classic theatre

A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

#49

Synopsis:

The poet tries to prepare himself for a future in which the beloved rejects him. When that day comes, he writes, he will shield himself within the knowledge of his own worth, acknowledging that he can cite no reason in support of their love.

Against that time, if ever that time come,

When I shall see thee frown on my defects,

Whenas thy love hath cast his utmost sum,

Called to that audit by advised respects;

Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass

And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,

When love, converted from the thing it was,

Shall reasons find of settled gravity;

Against that time do I ensconce me here

Within the knowledge of mine own desert,

And this my hand against myself uprear

To guard the lawful reasons on thy part.

 To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,

 Since why to love I can allege no cause.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

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A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

#48

Synopsis:

The poet contrasts the relative ease of locking away valuable material possessions with the impossibility of safeguarding his relationship with the beloved. The beloved can be enclosed only in the poet’s heart, which cannot block the beloved’s egress nor protect against those who would steal the beloved away.

How careful was I, when I took my way,

Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,

That to my use it might unusèd stay

From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!

But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,

Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,

Thou best of dearest and mine only care

Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.

Thee have I not locked up in any chest,

Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,

Within the gentle closure of my breast,

From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;

 And even thence thou wilt be stol’n, I fear,

 For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

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A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

#47

Synopsis:

After the verdict is rendered (in s. 46), the poet’s eyes and heart become allies, with the eyes sometimes inviting the heart to enjoy the picture, and the heart sometimes inviting the eyes to share in its “thoughts of love.” The beloved, though absent, is thus doubly present to the poet through the picture and through the poet’s thoughts.

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,

And each doth good turns now unto the other.

When that mine eye is famished for a look,

Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,

With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast

And to the painted banquet bids my heart.

Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest

And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.

So, either by thy picture or my love,

Thyself away are present still with me;

For thou no farther than my thoughts canst move,

And I am still with them, and they with thee;

 Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight

 Awakes my heart to heart’s and eye’s delight.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

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A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

#46

Synopsis:

In this first of another pair of sonnets (perhaps a witty thank-you for the gift of a miniature portrait), the poet’s eyes and his heart are in a bitter dispute about which has the legal right to the beloved’s picture. The case is brought before a jury made up of the poet’s thoughts. This jury determines that the eyes have the right to the picture, since it is the beloved’s outer image; the heart, though, has the right to the beloved’s love.

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war

How to divide the conquest of thy sight.

Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,

My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,

A closet never pierced with crystal eyes;

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To ’cide this title is impanelèd

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,

And by their verdict is determinèd

The clear eyes’ moiety and the dear heart’s part,

 As thus: mine eyes’ due is thy outward part,

 And my heart’s right, thy inward love of heart.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

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A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

#45

Synopsis:

This sonnet, the companion to s. 44, imagines the poet’s thoughts and desires as the “other two” elements—air and fire—that make up “life’s composition.” When his thoughts and desires are with the beloved, the poet, reduced to earth and water, sinks into melancholy; when his thoughts and desires return, assuring the poet of the beloved’s “fair health,” the poet is briefly joyful, until he sends them back to the beloved and again is “sad.”

The other two, slight air and purging fire,

Are both with thee, wherever I abide;

The first my thought, the other my desire,

These present-absent with swift motion slide.

For when these quicker elements are gone

In tender embassy of love to thee,

My life, being made of four, with two alone

Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy;

Until life’s composition be recured

By those swift messengers returned from thee,

Who even but now come back again, assured

Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.

 This told, I joy; but then, no longer glad,

 I send them back again and straight grow sad.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

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#44

Synopsis:

In this sonnet, which links with s. 45 to form, in effect, a two-part poem, the poet wishes that he were thought rather than flesh so that he could be with the beloved. The poet, being mortal, is instead made up of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water. The dullest of these elements, earth and water, are dominant in him and force him to remain fixed in place, weeping “heavy tears.”

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,

Injurious distance should not stop my way,

For then, despite of space, I would be brought

From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.

No matter then although my foot did stand

Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,

For nimble thought can jump both sea and land

As soon as think the place where he would be.

But, ah, thought kills me that I am not thought,

To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,

But that, so much of earth and water wrought,

I must attend time’s leisure with my moan;

Receiving nought by elements so slow

But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

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#43

Synopsis:

The poet, separated from the beloved, reflects on the paradox that because he dreams of the beloved, he sees better with his eyes closed in sleep than he does with them open in daylight. His desire, though, is to see not the dream image but the actual person.

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,

For all the day they view things unrespected;

But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee

And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.

Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright,

How would thy shadow’s form form happy show

To the clear day with thy much clearer light

When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!

How would, I say, mine eyes be blessèd made

By looking on thee in the living day,

When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade

Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!

All days are nights to see till I see thee,

And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

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#42

Synopsis:

The poet attempts to excuse the two lovers. He first argues that they love each other only because of him; he then argues that since he and the young man are one, in loving the young man, the woman actually loves the poet. The poet acknowledges, though, that all of this is mere “flattery” or self-delusion.

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,

And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;

That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,

A loss in love that touches me more nearly.

Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:

Thou dost love her because thou know’st I love her,

And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,

Suff’ring my friend for my sake to approve her.

If I lose thee, my loss is my love’s gain,

And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;

Both find each other, and I lose both twain,

And both for my sake lay on me this cross.

But here’s the joy: my friend and I are one;

Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

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#41

Synopsis:

The poet again tries to forgive the young man, now on the grounds that the young man could hardly have been expected to refuse the woman’s seduction. The attempt to forgive fails because the young man has caused a twofold betrayal: his beauty having first seduced the woman, both he and she have then been faithless to the poet.

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits

When I am sometime absent from thy heart,

Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,

For still temptation follows where thou art.

Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won;

Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;

And when a woman woos, what woman’s son

Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?

Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,

And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,

Who lead thee in their riot even there

Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:

 Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,

 Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

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#40

Synopsis:

This first of three linked sonnets accuses the young man of having stolen the poet’s “love.” The poet struggles to justify and forgive the young man’s betrayal, but can go no farther than the concluding “we must not be foes.” (While the word love is elaborately ambiguous in this sonnet, the following two sonnets make it clear that the theft is of the poet’s mistress.)

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all.

What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;

All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.

Then, if for my love thou my love receivest,

I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;

But yet be blamed if thou thyself deceivest

By willful taste of what thyself refusest.

I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

And yet love knows it is a greater grief

To bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.

 Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

 Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

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