HOw like a Winter hath my abſence beene From thee,
the pleaſure of the fleeting yeare?
What freezings haue I felt, what darke daies ſeene?
What old Decembers bareneſſe euery where?
And yet this time remou’d was ſommers time,
The teeming Autumne big with ritch increaſe,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widdowed wombes after their Lords deceaſe:
Yet this aboundant iſſue ſeem’d to me,
But hope of Orphans, and vn-fathered fruite,
For Sommer and his pleaſures waite on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute.
Or if they ſing, tis with ſo dull a cheere,
That leaues looke pale, dreading the Winters neere.
Sonnet 97 is the first of three sonnets using an extended seasonal metaphor, whose principal referent is the poet’s inner state. Its initial distancing (“my absence . . / From thee”) suggests the poet is away and only later does it become clear that it is the youth (“And thou away”). His separation from the youth is “like a Winter,” while the youth is acclaimed, “the pleasure of the fleeting yeare,” either he is that in which the quickly- passing year takes pleasure or that which the quickly-passing year proves as pleasure.
The “freezings” the poet has suffered are the coldnesses of absence; the “dark daies” he has seen are moments of depression and melancholy. He everywhere sees about him the bareness (“barenesse” with a hint of ‘barrenness’) of “old Decembers,” “old,” because December at the year’s end is normally presented as old, but also most ‘familiar’ like the ‘old man.’ The shifts between the seasons now become complex, revolving around a double “time:” “this time remou’d” is the time of separation, which is like winter; yet it is also “sommers time,” not so much the time possessed by summer, but the time when summer is on the verge of giving birth as in her “tyme came’ (Luke 1.57; BB) or when Hermione was “something before her time, deliuer’d” (WT 2.2.25).
Summer carries in her womb that which is conceived in the spring and given birth to as prolific harvest in the autumn (“teeming Autumne”). The floating modifier, “big with ritch increase,” either looks back to summer which is heavily pregnant (“big”) or to autumn which is large with ample yeild. 1 Summer is seen as “Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime:” “wanton,” because conceived in exuberant playing, while “burthen” (‘burden’ with a hint of ‘birthin’’) is that which is carried in summer’s womb.
The foetus was commonly termed the “burthen” (compare (Jn. 3.1.89-90, “let wiues with childe / Pray that their burthens may not fall this day,” or La Primaudaye in his Academie, who describes “the veines whereby the burthen is nourished . . may bee compared vnto plants”). 2 The fruit was sired by “prime” or spring. But spring has passed on; the sire is now dead, so that what is born is born after its sire’s death (“Like widdowed wombes after their Lords decease”).
It is a posthumous birth, of the womb of a widowed summer. To the poet the “aboundant issue” of this “time remou’d,” either its emotional outcome or its poetic outlay, seemed only that for which an orphan might hope (“hope of Orphans”) or “fruite” (both seasonal and foetal as in “fruite of thy wombe”), whose begetter had already passed on (“vn-fathered fruite”). (An orphan in 16th century England wasn’t necessarily a child, both of whose parents had died, but was generally one without a father – widows and orphans were linked.)
Summer and its delights (“his pleasures”) have abandoned the poet and now attend on or to the absent youth (“waite on thee”). Where earlier the youth was “the pleasure of the fleeting yeare,” now summer and that which it has borne in pleasure, are absent to the poet who remains issueless and without song (“the very birds are mute”). A little comfort, however, is offered in the couplet: if a voice were to ensue (“Or if they sing”), then it would be with so gloomy a countenance (“cheere”), that “leaues looke pale,” not sanguine, nearly lifeless and drained of colour, because of fear (“dreading the Winters neere”).
The poet’s paucity of poetic output allows an allusion in the “pale” leaves to sheets of paper as yet scarcely written upon.
97.1. Compare Sonnet 1.1, “Of fairest creatures we desire increase.”
97.2. de la Primaudaye, Academie (1594) 397. FRom you haue I beene abſent in the ſpring, When proud pide Aprill (dreſt in all his trim) Hath put a ſpirit of youth in euery thing: That heauie Saturne laught and leapt with him. Yet nor the laies of birds, nor the ſweet ſmell Of different flowers in odor and in hew, Could make me any ſummers ſtory tell: Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor did I wonder at the Lillies white, Nor praiſe the deepe vermillion in the Roſe, They weare but ſweet, but figures of delight: Drawne after you, you patterne of all thoſe. Yet ſeem’d it Winter ſtill, and you away, As with your ſhaddow I with theſe did play. Sonnet 98 continues the theme of seasonal absence found in Sonnet 97, casting April as a jester or fool, who manages to make the wintry spirit cavort with him; “proud pide Aprill” is the spring month arrayed in all its finery (“drest in all his trim”) like a fool attired in his parti-coloured (“pide”) dress. (The pied coat of the fool was standard, compare Tourneur, The worldes Folly, “a Foole in a pied coat.”) 1 Spring has rejuvenated all things, so that “heauie Saturne laught and leapt with him.” Astrologically the god, Saturn, was classified as “heauy” and was associated with melancholy, the opposite of sanguine. He was identified with December through the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which began on the December solstice and continued for a week (December 17-23), during which time the roles of master and slave were reversed. Subsequently Saturnalia was associated with the Feast of Fools, celebrated at the same time in December as a pre- reformation popular festival. In John Davies’ description of the ages in Microcosmos Saturn is identified with old age, “The last Decrepit is, and so is call’d; / Which Saturn rules with Scepter of dul lead.” 2 Sonnet 97’s “old Decembers” leaping and laughing imitate the antics of a fool, full of vigour and youth. But the example of the seasons cannot affect the poet, for whom the youth remains absent. Nothing can lift his spirits: not the songs of birds (“laies;” in Sonnet 97.12 they are “mute”), nor the perfume (“sweet smell”) of flowers that vary in scent (“odour”) or colour or shape (“hew” intends ‘hue’ as well as a “figure” that is hewn). None of these can enable him to count or narrate (“tell”) a story befitting the season of summer. Nor can he pluck flowers from the swollen or glorious belly (“proud lap”), from which they had issued. He cannot “wonder at the Lillies white,” a proverbial association. He is unable to “praise the deepe vermillion in the Rose,” completing the standard floral mixture of white and red. The lily and rose were “but figures of delight,” shapes that give delight but which are fashioned in imitation of the youth (“drawn after you”), so that rather than prefiguring or foreshadowing him, they come after or behind him; they are figures in his shadow, as a jester in the shadow of a king. The youth is their “patterne,” their model or source, from which any delight they afford is originally drawn. (As in Sonnet 19.12 the 16th century conflation of ‘pattern’ and ‘patron,’ both from pater = father, is relevant, while Shakespeare probably has in mind also the function Horace awards poetry to “delight” [“delectando”] and its object, which he defines as the “sweet” [“dulci”].) 3 While the youth is the source of the wonderment summer might bring, for the poet his absence makes it seem “Winter still.” In playing with the lily and rose, he seems to play only with faint replicas of the youth (“your shaddow”), “play” recalling the theatricality of Saturn cavorting like a jester. _________________________ 98.1 Cyril Tourneur, Laugh and lie downe: Or, The worldes Folly (London: William Jaggard, 1605) F2v. 98.2. Davies, Microcosmos 66. 98.3. Horace, Ars Poetica 343-44.
