1592, Raleigh became the occupant of a tall building, Sherborne Castle. Its leasehold was the gift from Queen Elizabeth who had acquired it after protracted negotiations with the bishopric of Salisbury, so that Raleigh could live there according to his wish. But In July 1592, the Queen discovered Raleigh was secretly married to Elizabeth Throgmorton and she had him imprisoned in another tall building, The Tower.

Raleigh was also notoriously connected with spiritualist practices, and a subscriber to Pythagoras' assertion that his soul had previously animated the body of Euphorbus during the Trojan War. The Jesuit, Robert Parsons, denounced Raleigh and his 'School of Atheism' together with his 'necromantic astrologer and teacher': a reference to the mathematician, Thomas Harriot, who is said to have led the séances held at Durham House, Raleigh's London home. Raleigh's 'School' was officially investigated in March 1594 by a special commission set up by the Privy Council.

The only person to dominate Raleigh's poetic addresses was Queen Elizabeth. Apart from several small poems, it was his lengthy epic - The Ocean's Love to Cynthia - that seemed to have impressed her most, and which hurt her when she discovered its author had been wooing her maid of honour while verbally endearing himself to her. In this poem, Raleigh is The Ocean and Elizabeth is Cynthia. It was begun about 1589, and continually added to during the following years, but the final stanzas were not written until after the author's fall from grace. Raleigh actually finished the poem in The Tower by attempting to recall the mood of the Queen's earlier favour to him.

These, essentially, are the historical facts that interlock very neatly with Sonnets 80 & 86, in which Shakespeare/de Vere responds to the Queen's recent affaire with Raleigh.

O how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat.
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building and of goodly pride.
Then if he thrive and I be cast away
The worst was this: my love was my decay.

Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast;
I was not sick of any fear from thence.
But when your countenance filled up his line,
Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine.

There are two observations to be made before pursuing, still further, the theme of Raleigh as the Rival Poet.

1) In Sonnet 86, above, Shakespeare/de Vere asks - ... did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse ... ? This is surely seizing upon, and hence making a new word from, Raleigh's confession, wherein he writes - (The Ocean's Love to Cynthia) "But my love's wounds, my fancy in the hearse." [Fancy being synonymous with imaginative thoughts.]

2) In 1594, George Chapman published Shadow of the Night. Chapman was the 'soul-loved' friend of Thomas Harriot, the mathematician and force majeur behind Raleigh's 'School of Atheism'. In his poem, Chapman eulogizes upon the merits of contemplation, study and knowledge. His Shadow of the Night was an undisguised attempt at gaining prestige with Raleigh and his group of thinkers. For this reason 'the proud full sail of his great(?) verse' is often cited as evidence of a growing rivalry between him and the copy-book version of Shakespeare, much favoured by conventionalists.

The object of Raleigh's poetry was undeniably Queen Elizabeth. Some indication of her identity still lingers in the words of Shakespeare/de Vere's sonnets. There, she is addressed as 'You'. This was a mark of deference in the 16th century, and only given formally to a person of superior rank. It compares with the more frequent use of 'Thou' that the author employs in other sonnets where the Queen is not the subject.

This distinction between the usage of two words for the second person singular still has its counterpart in some European languages. For example, German requires one person to address another as 'Sie' in preference to 'du', unless communication is with a child, a friend or a relative. French also distinguishes between 'vous' and 'tu' for similar reasons. It would have been perfectly proper for the Earl of Oxford to address the Queen as 'You', and to have spoken to others, of equal or less standing, as 'Thou'.

There is also a reference by the sonnet writer to his subject's fondness for praise. And it is clear that this also includes personal appearance, for it is emphasized with special regard for the eyes. Elizabeth I's biographer, Neville Williams, gives an account of this: She was, he says, "Praised by poets and musicians as Fair Oriana, as Cynthia the moon goddess, or as the immortal shepherdess of a moving pastorale, she lived out this mystical romance on a public stage."

Not surprisingly, the rival poet has much to praise concerning the Queen and her countenance. In one poem, it is the eyes, the hair and the hands from which his theme develops; in another it is the eyes that hold the hand of every heart; and in a third, it is her beauty by which the fair endure. Raleigh had discovered the Queen's weakness for a well turned phrase, especially when she was its principal subject.

Again, these historical facts fit neatly into Sonnets 83 & 85.

I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set;
I found - or thought I found - you did exceed
The barren tender of a poet's debt:
And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you yourself, being extant, well might show
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
This silence for my sin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory, being dumb;
For I impair not beauty, being mute,
When others would give life and bring a tomb.
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
Than both your poets can in praise devise.

My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise richly compiled
Reserve their character with golden quill
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,
And, like unlettered clerk, still cry 'Amen'
To every hymn that able spirit affords
In polished form of well-refined pen.
Hearing you praised I say, ''Tis so, 'tis true',
And to the most of praise add something more;
But that is in my thought, whose love to you,
Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.
Then others for the breath of words respect,
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

Attention is drawn to Sonnet 83, above, in which Shakespeare/de Vere addresses his subject as "you yourself". In a famous speech given by Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury in 1588, shortly before the arrival of Spain's great armada, the Queen several times referred to her person as - "I myself"; an unusual, if not unique expression at that time.

We turn now to the sonnet writer: a man who is profuse with apologies. He admits to having been silent while his rival played the scene. He protests that his silence was not born from neglect, and he strongly rebuts that opinion which thought him dead. There is also an acknowledgment in Sonnet 80 (above) regarding the help that he receives from his subject - ("Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat.")

Edward de Vere had once been a close companion of the Queen. Through her beneficence he had on several occasions received aid. In 1578 she passed over to him the Manor of Rysing. The gift followed his massive loss the year before when investment in Frobisher's voyage to the new world resulted in nil returns. In 1586 Elizabeth bestowed upon him an annuity of £1000 (£500 000 by today's reckoning) and with no accounting required. It was one of the largest grants she ever made. In 1592, de Vere married Elizabeth Trentham with the full approval of the Queen. Giving consent to a marriage with one of her Maids of Honour was unusual for Elizabeth, as several other noblemen discovered to their cost.

What then of de Vere's activities prior to his marriage? Following his first wife's death in June 1588, the parlous state of his finances was made worse by his father-in-law, Lord Burghley, commencing a law suit against him for the full payment of his marriage fee. De Vere responded by selling Fisher's Folly, a magnificent house off Bishopsgate. At about the same time he disposed of his other London property, Vere House. With no fixed abode in the city, he is next heard of at the lodging of Juliana Penn, the mother-in-law of Burghley's secretary. A complaint soon followed over the non-payment of his rent, and his whereabouts after that can only be deduced. Then, in 1592, he re-emerged in order to set up home at Stoke Newington with his new wife.

It was during this same period, 1590-92, when de Vere was absent from court life and out of the public eye, that Raleigh courted the Queen with his poetry, in particular, The Ocean's Love for Cynthia. Or, as Shakespeare/de Vere so eloquently commented - Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you.

It was also during this same period that Edmund Spenser wrote Teares of the Muses: a poem that contains the line - Our pleasant Willie, ah! is dead of late. Spenser's complaint was that one of the best writers of that time had lately become silent. Shakespeare/de Vere's line in Sonnet 86, written after Spenser's poem, acknowledged that 'death', but denied its cause. "Was it [the rival poet taught by spirits] that 'struck me dead'? he enquired.

In summary: Elizabeth I was fond of praise and appreciative of good literature. Consequently, she fully expected to be idolized in the poetry of those around her. Edward de Vere would not have been excluded from her wishes or her expectations. Following the death of his wife, de Vere retired from court and his whereabouts went unrecorded. During that same period Sir Walter Raleigh captured the Queen's interest. His poetry, addressed to her, was favourably received and his wealth and reputation prospered. But Raleigh secretly married another Elizabeth. When the Queen learned of this, she felt betrayed by the emptiness of Raleigh's praises, and she had him imprisoned in the Tower. During that same period, de Vere returned to London, and the Queen admonished him for his absence and his recent silence. De Vere apologized with several sonnets that explained this silence; gave unqualified praise to the Queen; and sarcastically referred to Raleigh with many 'watery' similes - for which Sir Wa'ter was already well-known - along with a dig at his pride and his necromancy. In short, history and literature have complemented each other to so fine a point, that it is unnecessary to suppose other than that Elizabeth was the cause of the so-called rivalry that sprang up between her two admirers; the more so, since it also occurred during the period when the Sonnets are acknowledged to have been written.

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