Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

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Shakespeare’s Sonnets episodes

  • Sonnet 154: The little Love-god lying once asleep
    The little Love-god lying once asleep
    Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
    Whilst many nymphs that vow’d chaste life to keep
    Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
    The fairest votary took up that fire
    Which many legions of true hearts had warm’d;
    And so the general of hot desire
    Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm’d.
    This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
    Which from Love’s fire took heat perpetual,
    Growing a bath and healthful remedy
    For men diseased; but I, my mistress’ thrall,
    Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,
    Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.
    William Shakespeare


    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    47 min
  • Sonnet 153: Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep
    Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep.
    A maid of Dian’s this advantage found,
    And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
    In a cold valley-fountain of that ground,
    Which borrowed from this holy fire of love
    A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
    And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
    Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
    But at my mistress’ eye love’s brand new-fired,
    The boy for trial needs would touch my breast.
    I sick withal the help of bath desired,
    And thither hied, a sad distempered guest,
    But found no cure; the bath for my help lies
    Where Cupid got new fire—my mistress’ eye.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    23 min
  • Sonnet 152: In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn
    In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,
    But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing,
    In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,
    In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
    But why of two oaths’ breach do I accuse thee,
    When I break twenty? I am perjured most,
    For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
    And all my honest faith in thee is lost.
    For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
    Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,
    And to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
    Or made them swear against the thing they see:
    For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured eye,
    To swear against the truth so foul a lie.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    24 min
  • Sonnet 151: Love is too young to know what conscience is
    Love is too young to know what conscience is,
    Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
    Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
    Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
    For, thou betraying me, I do betray
    My nobler part to my gross body’s treason;
    My soul doth tell my body that he may
    Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
    But rising at thy name doth point out thee
    As his triumphant prize; proud of this pride,
    He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
    To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
    No want of conscience hold it that I call
    Her ‘love’ for whose dear love I rise and fall.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    20 min
  • Sonnet 150: O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
    O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
    With insufficiency my heart to sway,
    To make me give the lie to my true sight,
    And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
    Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
    That in the very refuse of thy deeds
    There is such strength and warrantize of skill
    That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?
    Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
    The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
    O, though I love what others do abhor,
    With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.
    If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
    More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    21 min
  • Sonnet 149: Canst thou, O cruel, say I love thee not
    Canst thou, O cruel, say I love thee not,
    When I against myself with thee partake?
    Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
    Am of myself, all tyrant for thy sake?
    Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
    On whom frown’st thou that I do fawn upon?
    Nay, if thou lour’st on me, do I not spend
    Revenge upon myself with present moan?
    What merit do I in myself respect
    That is so proud thy service to despise,
    When all my best doth worship thy defect,
    Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
    But love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
    Those that can see, thou lov’st, and I am blind.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    24 min
  • Sonnet 148: O me! What eyes hath love put in my head
    O me! What eyes hath love put in my head,
    Which have no correspondence with true sight!
    Or if they have, where is my judgement fled,
    That censures falsely what they see aright?
    If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
    What means the world to say it is not so?
    If it be not, then love doth well denote,
    Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s ‘No’.
    How can it? O, how can love’s eye be true,
    That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
    No marvel then though I mistake my view;
    The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.
    O cunning love, with tears thou keep’st me blind,
    Lest eyes, well-seeing, thy foul faults should find.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    20 min
  • Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever, longing still
    My love is as a fever, longing still
    For that which longer nurseth the disease,
    Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
    Th’uncertain sickly appetite to please.
    My reason, the physician to my love,
    Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
    Hath left me, and I, desperate, now approve
    Desire is death, which physic did except.
    Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
    And frantic mad with evermore unrest;
    My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,
    At random from the truth vainly expressed:
    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    29 min
  • Sonnet 146: Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth
    Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
    Feeding these rebel pow’rs that thee array,
    Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
    Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
    Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
    Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
    Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
    Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?
    Then, soul, live thou upon thy servants’ loss,
    And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
    Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
    Within be fed, without be rich no more:
    So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
    And death once dead, there’s no more dying then.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    26 min
  • Sonnet 145: Those lips that Love’s own hand did make
    Those lips that Love’s own hand did make
    Breathed forth the sound that said “I hate”
    To me that languished for her sake.
    But when she saw my woeful state,
    Straight in her heart did mercy come,
    Chiding that tongue that, ever sweet,
    Was used in giving gentle doom,
    And taught it thus anew to greet:
    “I hate” she altered with an end
    That followed it as gentle day
    Doth follow night, who like a fiend
    From heaven to hell is flown away.
    “I hate” from hate away she threw,
    And saved my life, saying “not you.”
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    22 min

About Shakespeare’s Sonnets

From the publisher's feed

The 154 sonnets that Shakespeare penned are some of the most famous in the world. But have you ever heard them all? This podcast series will take you through them one by one in easy 15 minute…