Fortune’s Star

Small time, but in that small most greatly liv’d
This star of England: Fortune made his sword,
By which the world’s best garden he achiev’d,
And of it left his son imperial lord.

–Henry V, Act V, sc. 2, 205-8

Elizabeth inspired his words, with which the world’s finest verses were conceived, and this was his legacy to their imperial son.

The star appears in the de Vere coat of arms.

Hamlet’s story is the reign of Elizabeth

Fort.  Where is this sight?	308
Hor.        What is it ye would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.
Fort.  This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death!
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,	312
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?
First Amb.        The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late:	316
The cars are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfill’d,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Where should we have our thanks?	320
Hor.        Not from his mouth,
Had it the ability of life to thank you:
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,	324
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arriv’d, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world	328
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc’d cause,	332
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on the inventors’ heads; all this can I
Truly deliver.
Fort.        Let us haste to hear it,	336
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune;
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.	340
Hor.  Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more:
But let this same be presently perform’d,
Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more mischance	344
On plots and errors happen.
Fort.        Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,	348
To have prov’d most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers’ music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies: such a sight as this	352
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.  [A dead march. Exeunt, bearing off the bodies; after which a peal of ordnance is shot off.

Fortinbras here commands a performance of the story or the play we have just seen–we are being given theatrical imagery by the author to suggest that the new king of Denmark has asked to hear the play of Hamlet, Hamlet’s story that Horatio has sworn to the dying Hamlet he will tell the world.  The new King of England’s Coat of Arms appears on the frontispiece of the 1604 Quarto, which suggests that James had a personal interest in the play. De Vere’s cousin was the esteemed soldier Sir Horatio Vere.

Hamlet and de Vere were both imbued with the values of Castiglione’s The Courtier, de Vere’s father-in-law Lord Burghley has been viewed even by traditional scholars as a major inspiration for the character of Polonius.

And Shakespeare wrote Hamlet with his “dying voice.”

Eliza as Virgin Diana, the Moon Goddess

Fal.  Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night’s body be called thieves of the day’s beauty: let us be Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon; and let men say, we be men of good government, being governed as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

Prince.  Thou sayest well, and it holds well too; for the fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed as the sea is, by the moon… –Henry IV, Part 1, Act I, sc. 2  Rom. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,   Who is already sick and pale with grief,   That thou her maid art far more fair than she:    8 Be not her maid, since she is envious;   Her vestal livery is but sick and green,   And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. Rom.  Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear   That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops,—     Jul.  O! swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,   That monthly changes in her circled orb,  116 Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. –Romeo and Juliet, Act I, sc. 2

The forsaken poet looks elsewhere for romance as (Tudor ) green livery is to be worn by ‘none but fools.’

This sceptred isle

This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.

–Shakespeare, King John – Act 5, Scene 7

I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm…

–Elizabeth, at Tilbury, 1588

For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’
–Shakespeare, Henry V – Act 1, Scene 2

…you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you… by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people!

–Elizabeth, at Tilbury, 1588

Oxford and Antonio bound, the Northwest Passage

Shy.  Three thousand ducats, for three months, and Antonio bound… Portia: But let me hear the letter of your friend.

308

Bass.            Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low De Vere also wrote: …for the great liking Her Majesty hath to have the same passage discovered, as also for the special good favour I bear Master Frobisher, to offer unto you to be an adventurer therein for the sum of 1000 pounds or more, if you like to admit thereof; which sum or sums, upon your certificate of admittance, I will enter into bond, shall be paid for that use unto you upon Michaelmas day next coming. Requesting your answers therein, I bid you heartily farewell. From the Court, the 21st day of May 1578, your loving friend, Edward Oxenford “Before the voyage began Lord Oxford put 2,000 pounds more into the venture, buying the stock from Michael Lok (whose name was sometimes spelled Lock), this making the Earl, with 3,000 pounds at stake, for which he had given his bond, the largest investor in the enterprise. But alas for his hopes, the affair was a fiasco. The ore brought back was found, when tested, to be worthless; and Lok was attacked by the disappointed adventurers. On November 20, Frobisher and forty infuriated men descended upon him in his home, accusing him of being “a false accountant to the company, a cozener of my Lord of Oxford, no venturer at all in the voyages, a bankrupt knave.” In the end, convicted by the testimony of having known the ore was worthless, Lok was committed to the Fleet.” —This Star of England, Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn

The Traveller and Rosalind the Tudor Rose

Rosalind:

A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to

be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see

other men’s; then, to have seen much and to have

nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

Jaques:

Yes, I have gained my experience.

 

De Vere, who from May 1575 to March 1576 travelled in Italy with Venice as his base, wrote home in September 1575:

By reason of my great charges of travel…I have taken up of Mr Baptisto Nigroni 500 crowns, which I shall desire your Lordship to see there repaid, hoping by this time my money which is made of the sale of my land is all come in. 

Rosalind/Eliza had given de Vere the Queen’s license to travel.

Banished by Eliza as Sylvia

Val.  And why not death rather than living torment?
To die is to be banish’d from myself;	164
And Silvia is myself: banish’d from her
Is self from self,—a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?	168
Unless it be to think that she is by
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;	172
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon.
She is my essence; and I leave to be,
If I be not by her fair influence	176
Foster’d, illumin’d, cherish’d, kept alive.  De Vere was banished from Eliza’s presence for his affair with Anne Vavasour.  In the play we have two sides of his personality, two gentlemen but one Vere: The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Eliza as Portia

Il Schifanoya’s description of the coronation of Elizabeth says:

The orb was carried by the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Marshal, and in advance were knights clad in the ducal fashion, carrying the three crowns, they being the King-at-arms; they bore the three sceptres, with their crowns of iron, of silver, and of gold on their heads, and in their hands three naked swords, signifying the three titles of England, France, and Ireland.

Portia was to be won by the man who chose the lead casket, because that symbolized the English crown.

—This Star of England, Dorothy & Charlton Ogburn

Elizabeth as Cleopatra

The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burn’d on the water; the poop was beaten gold,	224
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,	228
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description; she did lie
In her pavilion,—cloth-of-gold of tissue,—
O’er-picturing that Venus where we see	232
The fancy outwork nature; on each side her
Stood pretty-dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,	236
And what they undid did. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale   Her infinite variety; other women cloy  272 The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry   Where most she satisfies; for vilest things   Become themselves in her, that the holy priests   Bless her when she is riggish.

 

 

Early Shakespearean Sonnet

Who taught thee first to sigh, alas, my heart ?
Who taught thy tongue the woeful words of plaint ?
Who filled your eyes with tears of bitter smart ?
Who gave thee grief and made thy joys to faint ?
Who first did paint with colors pale thy face ?
Who first did break thy sleeps of quiet rest?
Above the rest in court who gave thee grace ?
Who made thee strive in honour to be best ?
In constant truth to bide so firm and sure,
To scorn the world regarding but thy friends ?
With patient mind each passion to endure,
In one desire to settle to the end ?
  Love then thy choice wherein such choice thou bind,
  As nought but death may ever change thy mind.

Who else but the Queen could give him “grace above the rest in court”?