Dark Lady
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The Dark Lady is the woman referred to by Shakespeare in a number of his sonnets. Particularly addressed to her are the sonnets 127-152, sometimes called the Dark Lady sonnets.
These poems are explicitly sexual in character, in contrast to those written to the "Fair Lord". It is implied that the "I" of the sonnets and the Lady had a passionate affair, but that she was unfaithful, perhaps with the "Fair Lord". The poet self-deprecatingly describes himself as balding and middle-aged at the time of the affair. The Lady herself was referred to as 'dark' because her hair is said to be black and her skin dusky. Whether she was a real lover of Shakespeare's or a fictional creation is unknown. If the former it has been suggested that she might have been African, or Spanish. However, the language of the verses also strongly implies that she represents the 'dark' forces of physical lust as opposed to the ideal Platonic love associated with the "Fair Lord".
Many attempts have been made to identify the "Dark Lady" with historical personalities such as poet Emilia Lanier, but they are highly speculative, of course - as are all other real life identifications in the sonnets. Many people continue to maintain that the Dark Lady was merely a persona of Shakespeare's poems and never really existed in real life.