See the Introduction to this presentation of early poems by Edward de Vere. Click here to go to the next poem or the previous poem in the series. All the poems, and a printable pdf version of the entire presentation, may also be accessed from the Introduction. See also Note on Sources, Titles, and Presentation of Parallels, Key to Abbreviations, and Bibliography of Works Cited.
Poem No. 11: “When Wert Thou Born, Desire?”
1 When wert thou born, desire?
2 In pomp and prime of May.
3 By whom, sweet boy, wert thou begot?
4 By good conceit, men say.
5 Tell me, who was thy nurse?
6 Fresh youth in sugared joy.
7 What was thy meat and daily food?
8 Sad sighs with great annoy.
9 What hadst thou then to drink?
10 Unfeigned lovers’ tears.
11 What cradle wert thou rocked in?
12 In hope devoid of fears.
13 What brought thee then asleep?
14 Sweet speech, that liked me best.
15 And where is now thy dwelling-place?
16 In gentle hearts I rest.
17 Doth company displease?
18 It doth in many a one.
19 Where would desire then choose to be?
20 He likes to muse alone.
21 What feedeth most your sight?
22 To gaze on favour still.
23 What findest thou most to be thy foe?
24 Disdain of my goodwill.
25 Will ever age or death
26 Bring thee unto decay?
27 No, no, desire both lives and dies
28 Ten thousand times a day.
Textual sources: Various manuscripts, including Harleian MS 7392(2) (British Library) and Rawlinson MS 85 (Bodleian Library, Oxford University). No. 11 was published in Britain’s Bower of Delights (1591), but dates no later than 1582, when (like Nos. 10 and 12) it was quoted in Brian Melbancke’s Philotimus. See Hannah (142-43); Grosart (407-09); Looney (1921, 10-11, Miller ed. 1975, 1: 568-69); May (#11) (1980, 33, 73-75, 118-19; 1991, 277-78).
No. 11 was based on an Italian poem by Panfilo Sassi, also adapted by other poets including Thomas Watson. Oxford’s facility with Italian is shown by May’s comment (1980, 73-74): “Oxford must have based No. 11 on Sassi’s original, for only his version among the translations mentions Sassi’s thousand (for Oxford, ten thousand) times a day that Desire dies and revives, and both describe Love dwelling in gentle hearts (‘gentil core’).”
The first four lines and last four lines in the Grosart and Looney editions of No. 11 were omitted by May (being based on MS sources he deemed “too late and corrupt to lend any [Oxfordian] authenticity to [them],” 1980, 74), and they are thus omitted here as well, following the conservative approach explained in the Introduction (Selection of Poems) and Note on Sources, Titles, and Presentation of Parallels.
Structure: Twenty-eight lines of iambic trimeter in question-response form. In lines 1-24, the responses appear every second line and rhyme in pairs (the questions do not rhyme). The final question (lines 25-26) rhymes with the final response (lines 27-28).
Looney’s title: “Fond Desire”
Past commentaries on parallels: Lee (1910, 227); Ogburn (587-88); Sobran (250-51); Goldstein (2016, 50-51; 2017, 23). We are very pleased, as noted, to credit Sir Sidney Lee, perhaps the leading Shakespeare biographer and scholar of the late 19th and early 20th centuries — and a ferociously orthodox Stratfordian — with the earliest known commentary on any of the parallels between these early de Vere poems and the works of Shakespeare (see “additional parallel” below to lines 3-4).
Clarification of the text:
(27-28) In the Harleian MS source (see May 1991, 278), these lines appear in ALL CAPITALS.
Strongest parallels to No. 11:
(9-10) What had’st thou then to drink? Unfeigned lovers’ tears
‘drink my tears’ (John, 4.1.62); ‘Ye see I drink the water of my eye’ (3 Hen. VI, 5.4.75); ‘Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine’ (Titus, 3.1.140); cf. ‘I come in kindness and unfeigned love’ (Shrew, 4.2.32); ‘as lovers they do feign’ (As You, 3.3.22); ‘Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears’ (Venus, 425).
(21-22) What feedeth most your sight? To gaze on favour still
‘with gazing fed’ (Merch., 3.2.68); ‘I have fed mine eyes on thee’ (Troil., 4.5.231); ‘Her eye must be fed’ (Oth., 2.1.225); ‘That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?’ (All’s Well, 1.1.221); ‘I feed Most hungerly on your sight’ (Timon, 1.1.252); cf. ‘all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes’ (LLL, 2.1.245); ‘youth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way’ (Cor., 1.3.6-7).
See also No. 18.10 (to feed each gazing eye), and compare these lines in Venus and Adonis:
But, when his glutton eye so full hath fed
(399)
Alas, he naught esteems that face of thine,
To which Love’s eyes pay tributary gazes
(631-32)
Fold in the object that did feed her sight
(822)
He fed them with his sight [i.e., his beauty], they him with berries
(1104)
Additional parallels to No. 11:
(3-4) By whom, sweet boy [i.e., desire], wert thou begot? By good conceit, men say
‘Tell me where is fancy [i.e., love, infatuation, or desire] bred, Or in the heart, or in the head?’ (Merch., 3.2.63-64); cf. ‘sweet boy’ (Venus, 155, 583, 613); ‘sweet boy’ (Sonnets, 108.5).
As Goldstein noted (2016, 50-51; 2017, 23), no less an orthodox Shakespeare scholar than Sir Sidney Lee pointed out this parallel with The Merchant of Venice — before de Vere was proposed (by Looney in 1920) as the true “Shakespeare,” and thus before he became a threat to be disparaged by devout Stratfordians like Lee.
Oxfordians will note the “coincidence” that de Vere translated and adapted No. 11 from an Italian poem (no later than 1582), and then (as “Shakespeare”) echoed it in a play set in the Italian city (Venice) where he spent the better part of a year in 1575–76 (see Anderson 80-105).
Lee observed in 1910 that this passage in No. 11, as compared to the lines in Merchant, “is in a kindred key” (227). (“A little more than kin,” Oxfordians might say. Hamlet, 1.2.65.) See also Lee’s praise for de Vere around the turn of the 20th century (quoted in Goldstein 2016, 47), as mentioned in the Introduction (Oxford’s Early Poetry in Elizabethan Literary History).
Lee added, seemingly by way of excusing this parallel (227): “There are indeed few lyrical topics to which the French and English writers failed to apply on some occasion or other much the same language.” No doubt, but de Vere and “Shakespeare” use the same words and concepts far more often than “on some occasion or other,” and frequently do so in strikingly similar linguistic or narrative contexts.
That this parallel caught Lee’s attention, and prompted his inclusion of it as a telling example, is very significant as yet one more piece of the network of intertextuality explored here — of which Lee was as innocent as a cherub.
(6) Fresh youth
‘whose youth and freshness wrinkles Apollo’s’ (Troil., 2.2.78).
(8) Sad sighs
‘Sad sighs, deep groans’ (Two Gent., 3.1.232).
(11) What cradle wert thou rocked in?
‘And rock his brains In cradle of the rude’ (1 Hen. IV, 3.1.19); ‘If drink rock not his cradle’ (Oth., 4.4.28).
(25-26) Will ever age or death Bring thee unto decay?
‘Death, desolation, ruin, and decay’ (Rich. III, 4.4.409); ‘folly, age, and cold decay’ (Sonnets, 11.6).
Continue to Poem No. 12, return to Poem No. 10, or return to the Introduction.
[published June 22, 2018, updated 2021]
