“A Lover’s Complaint”

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), widely considered the greatest playwright, if not the greatest writer, of all time was a heavy user of threes in his plays.  He wrote poetry as well. 

In 1593 and 1594 when the theaters in London were closed because of Bubonic Plague, Shakespeare published two narrative poems, “Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece.”  A third narrative poem, “A Lover’s Complaint,” was published in the first edition of his sonnets in 1609.  One of those sonnets, number 104, celebrates the Three and beauty:           

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summer's pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumns turn'd
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd!
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd;
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead. 

from Chapter 9, Threes, "Threes in Art and Popular Culture"

Threes in the Arts

Threes appear frequently in the visual, written and performing arts.  Here’s a poem from Carl Sandburg.

“Threes” by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) was written in 1922. 

I was a boy when I heard three red words
a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets
for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—I asked
why men die for words.

I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns,
lilacs, told me the high golden words are:
Mother, Home, and Heaven—other older men with
face decorations said: God, Duty, Immortality
—they sang these threes slow from deep lungs.

Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks
of doom and damnation, soup, and nuts: meteors flashed
their say-so: and out of great Russia came three
dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die
for: Bread, Peace, Land.

And I met a marine of the U.S.A., a leatherneck with a girl on his knee
for a memory in ports circling the earth and he said: Tell me how to say
three things and I always get by—gimme a plate of ham and eggs--how
much—and—do you love me, kid?