SONNET 100 CROOKED KNIFE: Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long

Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make Time's spoils despised every where.
   Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
   So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.


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Mnemonic Image: CROOKED KNIFE

Memory Passage: The CROOKED KNIFE engraving the face (castrating Time, creating Eros)

Idiosyncratic Abstract: Imagine Marlon Brando's Stanley Kowalski as the Poet. Now the famous scene where Stanley is shouting up to Stella, but instead of Stella it's the Muse. The Poet is frustrated with the Muse here, but there is also a longing. The Poet calling out in the night, after months of silence. He calls the Muse out in each of the three quatrains: Steeellaaaa, O Steeelllllaaaa! Where are you, Muse? Return, Muse! Rise up, Muse! What is remarkable is the Poet is chastising the Muse. It's not his fault. It's the silent, forgetful, indolent / resty Muse who is to blame. Return now to the Poet as Stanley imago, all muscular animal energy, hollering for the Muse, like a Beast in the jungle calling to a mate, to do her job and restore the poetic fury the the Young Man once inspired; to grant the Young Man fame quickly before Time uses his Crooked Knife to engrave even more lines upon his face or, finally, his Scythe to cut down the Young Man's life.


Couplet Imagery:  The Reawakened Muse preventing the Tyrant Time from cutting wrinkles into the face of the Young Man and taking his life with the CROOKED KNIFE and SCYTHE.


 Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
   So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.


Something of a race here, a hurry up now, it's time. Sand falling through the hourglass. Beauty despoiled by graven lines. Time relentlessly wasting life - in every new instant. But the Muse has the power to get ahead of this wasting clock-machine by granting fame. Just barely. Fame is a dubious proposition these days. But as always with the sonnets, we are still reading them. I am memorizing them. So there's more truth than tongue in the couplet.

Note the impersonal my love - which could be applied to the Young Man but also Shakespeare's creative act of making the sonnet as an expression of love. Also discussion over the redundancy of scythe and crooked knife (hendiadys). It doesn't bother me. I see the scythe as the tool wherein Time / Death reaps down the life. Atropos. And the Crooked Knife as the instrument that carves the trenches / lines / wrinkles into the Young Man's face.

***

Perhaps appropriate to the biography behind this portion of the sonnet sequence, I took a long break in my memorization after sonnet 99. I was frankly exhausted by the drama. The necessary repetitions involved in memorization spun off their own dreary and pathetic plot lines in my imagination, blending and folding into my own life. And so, I stepped away for a while.

From everything. Modern life is endlessly distracting. It is all too easy to simply relax, go on about your day, and watch the years go by, lulling you into a pleasant complacency. Death-in-Life. The hope is that one day you will wake back up and resume those activities that once gave your life such meaning and purpose. The reality is all of those "projects" get pushed to the back of the desk, then into the drawer, then into a box and placed in the back of the closet. With each new small betrayal, you tell yourself, someday I'll get back to this. And on those lazy Saturdays when you have nothing to do and the old ghosts come calling, you remove the box, open it up, lay it all out before you and... nothing comes. You can't quite get back on the horse. The Muse has forgotten you.

The wonder of it is your job required you to write ad copy and promotional material. For these "base subjects", you've been on fire, witty, profound, investing the blurbs and ads with a clever depth and humor. You feel as if you've been honing the blades of your knifes and keeping all your tools clean. But for the real Work, those great redemptive projects that you once believed defined your life, the tools you have been using are suddenly inadequate and serve little purpose. You've become a master of the cigarette lighter and the nail clipper when you now need a flame thrower and a machete to clear a path into the dark heart of the jungle. Bereft, you cry out for the fury of the Muse to save you from your sad amusements.

Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

Some commentators (Paterson, Wilson) get a sense there was a break, a lapse of time between 99 and 100. I am with them. I imagine the Poet and the Young Man running into each other after a long absence - longer than any previous absence in the sequence (perhaps 3 years, cf. S104). Immediately, the Poet sees the Young Man has aged. This shocks the Poet. He has carried with him an idealized ageless image of the Young Man in his memory. And now he is faced with a man who is no longer as young... or as beautiful.

We've all had this experience of not seeing a loved one, a family member or an old friend, for several years. That naked lunch moment where the older, aged, wrinkled, bald or gray haired, overweight stranger is there before you as you attempt to reconcile it with the younger image you have held in your memory all of these years. Of course, we are all in this same boat merrily rowing down this despoiling river.

Consider Shakespeare here however: he has composed 99 exquisite sonnets to the beauty of the Young Man, promising him his eternal summer shall not fade (18), challenging Time to do his worst, my love shall in my verse ever live young (19), that ’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity he will still be praised in the eyes of all posterity / That wear this world out to the ending doom (55). It is the great theme and truth of the sonnets that they are a monument to the Young Man, a monument which still stands and is still o'er-read:

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
   You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen) 
   Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men. (81)

Then one day the Poet runs into the Young Man on the street. Two former lovers, whose lives were once so tangled together, erotically, psychologically, who drifted gradually apart, with no formal "break-up" or closure, each busily preoccupied with their own lives, now on the street face-to-face after a few years.

- What? Really? Has is been that long?
Laughing and lying now.
- My God, you haven't changed a bit!
- Yes, let's get together soon! Relive the old days!
Each walking away: the Poet soaking with dread, the Young Man oblivious.

Shakespeare considers his Monument: perhaps he should let it alone, ending it at 99. But to someone so numerologically attuned, to a poet fascinated by the psychological drama, there is no way he could leave it be. In many ways, this is where it gets the most interesting. If Shakespeare has committed himself to brutally and relentlessly exploring every facet of his love for the Young Man, then he must continue on into this new landscape where Time has darkened the dawn, leeched the color from the day, and folded death's lines into every smiling face.

Note: I'm of the belief that the overall sequence (1 - 154) is representative of what Shakespeare intended and the numerical placement of particular sonnets is vital. 99 is a particularly vivid instance of this. (See also 12 for clock, 60 for minutes, 49, 63 and 81 for climacterics, 66 for the number of the beast). The number 100 marks a new beginning.

The sonnets from 100 to 126 have a distinct tenor of the Poet having awakened from Love's Dream. That's not quite it. But there is a sober and sad morning-after wisdom within them. That moment so aptly expressed by Cyril Connolly:

It is closing time in the gardens of the West and from now on an artist will be judged only by the resonance of his solitude or the quality of his despair.

(On numerology. Here lie dragons: I haven't delved deep enough into Alastair Fowler's Triumphal Forms, but Michael Schoenfelt appears to endorse it, so I it may prove useful down the line. However, as much as I was fascinated by Hank Whittemore's The Monument, as much as I wanted his schema to work out, I couldn't buy that notion that the Shakespeare was The Earl of Oxford, the Young Man was the Earl of Southampton and Queen Elizabeth was the Dark Lady. And that Oxford and Queen Elizabeth are the biological parents of Southampton. After reading The Monument, I worked hard to shoehorn many of the sonnets into his theory - but something was always just a little off. The father-son relationship gets weird, to say the least.)

Hesiod and the Muse - Gustave Moreau

Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?

So it's been a while. The old fires have gone cold. The fire and passion for the Young Man have been adumbrated, shadowed. The Poet is calling upon the Muse. I see him there at his desk, pen in hand, a fresh bottle of ink, the page blank before him, listening like Rilke at Duino Castle:

"Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the hierarchies of angels?"

It's fascinating to consider that Mnemosyne, the mythic personification of memory, was the mother of the muses. Without memory, there are no muses. There is a lot that could be unpacked here in the sense that memory is a call to thinking, an inward gathering. But for the purposes of memorizing the sonnets, it's enough now, at this re-beginning, to see the Poet calling the Muse out for having forgotten for so long to speak of that which once gave it meaning.

Damion Hirst - Anatomy of an Angel - source

There is an almost Rilkean terror to the this Muse.

and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.

Shakespeare's second question in Q1 is critical and accusatory of the Muse, speaking of fury and darkened powers.

Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

The Muse's fury is worth remarking here. Booth notes furor poeticus is "a standard Renaissance term for poetic inspiration" and Kerrigan adds this "a creative rather than destructive anger." The term is derived from Plato in the Ion (quoted in Paterson):

Soc. For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed. And as the Corybantian revellers when they dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains: but when falling under the power of music and metre they are inspired and possessed; like Bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are under the influence of Dionysus but not when they are in their right mind. And the soul of the lyric poet does the same, as they themselves say; for they tell us that they bring songs from honeyed fountains, culling them out of the gardens and dells of the Muses; they, like the bees, winging their way from flower to flower. And this is true. For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles.  - Plato, Ion - Jowett trans.

Kerrigan remarks on the darkening in L4: "burning up (like a candle which loses itself to give light: compare S1 L6)" which is Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel. I like the connection from this S100 to S1.

Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

So in Q1, we have the Poet crying out for the Muse to remember, to bring forth into his memory, the original primal energies of the Young Man's beauty, to cease from wasting all the divine furor poeticus on worthless songs, and shining its illuminating creative radiance on unworthy subjects. The narrative for memorization flows easily:

Where are you
You forgot to speak
About that which gives you might
Spending your fury on worthless song
Darkening your power to give other subjects light

Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.

Now in Q2 the forgetful Muse is reiterated:

Return and redeem

The fury tamed to gentle numbers and the time that may have been wasted, idly spent, will be charged with the creative energies of the Muse to actually have been a period of fruitful meditation, a creative calm before another new storm of creativity. However, there is a sense, again, of the dying of the light. The presence of the Young Man is no longer enough to inspire the poem. The Poet is no longer so easily intoxicated - or perhaps the Young Man, having aged, is no longer as intoxicating. Booth notes Ephesians:

Take heed therefore that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

Redeeming the season: for the days are evil. Ephesians 5.15-16

Sing and esteem

The lyric poets from Ion when falling under the power of music and metre they are inspired and possessed. The ear of the poet longing to be possessed by the power of the Muse, to hear the sweet song of the gods and translate it, be the receiver of the signal, and express it through the written word.

Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make Time's spoils despised every where.

Q3 is helpfully alliterative with Q2:

Return forgetful Muse || Rise, resty Muse

The Poet again calling the Muse out as being indolent and lazy. In the shadow sonnet, Shakespeare is in command of the Muse, as a rider is of his horse. Get up you lazy beast! There is an almost inhuman audacity to his commanding of the Muse. An aggressive atmosphere of condescension. Ultimately, of course, this is self-criticism. The slack resolution in the couplet reflects this knowledge.

Here is the crux and occasion of the sonnet: since the Poet first saw the Young Man, Time has graven wrinkles into his beautiful face. Vendler is helpful:

Why, one wonders, has the Muse so long forgotten the friend? The only answer suggested by the sonnet is that the friend has begun to age; a wrinkle has been graven on his sweet face. Other, perhaps unwrinkled faces - base subjects - seem recently to have had a greater appeal to the speaker's Muse. If she is to return to her "worthy" subject, the young man, she will have to turn herself from a Muse of epideictic poetry in a Muse of satiric poetry, reproaching Time. The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. p 427

This turn illustrated in the line, If any, be a satire to decay,

I wonder what such a satire to decay would be, a satire powerful enough to make despised the effects of aging through the natural course of time? Perhaps something along the lines of the Picture of Dorian Gray?

 Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
   So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.

Vendler discusses the "alchemical transmutation" of the couplet:

The couplet proposes a species of alchemical transmutation of the elements of the young man, so that by the time the scythe and knife reach any part of him, it will already be all fame and no flesh. - The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. p 427

The bones of fame that endure while the flesh decays. 

***

In my memory practice, I often indulge in the surreal sexual-violent interpretations, which is always more memorable but often diminishes the beauty of the poem.

Here we have the aged Stanley Kowalski image of the Poet, a naked Marlon Brando, sitting in a chair holding his flaccid cock. He is worried its flaccidity and impotence with regard to that which once excited and stimulated it.

Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?

The Poet is trying to get an erection. He wants to masturbate, to have one of those glorious orgasms he once had in his youth. The Muse is his cock. It no longer seems to be stimulated by the images of the Young Man.

Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

The only images that work to get the Poet's cock hard are debased, cheapened images of beauty, slutty porn stars going through the motions. The once Ideal Beauty of the Young Man has become the mindless muscle pumped well-endowed porn star.

Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;

The Poet is sick of all the superficiality, the artificiality of watching pornography for days on end, stroking his cock to less and less effect. Meaningless days full of weak orgasms and grey boredom. He wants his cock to once again be excited by authentic human love, to find redemption from all the time so idly spent

Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.

He wants to experience the erotic again inside the language, to have words sung and whispered into his ear that will excite almost more than any physical stimulation. As it is, all language has been emptied of such meaning, words abused and used like an old piece of chewing gum.

Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;

The Poet strokes his cock, imploring it to Rise, look at the face of the Young Man. Remember the old days when looking into the Young Man's eyes would give an instant erection and often spontaneous orgasm. Look now at the Young Man's face. What is that has changed? Why does the face once so full of beauty and truth and the erotic no longer inspire the passion and fire?

If any, be a satire to decay,
And make Time's spoils despised every where.

And there it is: the Young Man is old. His face is creased and lined. Instead of being the embodiment of Eros, he is now the symbol of Thanatos. The Poet's cock rebels, refuses to get get hard, can find nothing erotic in the Young Man. To him, this Muse that once gave him such spiritual joy and physical pleasure is now a satire to decay. And all around him, all that was once beautiful and charged, over-charged, spilling over the brim with the erotic, has now been spoiled by Time.

   Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
   So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.

What remains? Only the sad and fading memory of the erotic. Stanley Kowalski sits in the dreary room, alone, holding his flaccid cock with one hand and writing the lines of this sonnet with the other. Only his empty words will endure, but his own joy and the beauty of the world are now forever fading. Time's scythe and crooked knife have effectively castrated him from his Muse.


And Heaven came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Earth spreading himself full upon her. Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall behind him. And not vainly did they fall from his hand; for all the bloody drops that gushed forth Earth received, and as the seasons moved round she bare the strong Erinyes and the great Giants with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands and the Nymphs whom they call Meliae all over the boundless earth. And so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden. First she drew near holy Cythera, and from there, afterwards, she came to sea-girt Cyprus, and came forth an awful and lovely goddess, and grass grew up about her beneath her shapely feet. Her gods and men call Aphrodite, and the foam-born goddess and rich-crowned Cytherea, because she grew amid the foam, and Cytherea because she reached Cythera, and Cyprogenes because she was born in billowy Cyprus, and Philommedes because sprang from the members. And with her went Eros, and comely Desire followed her at her birth at the first and as she went into the assembly of the gods. This honour she has from the beginning, and this is the portion allotted to her amongst men and undying gods, -- the whisperings of maidens and smiles and deceits with sweet delight and love and graciousness. - Hesiod, The Theogony

Castration of Uranus - source

Birth of Venus - Botticelli - source

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