Henry Willobie - Connection With Shakespeare

Connection With Shakespeare

Willobie his Avisa was licensed for the press by printer John Windet on September 3, 1594. In the printed text, the poem is preceded by two commendatory poems, the second of which, signed "Contraria Contrariis; Vigilantius; Dormitanus," contains a reference to Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece, published four months previously:

"Yet Tarquyne pluckt his glistering grape,

And Shake-speare paints poore Lucrece rape."

This is the earliest known printed allusion to Shakespeare by name (aside from the title pages of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece).

The poem itself concerns a female character, Avisa (whose name is explained in Dorrell's "Epistle to the Reader" as an acronym for Amans Uxor Inviolata Semper Amanda). Avisa tells a story alternately with her suitors, one of whom is introduced to the reader in a prose interlude signed by the author as "Henrico Willobego Italo Hispalensis". This passage contains a reference which may refer to Shakespeare. It runs as follows ('H.W.' refers to Willobie, and 'A' to Avisa):

"H. W. being suddenly infected with the contagion of a fantastical fit, at the first sight of A, ... bewrayeth the secresy of his disease unto his familiar frend W. S., who not long before had tried the courtesy of the like passion, and was now newly recovered ... he determined to see whether it would sort to a happier end for this new actor, than it did for the old player." (spelling modernized)

Then follows a dialogue between H. W. and W. S., in which the latter gives somewhat commonplace advice to the disconsolate wooer.

The use of the word "actor" and "player" in connection with the initials 'W.S.' is suggestive that the latter may refer to Shakespeare. If so, and if the poem is autobiographical, it implies that Willobie was in love with a woman who had been previously involved with Shakespeare. The advice of "W.S." is also very similar to that expressed in the poem "Whenas thine eye", published as the work of Shakespeare in the 1599 collection The Passionate Pilgrim, and which is in the same stanza form as Willobie's poem. However, these facts suggest connections, but do not prove them. In addition, even the authorship of "Whenas thine eye" is unclear, as the collection published poems by various authors under Shakespeare's name.