Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

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Shakespeare’s Sonnets episodes

  • Sonnet 024: Mine eye hath play’d the painter and hath steel’d
    Mine eye hath play’d the painter and hath steel’d,
    Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart;
    My body is the frame wherein ’tis held,
    And perspective it is best painter’s art.
    For through the painter must you see his skill,
    To find where your true image pictur’d lies,
    Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,
    That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
    Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
    Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
    Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
    Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
    Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
    They draw but what they see, know not the heart.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    19 min
  • Sonnet 023: As an unperfect actor on the stage
    As an unperfect actor on the stage,
    Who with his fear is put beside his part,
    Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
    Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;
    So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
    The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,
    And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,
    O’ercharg’d with burthen of mine own love’s might.
    O! let my books be then the eloquence
    And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
    Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
    More than that tongue that more hath more express’d.
    O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:
    To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    22 min
  • Sonnet 022: My glass shall not persuade me I am old
    My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
    So long as youth and thou are of one date;
    But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,
    Then look I death my days should expiate.
    For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
    Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
    Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
    How can I then be elder than thou art?
    O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary
    As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
    Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
    As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
    Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
    Thou gav’st me thine not to give back again.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    17 min
  • Sonnet 021: So is it not with me as with that Muse
    So is it not with me as with that Muse,
    Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
    Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
    And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
    Making a couplement of proud compare
    With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems,
    With April’s first-born flowers, and all things rare,
    That heaven’s air in this huge rondure hems.
    O! let me, true in love, but truly write,
    And then believe me, my love is as fair
    As any mother’s child, though not so bright
    As those gold candles fixed in heaven’s air:
    Let them say more that like of hearsay well;
    I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    18 min
  • Sonnet 020: A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted
    A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,
    Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
    A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
    With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion:
    An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
    Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
    A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
    Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
    And for a woman wert thou first created;
    Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
    And by addition me of thee defeated,
    By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
    But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,
    Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    19 min
  • Sonnet 019: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws
    Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
    And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
    Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
    And burn the long-liv’d phoenix, in her blood;
    Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
    And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
    To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
    But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
    O! carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
    Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
    Him in thy course untainted do allow
    For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
    Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
    My love shall in my verse ever live young.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    15 min
  • Sonnet 018: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
    Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
    Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
    And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
    Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
    And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
    And every fair from fair sometime declines,
    By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
    But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
    Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
    Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
    When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
    So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    17 min
  • Sonnet 017: Who will believe my verse in time to come
    Who will believe my verse in time to come,
    If it were fill’d with your most high deserts?
    Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
    Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.
    If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
    And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
    The age to come would say ‘This poet lies;
    Such heavenly touches ne’er touch’d earthly faces.’
    So should my papers, yellow’d with their age,
    Be scorn’d, like old men of less truth than tongue,
    And your true rights be term’d a poet’s rage
    And stretched metre of an antique song:
    But were some child of yours alive that time,
    You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    13 min
  • Sonnet 016: But wherefore do not you a mightier way
    But wherefore do not you a mightier way
    Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
    And fortify yourself in your decay
    With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
    Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
    And many maiden gardens yet unset
    With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,
    Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
    So should the lines of life that life repair,
    Which this, Time’s pencil, or my pupil pen,
    Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,
    Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.
    To give away yourself keeps yourself still,
    And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    19 min
  • Sonnet 015: When I consider every thing that grows
    When I consider every thing that grows
    Holds in perfection but a little moment,
    That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
    Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
    When I perceive that men as plants increase,
    Cheered and cheque’d even by the self-same sky,
    Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
    And wear their brave state out of memory;
    Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
    Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
    Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,
    To change your day of youth to sullied night;
    And all in war with Time for love of you,
    As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    18 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…