“My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like

the Sun”: Hidden Lovers in

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Is it possible to look for the themes that Shakespeare hid in Hamlet and other plays---

themes such as pagan religion, solar energy and the harmful aspects of fossil fuels---in his

Sonnets as well? The answer is definitely yes. In this paper, I’ll analyze a few of

Shakespeare’s Sonnets for these themes.

Thirteen of the Sonnets use the word “sun” directly. Many others do not use the

word “sun” but refer to the sun in another way. In Sonnet 7, we see pagan sun worship

concretely appear “in the orient” (that is, Asia) and it’s shown in a positive light.

Lo! in the orient when the gracious light

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

Serving with looks his sacred majesty;

And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,

Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

Attending on his golden pilgrimage;

But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,

Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,

The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are

From his low tract and look another way:

So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,

Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.

Religious words like “gracious”, “homage”, “sacred”, “heavenly” and

“pilgrimage” surround the sun as it climbs up and makes its journey across the sky.

When the sun gets to the top of the meridian (“highmost pitch”), it starts to sink down

into the horizon, the people (“mortals”) who were looking at it “look another way”.

Regarding this change in what people are looking at, Shakespeare uses the word

“converted”, used to mean simply “changed” (the eyes of people are converted to

look another way) but “converted” could also be signaling a secret change in

Shakespeare’s own religious inclinations. He has until now used the heavily religious

words like “gracious”, “homage”, “sacred”, “heavenly” and so forth about the sun, so

if we then take “converted” as a religious word too, it may be a subtle message about

his own religious views. That is to say, he wasn’t too shy to use religious words

playfully in the context of sun worship in this poem, so why not include “converted”

too, and who else is in the poem to be converted except for the narrator/poet himself?

It’s a clever rhetorical method to send a signal.

Technically, the first 12 lines of the poem, about the sun in the orient and its

worshipers, are the “conceit” or the device to make an elaborate allegory or

comparison to use to promote the so-called ‘real message’ of last two lines of the

poem (“So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,/ Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a

son”). Here we see the poet/narrator exhorting what critics call “the fair young man”

(an unknown or perhaps fictive person or persona who is often used in Shakespeare’s

Sonnets as the ‘receiver’ of a ‘message’) to procreate. But this image of procreation is

probably just another conceit, just as the fair young man himself is not a real person,

but an image of mankind. According to my research, Shakespeare’s plays are

concerned with human interaction with fossil fuels, the Christian religious background

preceding and enabling this interaction, and the eventual outcome of this interaction1,

so it would be strange if Shakespeare’s Sonnets were not also concerned with this

same central issue. The idea of procreation (“get a son”) is a conceit expressing the

continuity of humans after fossil fuels are gone. Shakespeare seems to have been

concerned about environmental issues.

Moving on to what is perhaps Shakespeare’s most famous sonnet of all, Sonnet

130, (“My Mistress Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”), this theme of sun worship is also

provided covertly and playfully:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

1 See my academic article ““Juliet is the Sun” : The Secret anti-Coal Play in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and the Cosmic Heliocentrism of Giordano Bruno” in 筑波大学地域研究, 33 号、2012-03-31. Pages 93-120 https://tsukuba.repo.nii.ac.jp/index.php?active_action=repository_view_main_item_detail&page_id=13&block_id=83&item_id=27473&item_no=1

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

    And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

    As any she belied with false compare.

The words I have put in a sunny yellow color subtly and subconsciously direct the

reader to the message that Shakespeare’s (or the narrator, but in this case I think

they are the same) goddess (or his mistress) is the sun and other beautiful

(“delight”ful) natural things that arrive on our planet thanks to the sun’s energy:

snow, roses, coral, even music is included. (Apollo was the god of music and the sun;

actually music and the sun are connected in a basic way for some reason and in

Japanese, the word music 音楽 includes the kanji “sun” 日 twice.) The sun’s rays are

bright white sometimes and also red (in the evening and morning), so those colors in

particular are included. (In Japanese the color white is written 白 and it has the kanji

for sun also in it, for the same reason that the sun’s rays are mostly seen as white.)

The words “heaven” and “my love” at the end complete this rapturous expression of

devotion to the natural sun goddess. No wonder it is his most famous Sonnet; the

simplicity of the message and its clarity are absolutely stunning and piercing. Readers

have been able to sense his fervor and his passion. (The same technique is used in

Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet’s identity as the sun is hinted at in these lines:

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do entreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they return.

What if her eyes were there, they in her head?

The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,

As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven

Would through the airy region stream so bright

That birds would sing and think it were not night

(In these lines from Romeo and Juliet, the yellow words also transmit Juliet’s identity

as the sun). This sort of technique---a rhetorical surface message makes use of words

with linked meanings that express something else under the surface----seems to have

been one of Shakespeare’s favorite ones.

Next, in Sonnet 10, the line “seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate” echoes

Hamlet’s sad and famous description of the sky as “the air, look you, this brave

o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appeareth

nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors” (II.ii.302-306). Both are

cloaked allusions to coal smoke.2 Once again, Sonnet 7 is technically addressed to the

so-called “fair young man” and exhorts him to procreate (“make thee another self”).

Again, this fair young man is mankind. Now he is “unprovident” and “seeking that

beauteous roof to ruinate”, which is a signal, as in Hamlet for producing coal smoke

(which blackens the sky):

For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,

Who for thyself art so unprovident.

Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,

But that thou none lovest is most evident;

For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate

That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire.

Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!

Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?

Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:

Make thee another self, for love of me,

That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

2 For a full discussion of the coal/sun dichotomy in Hamlet please see my academic article “"Stand and Unfold Yourself" : Prince Hamlet Unmasked” in 筑波大学地域研究, 35 号、2014. Pages 79-99.http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/120005555561

Polluting and defiling the earth is a horrible thing in Shakespeare’s eyes, which

he likes to being “possess’d with murderous hate” and also an act against humanity in

general (“That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire”). The narrator reminds the

fair young man that living an environmentally-friendly life (that is seeking to “repair”

the beauteous roof that is the sky) should be “thy chief desire”. And the poet wants to

see mankind reformed: “O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!” so that

in this case the “make thee another self” (technically a rhetorical procreation message

in the conceit) actually signals more the idea of changing humanity’s thinking and

becoming more environmentally conscious.

In Sonnet 15, the “fair young man” faces aging and death, for natural things in

general are at their peak only a little while because “everything that grows Holds in

perfection but a little moment”. Shakespeare openly characterizes the situation of

mankind in this Sonnet “When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and

cheque'd even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease..”

but, even knowing what is natural, of course, he has hopes to be a helpful influence on

the “fair young man”:

When I consider every thing that grows

Holds in perfection but a little moment,

That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows

Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;

When I perceive that men as plants increase,

Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky,

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,

And wear their brave state out of memory;

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay

Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,

To change your day of youth to sullied night;

And all in war with Time for love of you,

As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

The “stars in secret influence” looks on the surface like something from

astrology, but Shakespeare means that the main star (our sun) is ‘influencing’ our

earth (“this huge stage”). The mechanism of influence is (as Giordano Bruno

spelled out in several of his works, including Lo spaccio della besta trionfante,

where he calls the sun “the father of substances, the author of life”)

thermodynamic---which is to say “secret” in that we don’t see it all happening at

the molecular level. And then “men” are as “plants” and are “cheered” or

“cheque’d” (checked, or countered) by the results of the sun’s thermodynamic

action. Shakespeare laments that “sullied night” follows and this phrase, “sullied

night”, could be a Hermetic reference to coal and its dark and smoky polluting

effects. It was known that coal was a sort of oily stone, a totally natural substance;

Shakespeare just guesses that it too belongs to the things which are influenced by

the stars (the sun in particular). Of course, we now know that fossil fuels are the

remains of plants, grown with sunlight.

Some of the Sonnets seem to most directly allude to fossil fuels (coal, in the

case of Shakespeare). The first one is Sonnet 1. The red line below refers to a

mysterious “fuel” supporting the lover. The green line below especially may be

seen to refer to the huge booming building developments crowding out fields

where food had been grown to “make a famine where abundance lies”. And

importantly, at the end, we see the image of a bud being eaten or consumed

totally:

From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

The image of a “canker” worm, a pest, eating up a bud or a plant is one that we

can see in a few places in Shakespeare. One is in Romeo and Juliet, when Friar

Lawrence is first seen on stage and says, “…In man as well as herbs, grace and

rude will; And where the worser is predominant, Full soon the canker death eats up

that plant.” (I.iii) Through the character of Friar Lawrence, a spiritual guide for

Romeo (mankind), Shakespeare here expresses his fear that mankind will “eat up”

or ruinously consume the planet (since coal gives people the ability to consume

more than if they only had the sun’s daily solar energy available). In Hamlet,

Laertes tells his sister, Ophelia, to be virtuous since, The canker galls the infants of

the spring/ Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd,/ And in the morn and liquid

dew of youth/ Contagious blastments are most imminent. (I.iii) It is, ironically,

Ophelia, who represents nature in Hamlet, and she dies young, like a flower

consumed by a canker, as Shakespeare thought that nature in England was

disappearing at an alarming rate as coal burning promoted capitalism and

economic growth.

The canker image is repeated in Sonnet 99, where flowers have robbed the

beauty of the perfect lover to whom the sonnet is addressed. That the lover should

procreate is not a concern here. Instead, the nasty little flower that has stolen the

qualities from the lover faces a day of reckoning; this day of reckoning follows

“growth”: “But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth/ A vengeful canker eat him

up to death”. There is no concern about procreating, and what we see here is

another rhetorical trope instead (theft). The line about the canker follows the

phrase “in pride of all his growth” (which follows “for his theft”, making this pride

associated with thievery). (It is probable that Shakespeare judged economic

growth to be a sort of thing undertaken by people in ‘pride’, without regard for the

consequences):

The forward violet thus did I chide:

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my love's breath? The purple pride

Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells

In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.

The lily I condemned for thy hand,

And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair:

The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,

One blushing shame, another white despair;

A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both

And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;

But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth

A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see

But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee.

In Sonnet 12, below, the “brave day sunk in hideous night” secretly refers to the

blackness of coal smoke against the sky. In this sonnet, the issue is the matter of time

passing while the lover is seen to be a tragic case of “sweets and beauties”, i.e. a

person who thinks of frivolous and temporary pleasures without regard for later, and

so must therefore “among the wastes of time” must later be fated to go. Once again,

the tell-tale violet, that flower associated with Ophelia and also used in Sonnet 99

above, is “past prime”; it’s a marker for unnecessary waste and frivolous pleasures

that will be regretted later (“since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake”):

When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime , And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

Above, “sable”, “heat”, “wastes”, “barren” and “bier” are likely all words that

secretly express Shakespeare’s mournful attitude toward coal. He saw it as something

related to death, black and barren, probably because the building boom (the

consequence of the coal boom) that took place in the era when he was alive removed

many fields and woodlands, homes to animals, plants and flowers.

Sonnet 33, below, refers to a lover, but this lover is not the usual human type. This

lover is the sun and it is hidden by “clouds”, which are probably Hermetic references

to coal smoke:

Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide,

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:

Even so my sun one early morn did shine

With all triumphant splendor on my brow;

But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;

The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

Here is a lovely sunrise (which naturally must be one of Shakespeare’s favorite

things of all because he lovingly described quite a few in his plays, including in Romeo

and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Much Ado About Nothing), but this sunrise

is rudely interrupted by “the basest clouds/ with ugly rack on his celestial face”, most

likely this is coal smoke. This “he” in line 11 is not a lover, but the sun.

The importance of the “eye” and the “face” images above lead me to wonder if the

unidentified rather mysterious lover in Sonnet 20, which have the same images very

prominently (see below) is actually Helios, the sun. “An eye more bright, less false in

rolling, gilding the object whereupon it gazeth…” could indicate the sun. In fact, “the

ancient Greeks interpreted Helios as a gigantic eye with a halo, observing everything

his light could touch”.3 “A woman’s face” could refer to the fact that the sun seems

very beautiful, more “beautiful” than “masculine”. The “master-mistress” may only be

a kind of god, perhaps since sun gods and nature gods can be both female and male.

“A man in hue, all ‘hues’ in his controlling” could describe the way the sun’s rays

falling on the landscape change the color and tint of the scenery. It is true that the

beauty of the sun “much steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth”. And since

Helios was married to several goddesses, perhaps he can be said to be “for a

woman….first created”.

A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted

Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;

A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted

With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,

3 http://www.greek-gods.info/ancient-greek-gods/helios/

Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created;

Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated,

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,

Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

If it is Helios hiding here in Sonnet 20, then Shakespeare is actually (yet again!)

confessing his passion for the sun. Sonnet 20 is probably a riddle and we know that

Shakespeare liked playful riddles, such as when Hamlet says to Gertrude “make you

to ravel all this matter out” or when Macbeth, paraphrasing the witches’ prophecy,

asks what he believes is a rhetorical question “Who can impress the forest, bid the

tree unfix his earth-bound root?” (and the answer is the sun, the one thing that is, by

definition, off-limits to Macbeth, who represents mankind living under fossil fuels). So I

conclude that the answer to the identity of the lover in Sonnet 20 is the sun.

And we must wonder who the W.H. is of the cryptic dedication of the Sonnets

("To Mr. W.H. the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets"). “Begetter” implies

something that begets something else, the way the sun’s energy begets plants,

and other nature. Could W.H not perhaps be “Worshipped Helios”? (Here is an

image of Helios) I know this suggestion is really very whimsical! But still, I propose

it, for Shakespeare did love the sun.