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- Only here and in another early play—*Romeo and Juliet*—is the imagery of sun-worship brought by Shakespeare into the same relief.¹
Another conceit which Shakespeare develops persistently, in almost identical language, in both the sonnets and *Love’s Labour’s Lost*, is that the eye is the sole source of love, the exclusive home of beauty, the creator, too, of strange delusions in the minds of lovers.²
¹ Cf. *Romeo and Juliet*, l. i. 124–5:
*the worshiped sun*
Peer’d forth the golden window of the east.
² Cf. *Sonnet* xiv. 9:
*But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive.*
L. L. L. iv. 3. 350:
*From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive, &c.*
*Sonnet* xvii. 5–6:
*If I could write the beauty of your eyes*
*And in fresh numbers number all your graces.*
L. L. L. iv. 3. 322–3:
*Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes*
*Of beauty’s tutors have enriched you with.*
Cf. again *Sonnet* cxiv. 2–7 with L. L. L. v. 2. 770–5. For a curious parallel use of the law terms ‘several’ and ‘common’ see *Sonnet* cxxxvii. 9, 10, and L. L. L. ii. 1. 223.
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# SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE
Furthermore, the taunts which Biron’s friends address to him on the black or dark complexion of his lady love, Rosaline, are in phrase and temper at one with Shakespeare’s addresses to his ‘dark lady’ in the sonnets. In the comedy and in the poems Shakespeare plays precisely the same fantastic variations on the conventional controversy of Renaissance lyrists, whether a black complexion be a sign of virtue or of vice.
‘Hardly briefer is the list of similarities of phrase and image offered by Shakespeare’s earliest romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet. The following four examples are representative of many more:—
Son. xxv. 5–6:
their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun’s eye.
Rom. and Jul. i. 1. 157–8:
[bud] can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Son. xcviii. 2–3:
When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.
Rom. and Jul. i. 2. 26–7:
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well-apparel’d April . . .
Son. cxxxvi. 8–9:
Among a number one is reckon’d none:
Then in the number let me pass untold.
Rom. and Jul. i. 2. 32–3:
Which on more view of many, mine being one
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
Son. lxxxiv. 5–6:
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory.
Rom. and Jul. i. 3. 70–1:
That book in many eyes doth share the glory
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story.
One of the most perfect utterances of the sonnets (XXXIII. 4), the description of the glorious morning sun,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy,
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SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE
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