An ambiguous dedication
- Intro
- Life
- "All the world's a stage"
- Fast facts about Shakespeare
- Shakespeare's childhood
- Shakespeare's schooling
- Shakespeare's Youth
- Courtship and marriage
- Marriage: speculation
- Married life
- The Shakespeare family
- The "lost years"
- Character assassination?
- The upstart crow
- An attack on Shakespeare
- The attack retracted
- The early plays
- Experimental plays
- A patron, poems, a plot
- Dedication and friendship
- More about the patron
- The plot thickens
- An ambiguous dedication
- Characters in the Sonnets
- Bare, ruined choirs . . .
- Back to facts
- A comedy of errors
- Popularity and publication
- Shakespeare's early maturity
- Shakespeare's maturity
- Last years in London
- Shakespeare in retirement
- Stage
- Society
- Country life
- Huswifery
- The housewife's duties
- The advice continues. . .
- The plan of a farmhouse
- In sickness and in health
- Distillation
- Childbirth
- A christening
- The Birth of the Virgin
- Women and kitchens
- Preparing food
- More recipes
- Diet: food as medicine
- The dairy
- The yard
- A design for a garden
- Flax and hemp
- To market, to market
- Market Purchases
- Economic importance
- Husbandry
- The family
- City life
- The City of London
- The procession in full
- London: streets and bridges
- A procession
- Districts within London
- London Bridge
- The cost of living
- Coins and money
- The marketplace
- Fish market
- Guilds
- The Guild System
- Various trades
- The life of a soldier
- Join the army
- Begging and vagrancy
- Compassion
- Bedlam: madness
- Madness
- Outsiders: black
- Outsiders: Jewish
- A tavern meal
- Gambling
- A bawdy-house
- City sports: bear-baiting
- The Paris Garden
- Bull-baiting
- The sewers of London
- The plague
- Death and mortality
- Court life
- History
- Legend and early history
- The history of the Histories
- Two chronologies
- Shakespeare's sources
- Early kings (1)
- Early kings (2)
- Richard Lionheart
- King John
- Richard II
- Richard's downfall
- Peasants' revolutions
- A rebellion defused
- Jack Cade
- Monarchs of the Histories
- An early geneology
- The dynastic jigsaw
- Henry IV
- Henry IV (2)
- Henry IV (3)
- Henry V
- The real Falstaff
- Henry VI
- Henry VI (2)
- Wars of the Roses (1)
- Wars of the Roses (2)
- Joan of Arc
- Richard III
- Richard's death
- Henry VII
- The Tudor myth
- A shift in power
- Saint George
- The technology of warfare
- Henry VIII
- The reign of Elizabeth
- Princess Elizabeth
- Her education
- She becomes queen
- The Virgin Queen
- Elizabeth praying
- Elizabeth's popularity
- Mary, Queen of Scots
- A scandal
- The Catholics
- The Armada
- The Armada (2)
- Elizabeth and Essex
- Court heirarchy
- Administrative offices
- The Privy Council
- Officers of the Court
- Court finances
- Parliament
- Religion and Parliament
- The rising middle class
- The reign of James I
- Crime and the law
- The puritan movement
- Ideas
- The medieval universe
- Putting nature in order
- An orderly world
- Steps, ladder, chain, scale
- An orderly progression
- The music of the spheres
- Order within order
- A chain of status
- The nobility and genry
- The Commonalty
- Order in the sexes
- Adam and Eve
- Primary qualities
- A table of equivalents
- More foursomes
- The humours (1)
- The humours (2)
- The humours (3)
- How to treat a fever
- Correspondences
- Microcosm/macrocosm
- Signs and the body
- Disorder
- Disorder (2)
- Education
- New knowledge
- A rebirth of knowledge
- The humanists
- Sir Thomas More
- Sir Thomas More's family
- Myth rediscovered
- Old tales in a new light
- The sun in the center
- The "new philosophy"
- Alchemy and chemistry
- Distillation
- The scientific method
- Magic or botany?
- From icon to image
- Renaissance realism
- The water closet
- Machiavelli
- Shakespeare's Machiavelli
- You be the judge. . .
- Montaigne
- The New World
- Travellers' tales
- Religion
- The early church in England
- Henry VIII and the break with Rome
- Crown v. church
- The dissolution of the monasteries
- The Book of Common Prayer
- The Homilies
- Translations of the Bible
- Shakespeare and the Bible
- Edward VI and Mary I: extremes
- Elizabeth's "via media"
- Going to church (1)
- Going to church (2)
- Protestantism: Martin Luther
- Faith, scripture, grace
- John Calvin
- The Zwinglians
- The Counter-Reformation
- The religion of love: courtly love
- Death: the undiscovered country
- Suicide: an act of dignity or despair?
- Suicide on stage
- The supernatural
- Drama
- Literature
- Elizabethan English
- Elizabethan poetry
- Elizabethan Prose
- Women writers
- Renaissance publishing
- Art in Renaissance England
- Medieval Art
- Medieval to Renaissance . . .
- Gothic art
- The Renaissance
- Flight into Egypt
- Perspective
- New techniques
- Patronage
- Studies from the antique
- Myth explored
- High Renaissance: Raphael
- The cartoon reversed
- Architecture and painting
- Saint Paul (reversed)
- Titian: Venus and Adonis
- Mannerism
- Classicism and anachronism
- Art in the north of Europe
- Flemish art
- Bruegel: ordinary people
- Bruegel: slices of life
- Art in England
- Domestic art in England
- Art in England: Mini-art
- Architecture in England
- Music in England
- Plays
- Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
- The Ghost
- The Court
- Staging the opening
- Revenge
- "Incestuous sheets"
- Hamlet and women
- University student
- Hamlet as actor
- Madness: Hamlet
- Madness: Ophelia
- The duel
- Divine right?
- Claudius: politician
- Ordinary people
- The ending: Fortinbras
- Order restored?
- Hamlet and tragedy
- The sources of Hamlet
- The text: solid or sullied?
- The Taming of the Shrew
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Romeo and Juliet
- The Merchant of Venice
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry V
- Much Ado About Nothing
- As You Like It
- Julius Caesar
- Twelfth Night
- Measure for Measure
- Othello
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- The Winter's Tale
- The Tempest
- Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
- Reference
- Chronology
- Shakespeare's plays
- Plays: 1588-1595
- Plays: 1592-1598
- Plays: 1588-1595
- Plays: 1602-1610
- Plays: 1609-1615
- BCE [BC] to CE [AD] 500
- Years 500-1000
- Years 1000-1300
- Years 1300-1499
- Years 1500-1555
- Years 1556-1558
- Years 1559-1562
- Years 1563-1565
- Years 1566-1568
- Years 1569-1571
- Years 1572-1574
- Years 1575-1577
- Years 1578-1581
- Years 1582-1585
- Years 1586-1587
- Years 1588-1590
- Years 1591-1592
- Years 1593-1594
- Years 1595-1596
- Years 1597-1598
- Years 1599-1601
- Years 1602-1603
- Years 1604-1606
- Years 1607-1608
- Years 1609-1611
- Years 1612-1613
- Years 1614-1615
- Years 1616-1619
- Years 1620-1623
- Shakespeare's Sources
- Maps of Shakespeare's time
- Bibliographies
- Shakespeare's life
- Shakespeare's stage
- Moralities and mysteries
- The masque
- The stage and staging
- Staging (sources)
- Actors and acting
- The audience
- Society
- Women in the Renaissance
- Courtship and marriage
- Family and children
- The housewife
- The husbandman
- City life
- Outsiders
- Court life
- History and politics
- Shakespeare's "prehistory"
- Shakespeare's Rome
- The history of the Histories
- Joan of Arc
- The Tudors
- Peasant uprisings
- Elizabeth I
- James I
- Crime and the law
- The puritans
- The background of ideas
- The cosmos and "order"
- Science and astrology
- Education
- New knowledge
- Religion
- Churchgoing
- The occult and folklore
- Witches and witchcraft
- The drama (general)
- Classical drama
- Medieval drama
- Tragedy
- Comedy
- Histories
- Shakespeare's contemporaries
- Renaissance literature (general)
- Elizabethan language
- Poetry
- Prose
- Women writers
- Printing and publishing
- Courtly love
- Art, architecture, and music
- Architecture
- Music
- Reference works
- Frequently Asked Questions
- What makes Shakespeare great?
- Shakespeare's life
- Shakespeare's life (2)
- Shakespeare's stage
- Shakespeare's stage (2)
- Renaissance society
- Renaissance society (2)
- Renaissance society (3)
- History and politics
- History and politics (2)
- History and politics (3)
- The background of ideas
- The background of ideas (2)
- The background of ideas (3)
- Questions about literature
- Literature (2)
- Printing and Renaissance art
- Architecture and music
- Chronology
- Help
Translation...
TO . THE . ONLY . BEGETTER . OF.
THESE . ENSUING . SONNETS.
Mr. W . H . ALL . HAPPINESSE.
AND . THAT . ETERNITIE.
PROMISED.
BY .
OUR . EVERLIVING . POET.
WISHETH.
THE . WELL-WISHING.
ADVENTURER . IN.
SETTING.
FORTH.
T. T.
The main candidates for "Mr. W. H." are:
- Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton
-
[H. W. not W. H.? "Mr" not "Lord"?]
- William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke
-
["Mr" again.]
One way to clear away complicated speculation is to make the simple assumption that there is indeed a misprint in the dedication, and that it is "Mr W. S." --William Shakespeare--who is after all the "onlie begetter," or creator, of the sonnets; the word "begetter" in dedications of the period always refers to the author, rather than the source of inspiration*. Then again, this theory would do away with all of the entertaining speculation.
Footnotes
-
Begetters and typographical errors
An article by Donald Foster, who has developed a powerful computer database of Shakespeare's language, Shaxicon, establishes the conventional use of the word "begetter" in the period, and argues that "W. H." is a misprint: see Shakespeare Survey, 1987.