Willobie His Avisa

Yesterday we took a look at the inscription to Saint Peter's Complaint, by Robert Southwell, with its address to Master W. S.  Today we will look at that other usage of "W. S.," also from the Southampton period, in the prose prologue to the poem Willobie His Avisa, printed in 1594.

Briefly, here is the story.

Willobie his Avisa Or the true picture of a modest maid, and of a chast and constant wife. In hexamiter verse is a narrative poem (of no literary value) attributed to "Henry Willoby."  The work is introduced by an Oxford student "Hadrian Dorrell,"  with prose epistles.  He attributes the work to "a scholar of very good hope" Henry Willobie.  There actually was a Willobie at Oxford at the time, but no record of "Hadrian Dorrell."  Dorrell's introduction is followed by a couple of commendatory poems, one of which mentions Shakespeare:

"Yet Tarquyne pluckt his glistering grape,
And Shake-speare, paints poore Lucrece rape."

The poem describes the beautiful Avisa, wife of an inn keeper, whose virtue has been often assualted but who has remained true.  Among those who have tried her and been rejected are "Henrico Willobego," or "H.W."  In his disappointment and unrequited love he turns to his friend, W.S.:

"H. W. being sodenly affected with the contagion of a fantasticali fit, at the first sight of A, pyneth a while in secret griefe, at length not able any longer to indure the burning beate of so fervent a humour, bewrayeth the secresy of his disease unto his familiar frend W. S. who not long before had tryed the curtesy of the like passion, and was now newly recovered of the like infection ; yet finding his frend let bloud in the same vaine, he took pleasure for a tyme to see him bleed, & in steed of stopping the issue, he inlargeth the wound, with the sharpe rasor of a willing conceit, perswading him that he thought it a matter very easy to be compassed, & no douht with payne, diligence & some cost in tyme to he obtayned. Thus this miserable comforter comforting his frend with an impossibility, eyther for that he now would secretly laugh at his frends folly, that had given occasion not long before unto others to laugh at his owne, or because he would see whether an other could play his part better then himselfe, & in vewing a far off the course of this loving Comedy, he determined to see whether it would sort to a happier end for this new actor, then it did for the old player" (Cant. XLIIII).

Many parallels could be drawn between hints and usages in the poem and Shakespeare's sonnets and other works.  Since the name Henry Willobie may be a canard, it is most often speculated (and the mention of Shakespeare in the dedicatory poem and the phrase "old player" strengthens the speculation) that H. W. stands for Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, and W.S. is, of course, Shakespeare.  The device of both men pursuing the same young woman is similar enough to the pursuit of the "Dark Lady" in the Sonnets to make the case believable.

The sonnets most relevant to the speculation would be sonnet 144:

"Two loves I have, of comfort and despair"

The three addressed to the "man right fair," 40, 41 and 42:

"Take all my loves, my love; yea, take them all;"

"Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits"

""That thou hast her it is not all my grief,"

And Sonnets 133 and 134, addressed to the "woman coloured ill:"

"Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For the deep wound it gives my friend and me;"

and

"So now I have confessed that he is thine,"

Does Willobie His Avisa allude to Shakespeare?  I have not attempted to show parallels to Shakespearean lines, but others have done so convincingly.  In all likelihood, it does, but its allusions largely escape us now.  Certainly it was considered offensive in its day, because it is one of the books included in the "bishop's bonfire" of 1599.  The grounds for burning those books (and it was a long list indeed) was that they were either pornographic or personally satiric.  Personal satire must have been plead by parties unknown.

The true meaning of Avisa we will, in all likelihood, never know, but it is another piece of evidence, should another be needed, of Shakespeare's own sexual nature that was, apparently, well known within the elite circles in which he traveled in 1593-94.

There are several editions of the work, or at least the relevant passages, available from Google Book Search:

Willobie His Avisa With An Essay towards its interpretation by CHARLES HUGHES, 1904, notable for its inclusion of Penelope's Complaint.

THE SHAKSPERE ALLUSION-BOOK: A COLLECTION OF ALLUSIONS TO SHAKSPERE FROM 1591 TO 1700. VOL. I. ORIGINALLY COMPILED BY C. M. INGLEBY, 1909, containing the relevant passages.

The Shakespeare Allusion Book, ed. C. M. Ingleby, 1874, containing the same material as the volume above.