Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

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Shakespeare’s Sonnets episodes

  • Sonnet 124: If my dear love were but the child of state
    If my dear love were but the child of state,
    It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfather’d,
    As subject to Time’s love or Time’s hate,
    Weeds amoung weeds, or flowers with flowers gather’d.
    No, it was builded far from accident;
    It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
    Under the blow of thralled discontent,
    Whereto th’inviting time our fashion calls:
    It fears not policy, that heretic,
    Which works on leases of short number’d hours,
    But all alone stands hugely politic,
    That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with the showers.
    To this I witness call the fools of Time,
    Which die for goodness,who have lived for crime
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    21 min
  • Sonnet 123: No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change
    No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
    Thy pyramids built up with newer might
    To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
    They are but dressings of a former sight.
    Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
    What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
    And rather make them born to our desire
    Than think that we before have heard them told.
    Thy registers and thee I both defy,
    Not wond’ring at the present nor the past,
    For thy records and what we see doth lie,
    Made more or less by thy continual haste.
    This I do vow and this shall ever be;
    I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    17 min
  • Sonnet 122: Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
    Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
    Full character’d with lasting memory,
    Which shall above that idle rank remain,
    Beyond all date; even to eternity:
    Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
    Have faculty by nature to subsist;
    Till each to raz’d oblivion yield his part
    Of thee, thy record never can be miss’d.
    That poor retention could not so much hold,
    Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
    Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
    To trust those tables that receive thee more:
    To keep an adjunct to remember thee
    Were to import forgetfulness in me.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    31 min
  • Sonnet 121: ‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d
    ‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d,
    When not to be receives reproach of being;
    And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem’d
    Not by our feeling, but by others’ seeing:
    For why should others’ false adulterate eyes
    Give salutation to my sportive blood?
    Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
    Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
    No, I am that I am, and they that level
    At my abuses reckon up their own:
    I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
    By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
    Unless this general evil they maintain,
    All men are bad and in their badness reign.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    27 min
  • Sonnet 120: That you were once unkind befriends me now
    That you were once unkind befriends me now,
    And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
    Needs must I under my transgression bow,
    Unless my nerves were brass or hammer’d steel.
    For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
    As I by yours, you’ve pass’d a hell of time;
    And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
    To weigh how once I suffer’d in your crime.
    O, that our night of woe might have remember’d
    My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
    And soon to you, as you to me, then tender’d
    The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits!
    But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
    Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    24 min
  • Sonnet 119: What potions have I drunk of Siren tears
    What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
    Distill’d from limbecks foul as hell within,
    Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,
    Still losing when I saw myself to win!
    What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
    Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!
    How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,
    In the distraction of this madding fever,
    O benefit of ill, now I find true,
    That better is by evil still made better,
    And ruin’d love, when it is built anew,
    Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater,
    So I return rebuked to my content,
    And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    19 min
  • Sonnet 118: Like as, to make our appetites more keen
    Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
    With eager compounds we our palate urge,
    As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
    We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;
    Even so, being full or your ne’er-cloying sweetness,
    To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
    And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
    To be diseas’d, ere that there was true needing.
    Thus policy in love, to anticipate
    The ills that were not, grew to faults assur’d,
    And brought to medicine a healthful state,
    Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur’d;
    But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,
    Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    20 min
  • Sonnet 117: Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all
    Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,
    Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
    Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
    Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;
    That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
    And given to time your own dear-purchas’d right;
    That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
    Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
    Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
    And on just proof surmise, accumulate;
    Bring me within the level of your frown,
    But shoot not at me in your waken’d hate;
    Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
    The constancy and virtue of your love.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    26 min
  • Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds
    Let me not to the marriage of true minds
    Admit impediments. Love is not love
    Which alters when it alteration finds,
    Or bends with the remover to remove:
    O no! It is an ever-fixèd mark
    That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
    It is the star to every wandering bark,
    Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
    Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
    Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
    Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
    But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
    If this be error and upon me proved,
    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    19 min
  • Sonnet 115: Those lines that I before have writ do lie
    Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
    Even those that said I could not love you dearer:
    Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
    My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
    But reckoning Time, whose million’d accidents
    Creep in ‘twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
    Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,
    Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
    Alas! why, fearing of Time’s tyranny,
    Might I not then say, ‘Now I love you best,’
    When I was certain o’er incertainty,
    Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
    Love is a babe, then might I not say so,
    To give full growth to that which still doth grow?
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    20 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…