All of June I’ve been enjoying Kelly’s Brush Up Your Shakespeare month at Writing & Ruminating, and last week, Kelly invited us to join her by posting our favorite sonnet (if you want to win something, you have until midnight on the 30th to post your own). I meant to do this last week, but I kind of choked. Because I had the 130th Sonnet read at my marriage celebration (the party thing that happened after that Tuesday at the skateboard park with the justice of peace and Tech Boy), I can hear it, in my mind’s ear… read in the sonorous tones of one of my favorite English professors, Prof. I., who died June 30th, five years ago now, from a massive heart attack.
He was tall and thin and gentle, soft-spoken, with a profoundly bass voice like Isaac Hayes; he was a jazz pianist, sang a capella barber shop quartet and headed the bass section of the symphony chorus. He taught English lit and poetry and film criticism, and was possessed of a devastatingly dry wit. He was a very dear friend. As with many of those friendships one has with teachers they admire, there was a lot I never was able to put into words, so his loss is especially painful. I haven’t really wanted to post this sonnet. But I will. Because I loved him, and love him still, and because he was in on the joke of this sonnet more than anyone I know, and could laugh at the assumptions people made about love louder than anyone.
THE 1609 QUARTO VERSION
130
MY Miſtres eyes are
nothing like the Sunne,
Currall is farre more red, then her lips red,
If ſnow be white,why then
her breſts are dun:
If haires be wiers, black wiers grow on her head:
I haue ſeene Roſes damaskt, red and white,
But no ſuch Roſes ſee I in her cheekes,
And in ſome perfumes is there more delight,
Then in the breath that from my Miſtres reekes.
I loue to heare her ſpeake, yet well I know,
That Muſicke hath a farre more pleaſing found:
I graunt I neuer ſaw a goddeſſe goe,
My Miſtres when ſhee walkes treads on the ground.
And yet by heauen I thinke my loue as rare,
As any ſhe beli’d with falſe compare.
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
One of the faculty at the small liberal arts college I attended threw a SuperBowl party, and Professor I. and his wife dragged me along — ostensibly to watch the Halftime Show, as the rest of the time they both graded papers. Mrs Ms. I had gone when the hostess of the party, giggly and nervous, approached us and asked if she could touch our hair. Honestly, I don’t know what she’d been drinking, but when I saw how graciously Professor I. inclined his head to her touch, I shrugged and submitted as well. “It’s so soft,” the woman marveled, and I thought, “Is this really 1995? Really? How could she get all the way to adulthood without having one friend who would let her touch their hair?” When she had gone away, the professor gave me such a droll look, I couldn’t help but giggle – not at the woman, but at the situation. It was surreal… and perfectly normal, really. Sure, touch my hair. What else are friends for?
If snow be white, why then, her breasts are dun.
There was a scandal — probably closer to the year I was born — when this professor married a former student. Okay, they dated for nine years and unless she was a significantly slow learner, by then she was no longer his student. And they waited about that same length of time to have their first child, so all of the rumors surrounding the reasons for the marriage were just that — rumors. The fact remains that it was an interracial marriage, and his statuesque blonde wife was what really set the tongues of malice wagging.
Ages and eons and decades later, in the same small-town college, I met my future partner on the back row of an English class, where we were both avoiding the earliness of the hour, and the loudness of the professor’s voice. The tall white dude with all the earrings and the opinions and the black trench coat was nothing like quiet, brown, studious me. Once again the tongues of malice wagged, and professors with whom I didn’t even have classes cautioned me not to get “distracted,” that all-pervasive euphemism for “don’t get involved.” Professor I., quiet and unassuming, invited this scary-smart guy into his office, and his classes and his home, where he and his wife offered their friendship with bottomless cups of coffee and movie nights. He kept his quiet amusement throughout the small-town drama that followed, wherein Tech Boy’s parents made noises about disowning him — a good old Southern heritage soon to be sullied by little old me. It was surreal, and once again, Professor I. made us laugh, and softened the jagged edges while he and his wife regaled us with stories of their own relationship. He was the obvious choice to read at our celebration.
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
Like the “mistress” described, Professor I. “walked on the ground.” Lord, his office was a disaster, he could never throw anything away, and working for him as his TA was an adventure — and an exercise in futility. He returned papers late, and the end of the semester was always a huge rush. The other TA’s and I would collapse on the floor of the TA room and just groan at all the work we’d put in, work we knew we would have to put in again next term. The man just couldn’t get organized to save his soul. But we loved him like we loved few others.
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.