Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

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Shakespeare’s Sonnets episodes

  • Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old
    To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
    For as you were when first your eye I ey’d,
    Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
    Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
    Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d,
    In process of the seasons have I seen,
    Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
    Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
    Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,
    Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv’d;
    So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
    Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv’d:
    For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:
    Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead

    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    26 min
  • Sonnet 103: Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth
    Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,
    That having such a scope to show her pride,
    The argument all bare is of more worth
    Than when it hath my added praise beside!
    O! blame me not, if I no more can write!
    Look in your glass, and there appears a face
    That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
    Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
    Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
    To mar the subject that before was well?
    For to no other pass my verses tend
    Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;
    And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,
    Your own glass shows you when you look in it.

    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    21 min
  • Sonnet 102: My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming
    My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming;
    I love not less, though less the show appear;
    That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,
    The owner’s tongue doth publish every where.
    Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
    When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
    As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing,
    And stops his pipe in growth of riper days:
    Not that the summer is less pleasant now
    Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
    But that wild music burthens every bough,
    And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
    Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:
    Because I would not dull you with my song.

    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    25 min
  • Sonnet 101: O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
    O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
    For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
    Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
    So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
    Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
    ‘Truth needs no colour, with his colour fixed;
    Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay;
    But best is best, if never intermixed’?
    Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
    Excuse not silence so, for’t lies in thee
    To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
    And to be praised of ages yet to be.
    Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
    To make him seem, long hence, as he shows now.

    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    25 min
  • Sonnet 100: Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long
    Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long
    To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
    Spend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
    Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
    Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem
    In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
    Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
    And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
    Rise, resty Muse, my love’s sweet face survey,
    If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
    If any, be a satire to decay,
    And make Time’s spoils despised every where.
    Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life;
    So thou prevent’st his scythe and crooked knife.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    30 min
  • Sonnet 099: The forward violet thus did I chide
    The forward violet thus did I chide:
    Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
    If not from my love’s breath? Thy purple pride
    Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
    In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
    The lily I condemned for thy hand,
    And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair:
    The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
    One blushing shame, another white despair;
    A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both
    And to his robbery had annex’d thy breath;
    But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
    A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
    More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
    But sweet or color it had stol’n from thee.

    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    19 min
  • Sonnet 098: From you have I been absent in the spring
    From you have I been absent in the spring,
    When proud-pied April dress’d in all his trim
    Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing
    That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.
    Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
    Of different flowers in odor and in hue
    Could make me any summer’s story tell.
    Or from their proud lap pluck them while they grew;
    Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
    Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
    They were but sweet, but figures of delight;
    Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
    Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,
    As with your shadow I with these did play.

    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    19 min
  • Sonnet 097: How like a winter hath my absence been
    How like a winter hath my absence been
    From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
    What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
    What old December’s bareness every where!
    And yet this time removed was summer’s time
    The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
    Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
    Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
    Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
    But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
    For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
    And, thou away, the very birds are mute:
    Or, if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer,
    That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    22 min
  • Sonnet 096: Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness
    Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
    Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
    Both grace and faults are lov’d of more and less:
    Thou mak’st faults graces that to thee resort.
    As on the finger of a throned queen
    The basest jewel will be well esteem’d,
    So are those errors that in thee are seen
    To truths translated, and for true things deem’d.
    How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
    If like a lamb he could his looks translate!
    How many gazers mightst thou lead away,
    If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!
    But do not so; I love thee in such sort,
    As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    20 min
  • Sonnet 95: How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
    How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
    Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
    Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
    O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.
    That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
    Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
    Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;
    Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
    O! what a mansion have those vices got
    Which for their habitation chose out thee,
    Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot
    And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!
    Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
    The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.
    William Shakespeare

    Presenters

    Mark Chatterley
    Thierry Heles
    23 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…