SOURCE: "'Shall I Die' Post Mortem: Defining Shakespeare," in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 1, Spring, 1987, pp. 58-77.

In the following essay, Foster maintains that both internal and external evidence indicate that the ascription of "Shall I Die?" to Shakespeare is wrong. Foster notes that the verbal parallels cited by Taylor (above) are inconclusive; he also attacks Taylor's dating of the poem.

John Fletcher's tragedy The Bloody Brother was first printed in 1639 by Richard Bishop for John Crook. Included in the text is a song of two stanzas which was possibly written (at least in part) by William Shake speare:¹

Take, Oh take those lips away
 that so swetly were forsworne,
 And those eyes, like breake of day,
 lights that doe misleade the Morne,
 But my kisses being againe,
 Seales of love, though seal'd in vaine.

Hide, Oh hide those hills of Snow,
 which thy frozen blossome beares,
 On whose...