By Victor Greto
Shakespeare at 39.
You may have heard about the man who claimed to have an oil-on-wood portrait of Shakespeare at that age.
Alhough it has yet to be fully authenticated, it is causing a great stir among Shakespearean scholars and those who just love the man’s work.
Shakespeare was born in 1564, which would make 1603 the year the painting was done, a couple of years after the playwright wrote Hamlet. He was probably in the middle of writing Othello, preparing to pen King Lear, with Macbeth a bit off in the distance.
Wow. Not a bad year.
I happen to be 39, too.
Not even close, right?
Right.
But think about it: the greatest writer and poet in the English language, ever, had been my age once – something I never thought about before.
Before, that is, this anonymous Canadian pulled out an old portrait he claims to be the great Bard of Avon.
And it looks like him.
Alas, there were no cameras then, so I don’t really know that it looks like him. And the only authenticated portraits that exist are of him later in life, in his 50s, when he looks like an older English gentleman a little the worse for wear, the kind of guy who just doesn’t want to be bothered.
But this portrait at 39, well, this is how a guy should look who’s writing Othello and is pondering the terror of Lear.
Look closely.
He has auburn hair, a high, pale forehead, the scruff of a beard, clear, dark eyes and an enigmatic wisp of a smile.
He looks sensually modern: contemplative and serious, ironic and slightly amused.
The blackness of his eyes, in contrast to his pale skin and light brown hair, look both directly and askance at the painter, and hold both the objective sweep of a camera and the compassionate empathy of middle age.
He is in the prime of his life.
He teeters at the point of knowing that ripeness is all and that it is enough.
It even makes sense he would have had a portrait done at just that time.
It was the year Queen Elizabeth died, and with the ascension of King James, it became the year Shakespeare hit the big time and joined the King’s Men, a company patronized by the king himself.
After the success of Hamlet, he was recognized as the greatest playwright of the time, the chief dramatist for the country’s greatest troupe of players.
It doesn’t get any better than that, right?
Probably not, but Shakespeare had other things on his mind, too.
His dad had recently died, which may help explain that veiled sorrow fixed in his eyes. That year, the bubonic plague hit London for the second time in 11 years, and killed a quarter of the population.
So, he brooded and went on to create the greatest tragedies ever written.
Now, this is the guy I could have a drink with, and talk about whether I ought to be or not to be.
We could share stories about our recently dead fathers, talk about the characters we’ve met over the years, how we agonize over the right phrase or the precise words to express love.
The portrait is a 16-by-13-inch oil on wood, and has been authenticated by the Canadian Conservation Institute as coming from the early 17th century.
There also is a label attached to the back of the portrait, with faded words that say: “Shakspere, Born April 23, 1564 Died April 23, 1616 Aged 52 This Likeness taken 1603 Age at that time 39 ys.”
For good reasons, some experts doubt the portrait’s authenticity. The inscription is a bit too long and detailed. His lips look different than the authentic images, and the simple clothes he’s wearing may belie Shakespeare’s stature at the time the portrait may have been done.
Because by 1603, he also was a big-time landowner back home in Stratford, and had recently even gotten a coat of arms that his old man had once applied for but never received.
Of course, this may be all just sound and fury if the portrait ends up being some other Elizabethan figure.
But it won’t signify nothing.
It’s worth it now just to imagine I’m looking into the eyes of a poet once my age, set to write plays that have helped me to both magically gaze within myself and toward everyone else at the same time.
It doesn’t get any better than that.