shakespeare and mlc

[siren_tears]

I don't know how many of you are fans of shakespeare but I thought that I would throw this out there for all to read. I found it very interesting.

Sonnet 119
What potions have I drunk of Siren tears
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw my self to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O benefit of ill, now I find true
That better is, by evil still made better.
And ruined love when it is built anew
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
So I return rebuked to my content,
And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.
William Shakespeare

This interpretation is from a website www.shakespeares-sonnets.com

The poet continues his defence of past conduct. In looking back he perceives himself to have been suffering from a serious infatuation, which like a disease and maddening fever forced him to pursue an unattainable goal, as the alchemist pursues an unattainable dream of converting all base matter to gold.

The mixture of images, which piles together references to medicine, alchemy, Odyssean travels, fevers, madness, shooting stars, heresy, hell, damnation, ruination and rebuilding, gives the impression of a chaos of feeling which has overwhelmed the speaker. He pursued a chimera and discovered that it led him nowhere. Returning to his beloved he sees that the object of his love is, if anything, more beautiful and true than it was before he left, and he puzzles over the paradox that his evil conduct has rewarded him with good.



Just a thought.

[MicheleTW]

What a thought-provoking post. I just finished "Will in the World" by Stephen Greenblatt. In it, Greenblatt has an excellent discussion of King Lear's MLC. Fascinating.

I have also found insight regarding my own conduct in Portia's "The quality of mercy" speech from The Merchant of Venice:

PORTIA:
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

My therapist said Shakespeare was the first published psychologist, and I think she's right!

Thanks,
MicheleTW

[jaybee]

Hi

What about Sonnet 30:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.


Is this what someone waking up from the mlc fog will say to themselves?

J x

[jaybee]

Two more: the first, the ow; the second, hopefully the spouse, remembered when the fog lifts.

Sonnet 129 Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell


William Shakespeare Sonnet 29

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


J xx

[siren_tears]

jaybee, it would seem that Shakespeare also went through a MLC. He atleast gives hope in that at the end he realized that the love he left was much better than he remembered and much better than all the things he tried to replace it with. We can all hopefully get some encouragement from this. If you find any other sonnets that talk about this please add them to the list.
ST

[jaybee]

Hi Siren

Yes, but didn't he also leave his wife in Stratford while he lived in London, and when he died, left her only his "second best bed?"

But I agree with Michele's therapist, he was the first psychologist and had such a depth of understanding of people.

Thanks for starting this thread. Maybe other people can think of other poets/writers stuff which is relevant too.

Take Care

J xx

[desdamona]

The following are sonnets 57 and 58 and describe me to a tee. I guess Willy boy needed to practice getting a life too.

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time* at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

That god forbid that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!
O, let me suffer, being at your beck,
The imprison'd absence of your liberty;*
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each cheque,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

[jaybee]

Siren and everyone

Actually. the following is my long time favourite, describes my love for h to a tee and if mlc isn't a tempest, I don't know what is!

Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved

J xxx

[siren_tears]

As you can see this is my first thread as Siren_Tears. I had posted previously as Somewhere_In_The_Middle. Boy was I naive back then. I am bumping this thread up in hope that maybe it will help someone else. I must admit that I NEVER dreamed back then that I would still be doing this 3 years later, with still no real sign of the end in sight.

So hopefully Shakespeare's sonnets will help some other broken soul like they helped me.

ST

[fig]

Shakespeare was actually an adulterer...(sigh) but her sure can write beautiful stuff. these are some of my favs by Wild Bill...my studens have to memorize a sonnet and present it to class. (insert evil grin) and then give us their interpretation!!!! If you are looking for love poems no one beats Pablo Neruda and Kahil Gibrain. For my wedding I researched love sayings and printed them off on fancy paper and put them in silver frames on all the reception tables. It was beautiful.

31

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
And there reigns love, and all love's loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things removed that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give:
That due of many now is thine alone.
Their images I loved I view in thee,
And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.

36

Let me confess that we two must be twain
Although our undivided loves are one;
So shall those blots that do with me remain
Without thy help by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite
Which, though it alter not love's sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me
Unless thou take that honour from thy name.
But do not so. I love thee in such sort
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report

39

O, how thy worth with manners may I sing
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring,
And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give
That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone.
O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,
And that thou teachest how to make one twain
By praising him here who doth hence remain!

130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red.
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.