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,
Featur’d 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.
AG: Then…another good shot and that is ..what have we got next..here.. You know “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”? , (Sonnet) number 29? – How many have read that before? How many have not? We’d better do it then because that’s the giant classic When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes/I all alone beweep my outcast state” (in other words, he’s lonesome)” – “And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries” (‘bootless”? what? – futile – “Tis bootless to cry like this – “bootless cries”? – “deaf heaven” is funny too. Heaven is really deaf – “trouble the deaf skies with my bootless cry”) – And look upon myself, and curse my fate/Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,/Featur’d like him..”, (so, nice-looking, like the guy who was “prick’d out for women’s pleasure”), “like him with friends possess’d/Desiring this man’s art..” (well, probably, Ben Jonson) “..and that man’s scope” (I don’t know, probably Francis Bacon, maybe? – “scope” meaning extension of intelligence and extension of learning) –“Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope” (this is what I guess almost everybody thinks.. I mean, I go through this all the time – “Gee, I wish I had (Robert) Creeley’s intelligence or I wish I had (Jack) Kerouac)’s art , or I wish I had Harpo Marx’s friends – I wish I looked cute like Peter Orlovsky“
PO: “I wish I had (Bob) Dylan’s melodies”?
AG: Yeah, I wish I had.. Yeah I want.. “this man’s art or that man’s scope”. Oh boy! (Bob) Dylan! – I’m jealous of Dylan – “Desiring this man’s art or that man’s scope” – That’s a perfect example (but, any guitarist desires Dylan’s art and scope, I guess). So, Shakespeare also. Totally naked, actually) – “With what I most enjoy contented least” (I.. whoever he’s fucking, – or maybe he’s already a big success in the theater – or he’s bored or something) – “Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising“ (When I’ve come to a point where I’m despising myself with these thoughts), “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” (he’s really happy and though all his depression, his heart rises like a lark in the morning through the gates of heaven, with joy and energy).”For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings/That then I scorn to change my state with kings.” (because kings don’t get that much pleasure out of love)
So he’s apparently found someone who really answers the call of his heart. Shakespeare’s found someone that really turned him on so completely and responded to him, (went to bed with him, probably, you know), gave him everything, loved him (a young kid, apparently) and he’s the most handsome boy in England, according to Shakespeare, or handsomest in the world – (A) blonde, apparently – “often is his gold complexion dimm’d”) – gold-complexioned? like a “darling bud of May”? – like a really sweet sweet love there, someone who has really given himself completely. So much so, and so certain is he that he is in love with the boy that, (and he’s so delighted with the boy’s back-in-love with him), that he’s saying it’s so certain and so true that I can, now, I have the authority to write a sonnet saying this is going to last forever, my memory of (the) perfection of our exchange is going to now last forever – “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see/So long lives this, and this gives life to thee” –
So that’s really a sort of absolute love. That’s in Sonnet 18, at the end of Sonnet 18. All that about “the darling buds of May”, ”gold complexion”, “(your) eternal summer”. So he really is totally taken and totally committed to this love affair, and so completely responded to that he feels that, finally, he comes to a point of joy, when he looks back at all his despairs, and lack-love, and loneliness, and envy, and feelings of inadequacy, and total insecurity (that he isn’t a good-enough poet, that he doesn’t have any friends, (and) that he doesn’t have any reach of intellect, (and) that he doesn’t know any history – and (that) he doesn’t look so good either! – isn’t featured like him, doesn’t have any good friends, and that the things he can do, he doesn’t like really (“With what I most enjoy, contented least”) . And, finally, coming to really despising himself – Well, that’s exactly how everybody feels about themselves, is it not? – constantly? a hundred percent? – or half the time, people are in that mood about themselves (perhaps more than half, as far as I’m concerned, in my own case). It seems to be universal – self-despair – reflected really beautifully and perfectly laid out, you know, touching on the subjects where people do.. (obsess) – their looks, their friends, their work, their awareness and intellect, even what they do, all dust and ashes, even what they’re good at, dust and ashes. Then, however, there is this one thing, that somebody loves him for real and it redeems the whole of this for life. And then, “Like to the lark at break of day arising” – (singing, like a poet, singing – a “lark at the break of day” here – the poet, at the dawn of eternal recollection, historical recollection, that he’s..write.. that he’s written something that’s going to shine bright, So, “shine bright so long as men have breath (men have ) eyes to see – and breath…
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
[Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately twenty-four-and-three-quarter minutes in and concluding at approximately thirty-one-and-a-quarter minutes in]