Shakespeare's Dark Lady and a Little Botox

 As I mentioned in my last post, Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets. He addressed sonnets 1-126 to a young man, an idealized youth who has been labeled the “fair youth,” the object of the poet’s love. There have been many thoughts as to his identity, since the 1609 dedication to the sonnets is to a Mr. W. H., which has led to much speculation and research, but the real importance of the sonnets lay in the poems’ extraordinary linguistic play and intriguing themes. Sonnets 127-152 revolve around the “Dark Lady.” Unlike the idealized concepts of the “fair youth,” these sonnets about the Dark Lady, whose identity also remains a mystery, express a different dynamic, exploring such themes as genuine and false beauty, lust, infidelity, sexual jealousy and frustration. Sonnet 127 initiates this group and discusses the concept of female beauty in a nontraditional manner:

           Sonnet 127

In old days, black was not counted fair,
Or, if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame.
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Sland'ring creation with false esteem.
  Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
  That every tongue says beauty should look so.

In the first three lines of this sonnet, the speaker suggests that the conventional Elizabethan standard of female beauty, fair skin and light hair, has changed. The dark complexion and dark eyes of his mistress are “beauty’s successive heir,” to the fair complexion and light blue eyes that once embodied ideal beauty. However, in the fourth line of quatrain 1 appears something that disturbs the speaker. As if changing the subject, the speaker begins to describe how beauty in general is being “slandered with a bastard shame,” being defamed by a different, illegitimate form of beauty. That illegitimate beauty is produced by women who use cosmetics, since even a “foul” woman can transform herself into an image of beauty with the application of the right make-up.

Now focused on this second subject, the speaker in quatrain 2, draws an image of women using cosmetics to beautify their faces: “For since each hand hath put on nature’s power, / Fairing the foul with art’s false borrowed face”. The speaker’s words are cutting. Foul looking women can counterfeit their appearance with false art. Beauty has lost its sacred sanctuary, its “holy bower,” since it may be pilfered from nature easily by any woman applying cosmetics. As a result, the ideal sanctity of beauty itself is “profaned, if not lives in disgrace.”

Quatrain 3 unites the two subjects, black as the new standard of beauty and the “evil” of using cosmetics to transform one’s face. His mistress’ eyes are beautiful since they “are raven black” but their darkness suggests sadness since they “seem” to mourn those who “not born fair.” Yet, those who apply cosmetics to lighten their skin, falsify their appearance and artificially beautify their faces, succeeding in a deceit: “not born fair no beauty lack.” In the end, the speaker’s mistress commands true admiration for her natural appearance. In effect, according to the speaker, those who cosmetically alter their looks are “sland’ring creation with false esteem.”

An Additional note about Shakespeare’s “interest” in true, female beauty and facial appearance in general:

In Shakespeare’s play, a comedy, (1598) Love’s Labor’s Lost, the King of Navarre and three of his lords agree to avoid any contact with women, eat only once a day, sleep only three hours a night, so they can devote themselves to a three-year period of uninterrupted, intense study. Of course, this scheme goes awry when the Princess of France and her attending ladies visit the King’s court. All of the men fall in love with the ladies and one of the King’s lords, Berowne, falls in love with the Princess’ lady Rosaline, who happens to have black hair and dark eyes. When Berowne’s passion is revealed to the King, a comic scene ensues in which the King and Berowne argue over Rosaline’s beauty. The similarity between Berowne’s words and Sonnet 127 is interesting and highlights the issue of true versus false beauty.” Both the sonnet and the play may have been composed in the same decade, during the 1590’s. Yet, as we know, their official publications come later.

Act 4, 3, 267-285
KING 
 By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.
BEROWNE 
Is ebony like her? O word divine!
 A wife of such wood were felicity.
O, who can give an oath? Where is a book,
 That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack
If that she learn not of her eye to look?
 No face is fair that is not full so black.
KING 
O, paradox! Black is the badge of hell,
 The hue of dungeons and the school of night,
And beauty’s crest becomes the heavens well.
BEROWNE 
 Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
O, if in black my lady’s brows be decked,
 It mourns that painting and usurping hair
Should ravish doters with a false aspect:
 And therefore is she born to make black fair.
Her favor turns the fashion of the days,
 For native blood is counted painting now.
And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise,
 Paints itself black to imitate her brow. 

The parallels between the sonnet and Berowne’s speech compel comparison. As we read one, the words of the other echo in our ears. When the King states “By heaven, thy love is as black as ebony!” Berowne replies:

O, who can give an oath? Where is a book?
That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack
If that she learn not of her eye to look?
No face is fair that is not full so black.

To counter the King’s argument, Berowne asserts that women in general need to learn from Rosaline’s dark appearance the true image of beauty. In the sonnet, we also read the words “beauty lack,” though there the speaker is criticizing women’s use of cosmetics to lighten their naturally dark complexion. In the play, when the King contradicts Berowne, saying:

O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,
The hue of dungeons and the school of night;
And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. 

Berowne cleverly retorts:

Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
O, if in black my lady’s brows be decked,
It mourns that painting and usurping hair
Should ravish doters with a false aspect:
And therefore is she born to make black fair.

Berowne posits that the devil make himself resemble “spirits of light,” and if Rosaline’s eyebrows were painted black instead of naturally black, she would deceive with a false appearance, in a similar manner the way the “foul” women attempt to do in Sonnet 127 when they, “Fairing the foul with art’s false borrowed face.” The logic of Berowne’s argument in the play corresponds in obvious ways to what the speaker offers in Sonnet 127, and his submission to the implacable Rosaline is delightfully entertaining.

A woman’s facial appearance was a popular topic in Elizabethan England. (See Hamlet, III, 1) And, for that matter, a young man’s. (See Sonnet 20) Today, women and men expend more time and money over their appearance than Shakespeare’s contemporaries did. How many use cosmetics and that magical elixir Botox to arrest the effect of the passing years? Is Hamlet right when he says,

I have heard of your paintings too, well
enough. God hath given you one face, and you
make yourselves another.

It is fascinating to witness how astutely Shakespeare renders in his plays and poems the ways we think and behave. Although reading him requires much more effort and time than many contemporary novels, plays and poems, the reward we receive always grows the more we continue to enjoy the brilliance of his works.