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I'm sure a lot of you know that we have released a new course a while ago- The Bluffer's Guide to Shakespeare【莎士比亚扫盲班】.

我知道有很多听我们节目的小伙伴已经买了这个专辑, 而且有人已经听完了, 还觉得意犹未尽, 还问我们有没有下一季, 这个可能就是一季的事了.

So I thought today I invite my co-developer 安澜 and we can get a little bit more into personal life of Shakespeare. Hi, 安澜.

Hi Lulu, hi everyone.

You know we spend all this time telling the stories from Shakespearean plays, one thing that I feel a little bit regretful is that we weren't gossipy enough.

Yes. To be honest, there's a lot we can gossip about, particularly when it comes to Shakespeare.

But before we start gossiping, it's important to note that a lot of Shakespeare's life is very uncertain.

Still enigmatic.

There are still a few kind of mysteries around Shakespeare. One of the biggest mysteries is his loves.

His loves?

His loves, plural.

He's love interests. His…那些风流往事.

Exactly. And a question that many scholars are asking nowadays was Shakespeare actually gay?

Okay. We're going to answer that question, well, we're going to try to talk about that in today's show.

Mhm.

But either way we are going to explore the private and personal love lives of Shakespeare.

Yes.

I mean, you would imagine that he hadn't somewhat of a colorful love life or at least love interest because he was able to create all those really 狗血 stories.

Pretty much. The thing that we are certain about is that Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, he was only 18 and she was 26.

That we talked about in our episodes. 我们在专辑里面和专辑发刊词里面都说了, 他娶了Anne Hathaway, 安妮·海瑟薇, 跟现在女明星的名字是一样的, 他们跟Anne Hathaway取的.

Yeah.

而且是姐弟恋, she was 26. He was only18.

Yes, so even back then, that was seen as quite an age gap, I would say.

Quite unusual.

Quite unusual. And also the wedding apparently was very rushed as according to the records she gave birth to their daughter 6 months later.

还是奉子成婚.

Probably, but again, we're not one hundred percent sure.

However, the one thing that we do know about is Shakespeare was probably an absentee father and husband. They lived in Stratford while Shakespeare spend his time in London.

Remind me how far away is Stratford?

It's quite far. It is, mile-wise I'm not too sure, but nowadays it probably takes 2 hours by car. So back then it must have taken a lot longer.

Back then probably a whole day trip.

A day or even 2 days.

So basically they were kind of like not separated in that way, but in the actual fact they were separated, 也是属于长期分居的这种状态, 就是丧偶式育儿Anne Hathaway.

Some people thought did Shakespeare really love Anne Hathaway, because there's a famous story that when he died, he left his second-best bed to his wife, not the first best bed, his second-best bed.

What? that was so calculating, why not the best bed？

That's really the question. On the surface, it appears like you didn't really care, but to be honest, he could also be the fact that Anne Hathaway would get most of his possessions.

And also the second best bed was probably their bed in back in those days, if you were rich enough, you may have your bed in your living room as a piece of furniture, but also for guests. So you have the best bed for guests, but their actual bed that they used was probably the second best.

That's actually they’re romantic if you think about it.

If you think about it in that way. But again, we're not 100% sure.

But obviously we're not just here to talk about him and his wife. Yes. That will be too orthodox for Shakespeare. But Shakespeare wrote a lot of love, sonnets, poems.

So it was a time of plague in London, so Shakespeare couldn't perform. He couldn't open theatres, so he stayed at home and wrote sonnets. One of the key figures in these sonnets…

The dark lady.

The dark lady.

Why is it the dark lady? Is it because the mysterious? Is it about the mystery or is it actual skin color？

Again. we're not 100% sure.

Mhm.

We're not even 100% sure if she existed, and if she existed who was she. Now scholars do think that it was a sexual relationship if she did exist because the description of her is very sexual.

And Shakespeare makes a point that she isn't that beautiful. So he says very famously, in Sonnet 130,

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.

This is supposed to be a love sonnet.

And it carries on to say,

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

So basically, saying that she's got bad breath.

所以莎士比亚写的这首情诗, 咱们就姑且叫做情诗, 里面都是在说这个女的怎么不好看了, 然后又有口臭了, 又是怎么样, is that ironic？

I think what he's doing here is he satirizing this type of love poetry because he's saying despite the fact that my girlfriend really looks horrible and she's got bad breath, I still love her. I think she's still great.

这就是PUA好吧.

Probably.

But there was a really funny bit in Upstart Crow.

我们之前说过很多次, 就是BBC出的恶搞莎士比亚的喜剧叫做Upstart Crow, 《新贵》. There was a bit when he actually went to this dark lady, this mysterious dark lady to read her this poetry that he wrote for her, and she was really angry.

Well. Yeah. And in that particular clip, it shows the dark lady as being Italian. And some scholars think that she was Italian, at least she was born to Italian parents. So the dark lady is maybe the complexion.

Because Italians can have, especially when they're tanned, they can have a darker complexion.

Yeah, kind of, like black hair, for example. But they're also some people that say that it could have been a woman of African descent. She could have actually being black.

So actually black, but nobody knows.

Nobody really knows.

We also don't really know if he was just admiring her, or he was actually cheating on Anne Hathaway with this woman.

Exactly, we have no idea, it doesn't survive in the records. It could just be the fact that she's a character.

But he did write not just one poem. He wrote quite a lot for her.

He wrote from Sonnet 127 to 152, but it's actually from Sonnet 1 to 126 where things get a little bit more interesting.

So Sonnet 1 to 126 were not for the dark lady.

No, that was to the fair youth.

I like the duality of it. 那边是dark lady, 然后前面的这些事是fair youth.

Fair youth here meaning good looking boy.

It's a little bit… I'm not saying being gay has any problem, but if it's a boy?

Well, boy, young man, so kind of adults, so you're probably looking 16, 18, 20s, no one's really sure.

Okay. And who was he？

Again, no one knows. All we can tell from the description is that he was handsome, but rather self-centered, as he knows how handsome and desirable.

It's thought to have been the Earl of Southampton. And if you look at the pictures, he is quite fair, and also he is quite good looking, but he's also quite androgynously…

Androgynous means men slash women so basically like bit feminine.

And Shakespeare does actually describe him as looking a little bit like a girl.

Again, in Upstart Crow that bit was… was very funny; and I remember in those sonnets like when scholars read into certain parts, they get really graphic like they get very sexual.

Yep. There's lots of puns and word plays which nowadays we wouldn't get because the slang has changed so much, but they are quite explicit.

Was Shakespeare actually gay or even bisexual?

That's the whole thing. No one knows. There's no evidence, and the same as many aspects of Shakespeare's life to someone who had such a great influence on our culture and our history and our literature, there's still so many holes in his life story.

We know when he was born roughly, we know when he died roughly, and we know that he came from Stratford and we know the basic facts, but he never left an autobiography. And none of his contemporaries wrote a biography for him.

So we can only guess from court records which are quite difficult because his name keeps changing and Shakespeare was notorious for keep signing his name in different spellings.

I see. But back to the whole sexuality bit.

Yeah.

I think in addition to all of the things we talked about that his life remaining a bit enigmatic, there's also like the concept of sexuality has changed.

Now we identify ourselves as being gay or straight or bi, but back then I don't think people did that.

It was a very recent concept. And it was only in the 19th century the idea of being heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual actually existed.

If Shakespeare was gay or bisexual, he wouldn't have considered himself gay or straight.

Was it legal to be gay back then?

It was illegal to act on it.

So if you have gay thoughts, that was fine.

Yeah. Homosexual sex was actually a capital offense. You could be killed for homosexuality.

So Shakespeare might or might not have acted on it if he was. But again, no one's really too sure, and also it's important to consider that love also meant very different things then.

So if you consider nowadays, I would say friendship between women in many societies tends to be a lot closer. And for example, the idea of love is kind of much clearer than, for example, friendship between two men.

It's less socially acceptable to have such an intense friendship between two men, and back then? And back then it was considered relatively normal. And in some cultures, nowadays it's still considered relatively normal.

And also he was a playwright. He was basically an artist with words. So maybe these were just his muses.

It could be.

His inspirations. It doesn't necessarily mean he actually had any real relationships with these people. Maybe it's just his fantasy.

Listen. I always think he was probably either bisexual at least by curious.

All right.

I don't know if you guys have read anything about Shakespeare, especially about his private life, his love life, leave us a comment in the comment section if you have anything to contest or add.

Yep. And also the same as many of these scholars, I will say, listen or watch some of his plays. Are there any clues that you think Shakespeare is leaving in his place？

Try to see if you can read into it.

On that note, we're going to wrap up today's episode, but if you haven't listened to that course, the Bluffer's Guide to Shakespeare, go and listen to it, we think it’s really good.

The link is in the comment section.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.