The Queen of Hearts DID bake tarts
Paul Crowley
that the 'Queen of Hearts' was Mary QS, that the
'King of Hearts' was Darnley, and the Knave Riccio.
The verse would have been written in the English
court in the weeks before his murder, while the
stories of the Queen's supposed affair with Riccio
were circulating. It has no reference to his death
and is too light-hearted to have been written after.
This has a bearing on the Sonnets generally, but
on Sonnet 18 in particular with its use of "Summer's
Day". This is meant in the same sense as in
Sonnet 18 (Summer = Sommer = Darnley, and
'Day' = 'Die' = 'Fuck'). The "All on a . . " is
meant to be read (also) as "awl on a . . ." where
'awl' stands for 'penis', here that of Riccio's.
The Queen of Hearts,
She made some tarts,
All on a summer's day;
The Knave of hearts,
He stole those tarts,
And took them clean away.
The King of Hearts
Called for the tarts,
And beat the knave full sore;
The Knave of hearts
Brought back the tarts,
And vowed he'd steal no more.
The rhyme was, almost certainly, written by the
young Shake-speare.
I have just seen that -- most unusually for
European royalty -- Mary QS loved to bake:
" . . On a more mundane level, Mary adored making 'cotignac', a
type of French marmalade, putting on an apron and boiling
quinces and sugar with powder of violets in a saucepan for hours
before laying out the slices of crystallized fruits. The four
Maries were all required to help her, and a special 'kitchen'
was created in their apartments so that they could play at
cooking and housekeeping, pretending to be servants or bourgeois
women organizing their domestic routine and doing their own
shopping. It was a game that Mary always remembered and
sometimes played in Scotland, usually in St Andrews, where she
had a house near the Abbey. . . "
(Guy, 'My Heart is my own', p 79)
Paul.
lackpurity
MM:
Sonnet 18 from Shakespeare-Online:
SONNET 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
MM:
The Master is more lovely and temperate. The Master is sent here for
a period of time, a specific period of time. The Bible mentions "for
a season," regarding the tenure of John the Baptist. Christopher
Marlowe was John the Baptist reincarnated, so this hints at
Shakespeare's Master. Rough winds = worldly karmas. Marlowe was
stabbed to death. Marlowe died after a SHORT term. He only lived 29
years, but he paved the way for William Shakespeare, just as John the
Baptist paved the way for Jesus Christ.
Sonnet 18 lines 5 thru 8:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
MM:
Sometimes the Master's fame is a cause for jealousy among others. He
is the eye of heaven, but the world doesn't understand. He is
portrayed as an enemy sometimes. Sometimes the rulers, or the
prevailing religions don't take kindly to the Master. They often want
to torture/kill him. That is what happened with John the Baptist, and
Christopher Marlowe had the same fate.
"From fair to fair," means that the Master has been sent from God.
Both are fair, and in fact, the same. The fate of the Masters is
often terrible at the hands of the world.
Nature's changing course untrimmed means that anything can happen in
this world. God might intervene, he might not. He knows best.
Sonnet 18 lines 9 thru 12:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
MM:
The Master is really eternal. Marlowe was/is eternal. The Master
always retains possession of God, even if we kill him. The Master is
always above death, and has power over death. Time is ephemeral, the
Master is eternal.
Sonnet 18 lines 13 and 14:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
MM:
Shakespeare's sonnet is a tribute to his Master, Christopher Marlowe.
Michael Martin