that the mysterious “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets was black. “‘If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head,’” recites author Caroline Randall Williams, quoting Sonnet 130.

Shakespeare arrives at the palace to find the Dark Lady. Instead he finds Queen Elizabeth. The two are talking, not knowing who they are, until the Dark Lady comes along and causes trouble.

“The Dark Lady was Florio’s wife ... than her lips red,” he wrote in sonnet 130, concluding: “And yet by heaven I think my love as rare/ As any she belied with false compare.” ...

The Dark Lady who inspired some of Shakespeare’s romantic sonnets may have had a rather unladylike profession, the Daily Mail reported Monday. An expert on the Bard suggests she may have been a ...

may hold the key to one of the great mysteries of English literature - the identity of the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets. Since the 154 sonnets were first published four centuries ago ...