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On the Opening Lines of Shakespeare's 151
Sonnet (18+)
Lev Verkhovsky
This well-known sonnet belongs to the group of those (numbered 127-152)
that tell about the author's relationship with the Dark Lady. Several of them
reflect the theme of carnal love, and it is in this poem that it is most directly
spoken of. In our opinion, usually it is not understood quite correctly,
which prompted us to turn to this somewhat delicate topic. In this note, we
will discuss only its first two lines -- an analysis of the entire sonnet is in my
article (in Russian) http://www.w-shakespeare.ru/library/shekspir-lica-i-
maski10.html
Note that in the sonnet the word love occurs five times and the word
conscience three times (they are in bold):
Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason:
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason;
But rising at thy name doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her «love» for whose dear love I rise and fall.
There was a general rule that sonnetists adhered to: if possible, do not use
the same word in different places in the same meaning (especially if they
are located close to each other). In the small space of the sonnet, it was
necessary to collide different, sometimes very distant meanings of the
word. Apparently, on this principle -- for the words love and conscience --
the 151st sonnet is built.
So, it is needed to represent the whole range of acceptable meanings of
words, and also to be able to choose the correct one from them in each
specific case. Philologists continue to study Shakespeare's language, and we
will take advantage of their achievements, including little-known ones.
Let's start with the word love, which is the most common in sonnets, for
example, in the 40th it is repeated ten times! Often love (or close
expressions sweet boy, sweet self) appears in addresses, and, in our
opinion, in very many cases they serve as the author's appeal to himself --
to his ideal "I", his soul, his genius. Of course, this word is also used by
Shakespeare to express the actual feeling of love -- in all its variety of
manifestations.
Now let's move on to the word conscience, which is not found in any other
Shakespearean sonnet. Usually it is interpreted as (basic meaning) «the
part of you that judges how moral are your own actions». Then there is also
"internal reflection", "remorse", "consciousness", "knowledge", "reason",
"wisdom"… It occurs about 120 times in Shakespeare's plays; let's
remember the maxim of Hamlet: "Thus conscience does make cowards of
us all" (III-I).
But conscience in that era also had completely different associations and
connotations, also sometimes used by the Bard, and without considering
which, in our opinion, it is impossible to correctly understand sonnet 151.
They belong to a specific area of obscene (from our present point of view)
puns, which in the theater of that time, apparently together with the
corresponding gestures, were a common occurrence -- they were
understood and appreciated by the public.
So, it would seem, quite harmless word conscience. But, firstly, there is the
Latin expression penis erectus non habet conscientiam (in English
standing prick has no conscience). Secondly, the prefix con in different
words was often played up as consonant with the word cunt (in English, the
female genital organ is rude, indecent), that is, cunt-science.
Further, one can see a certain similarity between conscience (the main
meaning) and a glove -- both of them are something extensible (recall the
expression "rubber conscience"). Shakespeare in his plays sometimes
correlates conscience with a suede glove (glove made of cheveril), linking
these concepts with the words fit, stretch, capacity. In certain contexts,
such expressions look like allusions to the vagina; the English Shakespeare
scholar Thomas Merriam studied this issue in detail and gave many
examples -- see Thomas Merriam The Old Lady, or All is Not True
Therefore, conscience could be a euphemism expressing female genitalia,
sexual intercourse, carnal love.
Let`s return to sonnet 151, for the analysis of the beginning of which we
already have the necessary information. Its first line:
`Love is too young to know what conscience is,`
Here love, in our opinion, serves as a designation of himself (his spiritual
"I"), that is, the author says: "I'm too young." The word conscience, we
believe, has the meaning that was overlooked -- carnal love; after all, if we
understand him traditionally, then it is not clear why he, already an adult,
although a very young man, does not know what it is. Below in the sonnet,
male flesh appears, so it seems logical that there is a hint of female flesh at
its beginning.
The second line: `Yet who knows not conscience is born
of love?`
Even Plato (in the dialogue "Feast") distinguished between heavenly eros
and vulgar eros, believing that only the first of them, that is, spiritual love
leads to conscience. In the Renaissance, the philosophy of love, the
relationship between the spiritual and the carnal, was widely developed
both in poetry and in treatises. In the 15th century, the founder of the
Platonic Academy in Florence, Marsilio Ficino (he translated Plato into
Latin and wrote the famous "Commentary on Plato's Feast") also
considered the opposition of Amor divine - Amor naturalis (according to
him, "the desire for intercourse and love are not similar, but opposite
concepts.")
It is clear that here conscience is used by the Bard in its usual sense, and
love -- as spiritual.
As you can see, the words love and conscience in the first and second lines
have completely different meanings in them, which is what was required --
otherwise it would not be interesting.
Resume: we understand the beginning of sonnet 151 as follows:
I AM TOO YOUNG TO KNOW WHAT CARNAL LOVE IS,
BUT WHO DOESN'T KNOW THAT CONSCIENCE IS BORN FROM
SPIRITUAL LOVE?