A Lover's Complaint
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A Lover's Complaint is the title of a narrative poem that was published together with William Shakespeare's Sonnets in the original Quarto Edition of 1609 and that has therefore been considered a constituent part of the collection more or less ever since; not, though, without some – for Shakespeare's works almost obligatory – scholarly dispute.
The poem contains 47 stanzas composed in rhyme royal, a verse form that was introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer – so a good two hundred years before Shakespeare –which consists of seven lines per stanza, usually in iambic pentameter, much like Shakespeare's plays and the sonnets, but with a different rhyme scheme. The poem is thus distinct from the sonnets in form as well as in content. It tells the story of a young woman who sits by a river bank, tearing up letters and poems she has received from a dashing young man. Together with many tokens of love – jewellery, trinkets, precious stones – she throws these papers into the river. An elderly country gentleman notices her and approaches her to ask her the cause of her woes, in response to which she tells him how, unlike many other young women, she had resisted the charms and advances of this young man who himself had boasted to her of his many conquests in love, including that of a nun who abandoned her calling to be with him. Tearfully, she recalls how he tearfully entreated her to take pity on him and accept him since she was his only true love. This, she tells the old man, she did, only to be betrayed by him like all the others, whence now of course her sorrow. In a surprising twist at the very end though, she also tells him that given the exact same situation, and now knowing everything she knows from painful experience, she would do exactly the same again and once more give in to this young man. A Lover's Complaint on the one hand follows, on the other hand entirely departs from, the tradition of the poetic Complaint that had been in fashion much as the sonnet had been roughly ten to fifteen years earlier. Other sonnet series by other poets conclude with a Complaint voiced by a young woman, among them most prominently Samuel Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond which comes with his sonnet sequence Delia, published in 1592, but also Thomas Lodge's Complaint of Elstred, with his Phillis, in 1593, Michael Drayton's, Matilda the Fair, with his Ideas Mirror in 1594, and Richard Barnfield's Cassandra, with The Affectionate Shepherd in 1595. In other words, William Shakespeare, as we noted when discussing Sonnets 153 and 154, follows a then perfectly well established tradition by closing his collection with a Complaint. Where he departs from this tradition and finds intriguing layers of storytelling and therefore potential meaning is in the surprising twist at the end, and in the curiously distancing structure of his poem. The story is told by an unnamed narrator who opens by setting the scene and describes how he is drawn towards it by hearing the voice of the young woman echoing through the valley. He sees her from afar and lies down to observe her in her woeful act of relinquishing to the river the testaments of love she'd been given, when he notes a "reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh" who also had become aware of the young woman and who now actually approaches her to ask her the reason for her distress. Noteworthy at this point is that the older man does so "privileged by age," meaning that his age gives him enough authority and credibility not to be seen as another wooer or as someone who is trying to take advantage of the woman's vulnerable condition, and that the narrator of the story, though keeping his distance, is close by enough to hear every word of the conversation that now ensues. After ten stanzas in the voice of the narrator, we now hear the young woman speak as she confides in great detail how she was attracted to, but ever resisted being drawn into the orbit of, this beautiful, charming, intelligent, strong, skilful, educated young man. This takes up the next 15 stanzas, by which time we get a fairly good idea of how attractive he is, but also how aware he himself is of this, and how he has seduced or charmed many others. The young woman now quotes the young man, and so for the next 15 stanzas we actually hear him speak to her, and witness his wooing technique, which entails freely admitting to his many sexual adventures and now handing over to the young woman gifts and tokens of affection he himself had received from other women, including those of a nun who had rejected the offers of marriage from many high ranking courtiers, but at the last fell for him too. The young woman, he argues towards her, was even stronger in her resistance to him than a woman who had dedicated her life to God, and this made her the most worthy and desirable of them all, and so he now implores her to accept him. For the remaining seven stanzas the young woman reverts to her own voice and relates to the old man, who has effectively become her confessor, that, moved by the young man's tears, she then gave in to him. In the remarkable last stanza she exclaims 'O!' five times, listing all the young man's deceptive wiles, his poisonous tears, his fake passion, his empty gestures, and then, in a twist that startles our eyes and ears, concludes that all of this "Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed, And new pervert a reconciled maid." In other words: I'd fall for him allover again. Much has rightly been made of this, since it presents us with a young man who is so magnetic, so lovely, so roundly gorgeous and irresistible, that all the pain of betrayal and loss of dignity and – so the implication – fall from social grace he causes is worth it, just for the pleasure and delight of having been with him. Which of course immediately begs the question: what, then, brings this on? Whom and what is William Shakespeare here talking about, and why? That it is William Shakespeare who wrote A Lover's Complaint is now once again mostly accepted as certain. It had never really been questioned until the beginning of the 20th century when some scholars started to argue that the style and the vocabulary were too elaborate, in places too clumsy, in places too 'Latinate' and laboured to be Shakespeare's. This by the end of the 20th century had been more or less refuted by statistical analysis and stylometric examination of the text, and the debate had been declared effectively closed, only for it to be reopened again by Professor Brian Vickers, a Shakespeare scholar at ETH Zurich and a fellow of the British Academy, who in 2007 published a book that argues A Lover's Complaint must be the work of a man called John Davies of Hereford. It is not a view that has taken hold though, and other scholars – including Macdonald P Jackson who has done extensive analysis of Shakespeare's works have been critical of Vickers's methodology, and so today there is now a fairly broad consensus again that the work is indeed Shakespeare's. Macdonal P Jackson, incidentally, is someone we have mentioned on a number of occasions on this podcast and will revisit once more when looking more closely at the dating of the sonnets. Assuming then this to be so, that William Shakespeare is indeed the author of A Lover's Complaint, the parallel between the young man in the poem and the young man of the sonnets is immediately obvious and striking. The way the young woman talks about him in many ways matches the way Shakespeare describes his young lover, and this then yields a new, or rather an already extant but now newly acute conundrum: The 'lover' in any poem called A Lover's Complaint, would ordinarily be the person who complains. This here is not entirely impossible, since 'lover' is a term that was also used for women. But rarely. At the end of As You Like It, Act V, Scene 2, Rosalind, still dressed as a young man, sees Silvius and Phoebe approach and says, "Look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers," clearly referring to him and to her as 'lover'. But the scene, as the whole play, is so charged with sexual ambiguity and the context one of Rosalind, as Ganymede, promising to sort everything out by the morrow, that it can hardly be seen as typical usage. In A Lover's Complaint the person we would most readily identify as a 'lover' is the young man, and so it could be argued, of course, that this is not the complaint of a lover – though that, admitting the applicability of the word 'lover' to a woman as well – but primarily a complaint about a lover. This also would be unusual and it also would draw attention to itself for being so. And for this, it could also be considered clumsy poetising. Unless, of course, William Shakespeare, who is by the time the collection gets published the principal poetic playwright of the English language, knows what he's doing and constructs a slightly elaborate but for that no less effective device of framing the complaint with an unnamed speaker who then disappears from sight and mind. The unnamed speaker in the first person of a poem is usually assumed to be the poet, and so our very first thought would ordinarily be: it is the poet who is the lover and whose complaint we are about to hear. Not so. He relates how a young woman relates her complaint to an old man. But the complaint is about a lover just like the lover of Shakespeare, the poet and first speaker. So it is not altogether adventurous to surmise that William Shakespeare is really the lover whose complaint we are hearing through the voice of an innocent maid – an ideal – who, however, far from regretting what she has done comes to the unconventional conclusion: he was worth it. It'd do it all again. It's a sentiment entirely congruent with our Will, who in nothing, of course, bears any resemblance to the young woman other than in his persistent love for a young man whose many faults and deceptions and petulances and demands he is fully aware of. What the poem leaves entirely unanswered, because entirely unasked, is what role, if any, William Shakespeare's mistress, the Dark Lady, plays in all this. None of the characters in the poem resemble her, and no link can be drawn from A Lover's Complaint to her, at all. The coda to the collection makes no reference to her. And this perhaps – but 'perhaps' here as so often is an operative qualifier – points towards something the collection itself seems to suggest by its very composition, which is entirely unbalanced: namely, that the person who truly matters is the Fair Youth. Out of the 154 sonnets, 126 either directly, or indirectly address, or are written about or composed in the context of, a young man. You will hear people argue that only a small number of them make it explicit that they are written to or about a man and therefore purportedly "could be addressed to either a male or female" as one particular edition puts it, though it is a contention that crops up every so often here and there. All you need to do though is read them in context and you realise that the majority of the sonnets in this are clearly and obviously and unambiguously to or about a man. And the sonnets themselves make it beyond question clear that Shakespeare writes many, many sonnets to the same young man. Sonnet 76, halfway through the series asks the question "Why is my verse so barren of new pride, So far from variation or quick change?" And answers it directly: "O know, sweet love, I always write of you, And you and love are still my argument;" and with this, I rest my case. Whether this young man is real or not may be another question and it's one we've dealt with in detail in the special episode dedicated to him – to my mind he as good as certain is– but The Fair Youth is not a phantasm, he is very much the lead figure of the first 126 sonnets. 25 of the poems only are either directly addressed to, or written about, the Dark Lady, and here much the same applies: you will come across all kinds of arguments that these may be different mistresses or that some of these poems may not be addressed to or about a woman at all, but no sooner do you look at them as a coherent group and in context than you find that that is basically nonsense. And so roughly 16% of the sonnets relate to the mistress, the Dark Lady. One poem only, Sonnet 145, deviates from all the others by being written in iambic tetrameter, meaning that its lines contain eight syllables instead of the usual ten or eleven of an iambic pentameter, and there is a broad consensus nowadays that it refers not to the Dark Lady but to Anne, Shakespeare's wife. And then there are the two allegorical poems at the end, which, as we saw when discussing them, fulfil much of the function of what in other collections is either an anacreontic poem or an ode to pave the way for the Complaint. Clearly the great majority of the poems concern themselves with this Fair Youth, and bearing in mind the emotional as well as sexual journey the relationship goes through over several years, and the note on which it 'ends' which is with two unspoken, unread, because unwritten, lines that are deliberately kept absent from Sonnet 126, it may not need to surprise us that this end piece of the collection brings us back to him, not to the Dark Lady. Where by we also want to bear in mind always, of course, as we have mentioned on several occasions, that the Dark Lady Sonnets overlap with the Fair Youth Sonnets, in other words, chronologically they don't sit after the Fair Youth Sonnets, but run concurrently wi Does this mean the Dark Lady is insignificant? Far from it, she clearly matters greatly to William Shakespeare, otherwise the poems concerning her would not exist. But A Lover's Complaint appears to confirm what Sonnets 110 and 116 strongly suggest: in the young man, William Shakespeare has found "A god in love, to whom I am confined," one with whom he considers himself in "a marriage of true minds," and to this he will not "admit impediments." The young lover for William Shakespeare, much as the young lover for the maid in A Lover's Complaint, has a lot to answer for, but much as for the maid, for our Will he is also worth every bit the trouble he be. And that leads me to conclude, and to concur with those who similarly suggest, that the lover in A Lover's Complaint is really William Shakespeare. |
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From off a hill whose concave womb reworded
A plaintful story from a sistring vale, My spirits t’attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale; Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale, Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain, Storming her world with sorrow’s wind and rain. 7 Upon her head a platted hive of straw, Which fortified her visage from the sun, Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw The carcass of a beauty spent and done; Time had not scythed all that youth begun, Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven’s fell rage Some beauty peeped through lattice of seared age. 14 Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne, Which on it had conceited characters, Laundering the silken figures in the brine That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears, And often reading what contents it bears; As often shrieking undistinguished woe, In clamours of all size, both high and low. 21 Sometimes her levelled eyes their carriage ride, As they did battery to the spheres intend; Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied To th’orbed earth; sometimes they do extend Their view right on; anon their gazes lend To every place at once, and nowhere fixed, The mind and sight distractedly commixed. 28 Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat, Proclaimed in her a careless hand of pride; For some untucked descended her sheaved hat, Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside; Some in her threaden fillet still did bide, And, true to bondage, would not break from thence, Though slackly braided in loose negligence. 35 A thousand favours from a maund she drew, Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet, Which one by one she in a river threw, Upon whose weeping margent she was set, Like usury applying wet to wet, Or monarch’s hands, that lets not bounty fall Where want cries ‘some’, but where excess begs all. 42 Of folded schedules had she many a one, Which she perused, sighed, tore and gave the flood; Cracked many a ring of posied gold and bone, Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud; Found yet mo letters sadly penned in blood, With sleided silk, feat and affectedly Enswathed, and sealed to curious secrecy. 49 These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes, And often kissed, and often gave to tear; Cried, ‘O false blood, thou register of lies, What unapproved witness dost thou bear! Ink would have seemed more black and damned here!’ This said, in top of rage the lines she rents, Big discontent so breaking their contents. 56 A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh, Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew Of court, of city, and had let go by The swiftest hours observed as they flew, Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew; And, privileged by age, desires to know In brief the grounds and motives of her woe. 63 So slides he down upon his grained bat, And comely distant sits he by her side, When he again desires her, being sat, Her grievance with his hearing to divide: If that from him there may be aught applied Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage, Tis promised in the charity of age. 70 ‘Father,’ she says, ‘though in me you behold The injury of many a blasting hour, Let it not tell your judgement I am old, Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power. I might as yet have been a spreading flower, Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied Love to myself, and to no love beside. 77 ‘But woe is me! Too early I attended A youthful suit; it was to gain my grace; O, one by nature’s outwards so commended, That maiden’s eyes stuck over all his face, Love lacked a dwelling and made him her place; And when in his fair parts she did abide, She was new lodged and newly deified. 84 ‘His browny locks did hang in crooked curls, And every light occasion of the wind Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls, What’s sweet to do, to do will aptly find, Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind: For on his visage was in little drawn, What largeness thinks in paradise was sawn. 91 ‘Small show of man was yet upon his chin; His phoenix down began but to appear, Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin, Whose bare out-bragged the web it seemed to wear; Yet showed his visage by that cost more dear, And nice affections wavering stood in doubt If best were as it was, or best without. 98 ‘His qualities were beauteous as his form, For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free; Yet if men moved him, was he such a storm As oft twixt May and April is to see, When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be. His rudeness so with his authorised youth Did livery falseness in a pride of truth. 105 ‘Well could he ride, and often men would say "That horse his mettle from his rider takes, Proud of subjection, noble by the sway, What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!" And controversy hence a question takes, Whether the horse by him became his deed, Or he his manage by th’well-doing steed. 112 ‘But quickly on this side the verdict went, His real habitude gave life and grace To appertainings and to ornament, Accomplished in himself, not in his case; All aids, themselves made fairer by their place, Came for additions; yet their purposed trim Pieced not his grace, but were all graced by him. 119 ‘So on the tip of his subduing tongue All kind of arguments and question deep, All replication prompt, and reason strong, For his advantage still did wake and sleep, To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep: He had the dialect and different skill, Catching all passions in his craft of will, 126 ‘That he did in the general bosom reign Of young, of old, and sexes both enchanted, To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain In personal duty, following where he haunted, Consents, bewitched, ere he desire have granted, And dialogued for him what he would say, Asked their own wills, and made their wills obey. 133 ‘Many there were that did his picture get To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind, Like fools that in th’imagination set The goodly objects which abroad they find, Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assigned, And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them, Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them. 140 ‘So many have, that never touched his hand, Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart. My woeful self that did in freedom stand, And was my own fee simple, not in part, What with his art in youth, and youth in art, Threw my affections in his charmed power, Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower. 147 ‘Yet did I not, as some my equals did, Demand of him, nor being desired, yielded, Finding myself in honour so forbid, With safest distance I mine honour shielded. Experience for me many bulwarks builded Of proofs new-bleeding, which remained the foil Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil. 154 ‘But ah! Who ever shunned by precedent The destined ill she must herself assay, Or forced examples gainst her own content, To put the by-passed perils in her way? Counsel may stop a while what will not stay: For when we rage, advice is often seen By blunting us to make our wills more keen. 161 ‘Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood, That we must curb it upon others’ proof, To be forbode the sweets that seems so good, For fear of harms that preach in our behoof. O appetite, from judgement stand aloof! The one a palate hath that needs will taste, Though reason weep and cry, “It is thy last.” 168 ‘For further I could say, “This man’s untrue,” And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling; Heard where his plants in others’ orchards grew, Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling; Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling; Thought characters and words merely but art, And bastards of his foul adulterate heart. 175 ‘And long upon these terms I held my city, Till thus he ’gan besiege me: “Gentle maid, Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity, And be not of my holy vows afraid: That’s to ye sworn, to none was ever said, For feasts of love I have been called unto, Till now did never invite, nor never woo. 182 ‘“All my offences that abroad you see Are errors of the blood, none of the mind: Love made them not; with acture they may be, Where neither party is nor true nor kind, They sought their shame that so their shame did find, And so much less of shame in me remains, By how much of me their reproach contains. 189 ‘“Among the many that mine eyes have seen, Not one whose flame my heart so much as warmed, Or my affection put to th’smallest teen, Or any of my leisures ever charmed: Harm have I done to them, but never was harmed; Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free, And reigned commanding in his monarchy. 196 ‘“Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me, Of pallid pearls and rubies red as blood, Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me Of grief and blushes, aptly understood In bloodless white and the encrimsoned mood; Effects of terror and dear modesty, Encamped in hearts, but fighting outwardly. 203 ‘“And, lo! behold these talents of their hair, With twisted metal amorously empleached, I have received from many a several fair, Their kind acceptance weepingly beseeched, With th’annexions of fair gems enriched, And deep-brained sonnets that did amplify Each stone’s dear nature, worth and quality. 210 ‘“The diamond? Why, twas beautiful and hard, Whereto his invised properties did tend, The deep green emerald, in whose fresh regard Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend; The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend With objects manifold; each several stone, With wit well blazoned smiled, or made some moan. 217 ‘“Lo, all these trophies of affections hot, Of pensived and subdued desires the tender, Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not, But yield them up where I myself must render, That is, to you, my origin and ender: For these of force must your oblations be, Since I their altar, you empatron me. 224 ‘“O then advance of yours that phraseless hand, Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise; Take all these similes to your own command, Hallowed with sighs that burning lungs did raise: What me, your minister for you, obeys, Works under you; and to your audit comes Their distract parcels in combined sums. 231 ‘“Lo, this device was sent me from a nun, Or sister sanctified of holiest note, Which late her noble suit in court did shun, Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote; For she was sought by spirits of richest coat, But kept cold distance, and did thence remove To spend her living in eternal love. 238 ‘“But O, my sweet, what labour is’t to leave The thing we have not, mastering what not strives, Planing the place which did no form receive, Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves? She that her fame so to herself contrives, The scars of battle scapeth by the flight, And makes her absence valiant, not her might. 245 ‘“O pardon me, in that my boast is true, The accident which brought me to her eye, Upon the moment did her force subdue, And now she would the caged cloister fly: Religious love put out religion’s eye: Not to be tempted would she be immured, And now to tempt all, liberty procured. 252 ‘“How mighty then you are, O hear me tell! The broken bosoms that to me belong Have emptied all their fountains in my well, And mine I pour your ocean all among: I strong oer them, and you oer me being strong, Must for your victory us all congest, As compound love to physic your cold breast. 259 ‘“My parts had power to charm a sacred nun, Who, disciplined I dieted in grace, Believed her eyes when they t’assail begun, All vows and consecrations giving place. O most potential love! Vow, bond, nor space, In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine, For thou art all and all things else are thine. 266 ‘“When thou impressest, what are precepts worth Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame, How coldly those impediments stand forth, Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame! Love’s arms are peace, gainst rule, gainst sense, gainst shame, And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears, The aloes of all forces, shocks and fears. 273 ‘“Now all these hearts that do on mine depend, Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine, And supplicant their sighs to you extend, To leave the battery that you make gainst mine, Lending soft audience to my sweet design, And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath, That shall prefer and undertake my troth.” 280 ‘This said, his watery eyes he did dismount, Whose sights till then were levelled on my face; Each cheek a river running from a fount With brinish current downward flowed apace. O how the channel to the stream gave grace, Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses That flame through water which their hue encloses! 287 ‘O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies In the small orb of one particular tear! But with the inundation of the eyes What rocky heart to water will not wear? What breast so cold that is not warmed here? O cleft effect! Cold modesty, hot wrath, Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath. 294 ‘For lo, his passion, but an art of craft, Even there resolved my reason into tears; There my white stole of chastity I daffed, Shook off my sober guards, and civil fears, Appear to him as he to me appears, All melting, though our drops this difference bore: His poisoned me, and mine did him restore. 301 ‘In him a plenitude of subtle matter, Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives, Of burning blushes, or of weeping water, Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves, In either’s aptness, as it best deceives, To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes, Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows, 308 ‘That not a heart which in his level came Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim, Showing fair nature is both kind and tame; And veiled in them, did win whom he would maim. Against the thing he sought he would exclaim; When he most burned in heart-wished luxury, He preached pure maid, and praised cold chastity. 315 ‘Thus merely with the garment of a grace, The naked and concealed fiend he covered, That th’unexperient gave the tempter place, Which, like a cherubin, above them hovered. Who, young and simple, would not be so lovered? Ay me! I fell, and yet do question make What I should do again for such a sake. 322 ‘O, that infected moisture of his eye, O, that false fire which in his cheek so glowed! O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly, O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed, O, all that borrowed motion, seeming owed, Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed, And new pervert a reconciled maid.’ 329 |
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From off a hill whose concave womb reworded
A plaintful story from a sistring vale, |
The narrator finds himself on a hill where the 'concave' shape of the countryside reminds him of a womb, in which reverberates or echoes – as in a cave perhaps – the story that unfolds in a 'sistring' vale, meaning a valley that is directly adjacent to the hill.
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My spirits t’attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale; |
There, my spirits, for which read my disposition or my mind 'accorded' or agreed to lend this 'double voice' my attention, and so I lay down – presumably on the ground overlooking the valley – to listen to the tale that reached my ears like a sad tune.
The voice is 'double' because what the narrator hears is both the original voice of the woman he is about to see and the echo or reverberation of it in the vale. PRONUNCIATION: Note that spirits is here pronounced as one syllable: [sprits]. |
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Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain, Storming her world with sorrow’s wind and rain. 7 |
Soon I saw there a pale young woman who was tearing apart pieces of paper and breaking rings in two, and through doing so bringing to her world, or giving expression in her world to, the stormy weather that comes with the wind and rain of deep sorrow.
Shakespeare uses a similar metaphor in Sonnet 90, Then Hate Me When Thou Wilt, if Ever, Now where the second quatrain reads: Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow, Come in the rearward of a conquered woe, Give not a windy night a rainy morrow To linger out a purposed overthrow. 'Fickle' – then as now meaning 'changeable', 'inconstant', 'unreliable' – here would appear to characterise the young woman as she is about to reveal herself rather than how she presents herself in her immediately discernible actions. |
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Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun, |
The young woman wore on her head a 'hive', a high-crowned straw hat, which 'fortified' or protected her face against the sun.
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Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcass of a beauty spent and done; |
And on that face the thought of an onlooker – implied is one such as I, the narrator – might think that it saw the now dead or nearly expired remnants of a beauty that it once possessed but that is now spent and done away with.
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Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven’s fell rage Some beauty peeped through lattice of seared age. 14 |
Time – often represented by Shakespeare as carrying a scythe also in the Sonnets – had not yet cut down everything that youth had begun to grow in her, obviously referring to the young woman's erstwhile beauty, nor indeed had youth itself entirely left her. Rather, in spite of the violent blows that heaven or fate had visited upon her, some beauty still managed to peep through the criss-crossed lines given her by withering age.
Age, as we often saw throughout the Sonnets, is a relative term and sets on much earlier in Shakespeare's time than today. Clearly though the 'maid' – which after all suggests a young woman still – has aged not so much and not only by time but by her experience. Sonnet 64 too invokes the 'fell hand' and 'rage' of time in its first quatrain: When I have seen by time's fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see downrazed And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; A theme that is then picked up immediately in Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea But sad mortality oresways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? PRONUNCIATION: Note that scythed here is pronounced as two syllables, [scy-thed], and heaven's as one syllable: [heans]. |
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Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters, |
Often or repeatedly did she lift her napkin to her eyes, and on this napkin were embroidered witty or inventive letters, for which read words: epigrams or short poems, or indeed love poems given to her by her lover, in which case 'conceited' would suggest not so much wit and inventiveness, as, more in our sense, vanity on his part.
'Eyne' is a now sadly obsolete plural for 'eyes'. It features only once in the Sonnets, and there only indirectly, when Shakespeare exploits its near homophony with 'mine' to conflate 'my eyne' to 'mine', still meaning 'my eyes'. We discuss this in our episode on Sonnet 113. 'Heave' suggests a heavy lift: the napkin is evidently weighed down by the emotional baggage it metaphorically carries; and 'character' to mean 'writing' or, more specifically, poetry, appears in several Sonnets, namely 59, 85, 108, and 122. |
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Laundering the silken figures in the brine
That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears, |
Thus she was effectively washing the 'figures' – the phrases and words so embedded in the silk of her napkin – in the 'brine' or salt water which long-lasting, fully matured sorrow had formed into the pellets of her tears.
Some editors have suggested that 'silken figures' might refer to images that are also embroidered on the napkin, but while this cannot of course be ruled out, both the definite article 'the' in this line as well as the reference to readable contents in the next line would appear to argue against that. PRONUNCIATION: Note that Laundering here has two syllables: [Laun-dring]. |
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And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguished woe, In clamours of all size, both high and low. 21 |
Often she read – presumably and by implication out loud – the contents of this napkin, and as often did she shriek in 'undistinguished', or indefinable woe, in clamours of all sizes and, since both 'shriek' and 'clamour' suggest loud expressions and exclamations of distress, pitches, both high and low.
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Sometimes her levelled eyes their carriage ride,
As they did battery to the spheres intend; |
Sometimes her eyes are 'levelled' or fixed, ready to take aim at some not yet specified point; and, like warriors, they ride their metaphorical carriage as if they intended to do battle with 'the spheres', these in all likelihood being those described in antiquity by Ptolemy as the concentric, layered orbs imagined around Earth which, according to this geocentric model, hold the planets and the stars on their path. By extension then, 'the spheres' denotes the sky.
For 'level' to mean 'take aim' we need look no further than Sonnet 117 which concludes: Bring me within the level of your frown, But shoot not at me in your wakened hate: Since my appeal says I did strive to prove The constancy and virtue of your love. PRONUNCIATION: Note that battery here has two syllables: [batt-ry]. |
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Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied
To th’orbed earth; sometimes they do extend Their view right on; |
Sometimes their, the eyes', poor balls, meaning the young woman's eyeballs, are diverted from the sky and instead tied to the ground of the Earth which, being itself a planet, too is of course orbed or curved; sometimes they extend their view straight ahead...
PRONUNCIATION: Note that orbed here has two syllables: [or-bed]. |
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anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and nowhere fixed, The mind and sight distractedly commixed. 28 |
...and then occasionally these eyes' gazes lend their attention to every place at once: they dart allover the place, not focusing on anything at all, with her mind and her eyesight thus all mingled up together in one great state of distraction.
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Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,
Proclaimed in her a careless hand of pride; |
Her hair, which was neither loose nor tied in a formal, traditional and therefore well-kept plait, displayed or announced to the world a hand that was careless in the execution of personal pride or attention to appearance. In other words, it spoke of a neglectful attitude towards her looks at this time of upheaval and upset.
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For some untucked descended her sheaved hat,
Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside; |
Because some of it – the hair – descended from underneath her hat, which was made of sheaves of straw, thus hanging loosely by her cheek which, as has already been established, was pale and wasted.
'Pine' in Early Modern English has a sense not only of 'longing' as we mostly understand it today, but also of 'suffer', 'waste away', especially from grief or sorrow or lack of food. PRONUNCIATION: Note that pined here has two syllables: [pi-ned]. |
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Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,
And, true to bondage, would not break from thence, Though slackly braided in loose negligence. 35 |
Some of her hair still stayed bound up in her thin ribbon or thread with which she had tied it together, and staying metaphorically faithful to this 'bond', would not break free, even though it was only braided into it slackly and loosely, much as has been suggested, with a negligent hand that shows no pride in her appearance.
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A thousand favours from a maund she drew,
Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet, Which one by one she in a river threw, Upon whose weeping margent she was set, |
A thousand love tokens or gifts did she take out of a 'maund' – a basket with a handle – and these trinkets were made of amber, crystal, and jet that was formed or shaped into beads; and one by one she threw these into a river on whose 'weeping' banks she had positioned herself.
Whether the riverbank is 'weeping' in sympathy with the young woman, or whether it is home also to some weeping willows, as well it might be, or whether this is just a straightforward case of Shakespeare deploying hypallage – as we have come across every so often in the Sonnets – and transferring the woman's tears to the riverbank is not further clarified. The image though is strong and clear, of the once beautiful but now care-worn young woman taking gifts she had received from her lover out of her basket and surrendering them, weeping, to the stream. |
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Like usury applying wet to wet,
|
And much as with usury, which requires that more money still is given in interest to those who already have plenty of it, she was adding yet more liquid, namely her tears, to the river which already had an abundance of water.
Usury, charging excessive interest for lending money, was at this time in England newly decriminalised but still widely frowned upon, and often therefore has principally negative connotations in Shakespeare, as does the term 'usurer': a metaphorical or literal money lender at, as is then implied, extortionate rates. |
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Or monarch’s hands, that lets not bounty fall
Where want cries ‘some’, but where excess begs all. 42 |
Or, similarly, like a monarch who 'lets bounty fall', meaning hands out generous gifts and favours, not to those whose need and poverty cries out for just 'some' help, but to those who already have an excess of wealth – because they are part of the nobility or landed gentry – and where that fact alone, that they are rich and influential, begs for and receives everything, because that's how you buy the allegiance and loyalty of those who can be useful to you if you are the king or queen.
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Of folded schedules had she many a one,
Which she perused, sighed, tore and gave the flood; |
Of folded sheets of paper – notes, letters, poems – she had many a one and she looked at these in turn, sighed, tore them up, and, just as the love tokens, threw them into the river.
ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION: Note that in OP one rhymes with bone below in a long 'aw' sound similar to our 'fawn' or 'own'. |
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Cracked many a ring of posied gold and bone,
Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud; |
As already mentioned earlier in the poem, she broke in two many a ring made of gold and bone, and these rings were 'posied': inscribed with her lover's 'posies', short lines of verse or mottos. These now broken tokens of love she also threw into the river, there in the mud of the riverbed to find their eternal grave.
Rings made of bone were not particularly common in England in the late 16th and early 17th century and their inclusion here among the gifts the young woman receives is significant. There was, by Shakespeare's time, a tradition of memorial rings and memento mori being made of animal bone, ivory, or even human bone, to remind the recipient of their mortality. And since the promise of love would traditionally extend 'till death us do part', they also came to be used as love tokens, correspondingly often inscribed with relevant mottos, especially in higher social circles, Gold being durable and of lasting value, and bone being inherently prone to decay, there is also a vivid contrast achieved here with gifts of both materials first being used to the same purpose – to win the young woman's love – and now receiving the same treatment towards their end: being surrendered to the river by the heartbroken maid. ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION: Note that in OP bone rhymes with one above in a long 'aw' sound similar to our 'fawn' or 'own'. |
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Found yet mo letters sadly penned in blood,
With sleided silk, feat and affectedly Enswathed, and sealed to curious secrecy. 49 |
Yet more letters did she find, which, going by what she is about to exclaim would appear to be literally 'penned in blood', that is written with the lover's own blood, rather than mere ink.
This, while certainly not common practice at the time, was something that did occur, and it here suggests a lover showing – or perhaps performing – deliberately extreme signals of sincerity and commitment. And these letters – not implausibly on account of their transgressive intimacy – were once neatly and diligently, with great attention and affection, wrapped up in 'sleided' or sleaved silk: silk that has been separated out into fine filaments. Thus these letters were sealed and protected from others' prying eyes in 'curious' secrecy. 'Curious' appears only once in the Sonnets, in the closing couplet of Sonnet 38: If my slight Muse do please these curious days, The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise. There we noted that it had a meaning of 'fastidious' and also 'highly critical' or 'hard to please'. Here it evokes more the former sense: 'fastidious', 'diligent', 'elaborate', 'extremely careful'. The suggestion is that the young woman kept the love letters sent her by her lover neatly, and very deliberately tied up in a parcel made with fine silk thread which would be virtually impossible to untie undetected. |
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These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes,
And often kissed, and often gave to tear; |
These letters she often bathed in the tears of her 'fluxive' or flowing eyes, and she often kissed them, and often tore them up.
'Gave to tear' is an unusual turn of phrase, suggesting that the young woman has to push or bring herself to surrender these letters to being torn up by her. A pun on the 'tears' which are already circumscribed by these letters being 'bathed in her fluxive eyes' is very likely also intended, thus implying that she often gave these letters up to her tears. |
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Cried, ‘O false blood, thou register of lies,
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And as she did so, she cried, 'O you false, lying, deceptive blood, you chronicle of lies.'
'Register' to mean a chronicle or account of what has happened also appears in Sonnet 123 and there too the dependability of what the term describes is doubtful: Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present, nor the past, For thy records and what we see doth lie, Made more or less by thy continual haste. |
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What unapproved witness dost thou bear!
|
The admonishment of the blood used to write these letters continues: 'what unproven, unsubstantiated, and therefore false witness you bear to the love and intentions of the person who wrote these letters and whose blood you are.'
PRONUNCIATION: Note that unapproved here has four syllables: [un-app-ro-ved]. |
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Ink would have seemed more black and damned here!’
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Ink would have been more fitting, more suitable here, because ink is itself proverbially black and would therefore have been capable of giving the appearance of a black, as in dark, sinister, untrustworthy, and therefore damned correspondent writing the lines than you, his red blood.
The sentence is slightly problematic for us today, because we use 'seem' mostly to mean 'would appear to be but isn't', as in 'he seems like a nice person, but in truth he's a right selfish prick'. And so black ink 'seeming' 'more black and damned' to us feels like a contradiction in terms. For Shakespeare and his contemporaries though, 'seem' carries a strong connotation of appropriately and fittingly give appearance to. A similar nuance appears in Sonnets 101 and 102 which also use the word 'seem' and may mislead us a bit into reading more of a deceit or pretence into the word than is strictly intended. PRONUNCIATION: Note that damned has two syllables here: [dam-ned]. |
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This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,
Big discontent so breaking their contents. 56 |
And, having said this, at the top of her rage she now rends or tears apart these written lines, these letters, her great discontentment thus breaking and destroying their contents.
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A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh,
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A respected or revered, and, as is also spelt out in a moment, older man who was grazing his cattle nearby...
'Reverend' then as now bears a connotation of religious piousness or respectability and thus establishes this man from the outset as a trustworthy person for the young woman to talk to: we are left in no doubt that he approaches her purely out of genuine concern for her wellbeing rather than with any ulterior motive. |
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Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew
Of court, of city, |
And lest we doubt this man's credentials, he is now further characterised as someone who has in fact at some point in the past been a 'blusterer', a boaster or braggart, who knew the 'ruffle' – the ostentatious bustle, the cut and thrust – of court and of the city...
Shakespeare seems to have coined or first used in print both these expressions, 'blusterer' and 'ruffle', and they are no doubt apt: London was a busy, loud, often readily and violently quarrelsome place in his day. Katherine Duncan-Jones in her Arden edition of The Sonnets quotes Robert Naunton, who in 1641 wrote about Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain and patron of Shakespeare's theatre company: "as he lived in a ruffling time, so he loved sword and buckler men, and such as our Fathers were wont to call men of their hands." |
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and had let go by
The swiftest hours observed as they flew, |
And he, though once upon a time a blusterer, had by now let these 'swiftest hours' of his youth go by, suggesting that all of the blustering and ruffling by now was well and truly a thing of his past.
'Observed as they flew' offers two quite contrasting interpretations: most obviously, and probably intended here is that he in his youth used to "carry out the dictates of, attend to in practice, to keep, follow," these swift hours and was very much part of them as they flew by; but some editors prefer a notion of him keeping himself out of it all, to "watch, perceive, notice" these youthful behaviours of his peers (both definitions from Etymonline); this latter though standing in stark contrast to his being described as a 'blusterer'. PRONUNCIATION: Note that observed here has three syllables: [ob-ser-ved]. |
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Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew;
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Be that as it may, this man of advanced years, today respectable though with a potentially worldly and colourful past, now quickly moved towards the young woman he too, much as the narrator and poet, had become aware of...
'Fancy' here has the meaning of an 'apparition' on the one hand and of the 'victim of a delusion' on the other, both of which the young woman to any onlooker represents, her affliction being her sorrow and her love pains. PRONUNCIATION: Note that Towards here is pronounced as one syllable: [Twards]. |
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And, privileged by age, desires to know
In brief the grounds and motives of her woe. 63 |
And, afforded the privilege of dignity, credibility, and trustworthiness by his age, he approaches her and requests that she tell him 'in brief' the cause of her distress.
Shakespeare now switches to the present tense to start relating the narration of the young woman 'in real time' as it were, and whether he here uses "In brief" mainly for prosody and to make up the number of syllables he needs, or whether he is actively aiming for a little irony we can only guess at. What follows though from the young woman is 'brief' at best in relative terms... |
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So slides he down upon his grained bat,
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And so he goes down to her by the river, supported on his walking stick.
'Slide' is once again an unusual choice of word: in us it evokes the image of a man sitting town on a stick or indeed on a bat, and literally sliding or gliding down the hillside. This is unlikely to be the idea. Considering the man's age and his 'reverend' respectability, what Shakespeare most likely means to suggest is that he moves gently, quite effortlessly, unhurriedly towards the young woman. A 'bat' at the time is a wooden walking stick and it is 'grained' because it shows the grain of the wood and, so we may surmise, also somewhat its age. PRONUNCIATION: Note that grained here has two syllables: [grain-ed]. |
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And comely distant sits he by her side,
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And there, on the riverbank, he sits down at a distance from her that is becoming and proper: he does not impose or frighten her, he respects her space...
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When he again desires her, being sat,
Her grievance with his hearing to divide: |
And then, when he is thus seated, he once again asks her to tell him what her grievance is: to share with his hearing, as it were, the cause of her woes.
PRONUNCIATION: Note that desires here has two syllalbes: [de-sires]. |
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If that from him there may be aught applied
Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage, Tis promised in the charity of age. 70 |
And to tell him whether there is anything he can do or say to help ease her suffering, since an ability and willingness to do so is inherent in the charitable, kindly disposition of an older person who has the wisdom and experience to perhaps offer some reassurance or counsel.
PRONUNCIATION: Note that suffering here has two syllables: [suff-ring]. |
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‘Father,’ she says, ‘though in me you behold
The injury of many a blasting hour, Let it not tell your judgement I am old, Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power. |
'Father', she says to the old man, 'although you see in me the injury of many a blighting or ruining hour, let that not make you think or judge that I am old. It is not age which has power over me and makes me appear as I do, but sorrow'.
The notion of this older man being respectable and trustworthy is here further emphasised by the young woman readily addressing him as you would address a vicar or other priest, with 'Father'. |
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'I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied Love to myself, and to no love beside. 77 |
'I could still today be like a fresh flower, still growing, still able to spread my blossom to the sun, so to speak, if I had loved myself and consequently applied loving care only to myself and not to some other love, as in lover, beside me.'
The invocation of self-love here strongly also evokes a notion of self-respect, in which the young woman now feels she was negligent. |
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‘But woe is me! Too early I attended
A youthful suit; |
'But I am in this terrible state because too soon – by implication both at a time when I was too young and altogether too quickly – did I pay attention and gave consideration to the approaches of a young man who became my suitor, who pursued me for, ostensibly, love.'
'Woe is me!' to us today sounds a touch melodramatic or mock-oldy-worldy. Not so in Shakespeare. He uses the expression sparingly – there are five instances of it in his Complete Works only – and never with anything other than heartfelt sincerity. Ophelia, for a good and representative example, after her painful encounter with Hamlet in Act III, Scene 1, where he treats her abominably and tells her to get herself to a nunnery, in her famous speech "O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!" ends on the line: "O woe is me, | T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see." And there is really no doubt that she means it. |
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it was to gain my grace;
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The line can have two meanings, possibly both intended simultaneously:
1) It, the suit, the wooing of my young suitor, was intended to win my 'grace', for which on the surface read 'affection', 'love', maybe even, as the story will eventually relate and if the 'suitor' were honest and honourable 'marriage', but for which beneath the surface we always also have to read 'sexual favours'; 2) this suit would end up winning my 'grace', with 'grace' then in that case having very much the connotations of 'affection' and 'sexual favours', though, not, clearly, of marriage. |
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O, one by nature’s outwards so commended,
That maiden’s eyes stuck over all his face, |
The young woman now proceeds to describe this young suitor whom ultimately she fell for: he was so favoured by the outward appearance nature gave him that the eyes of young women were glued to his face. In other words, everybody adored him and couldn't take their eyes off him.
This, and much of what follows in the characterisation of this young man matches up remarkably well with how the sonnets portray the Fair Youth. A first obvious parallel comes in Sonnet 3: For where is she so fair, whose uneared womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? And again in Sonnet 16: 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; |
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Love lacked a dwelling and made him her place;
And when in his fair parts she did abide, She was new lodged and newly deified. 84 |
'Love herself had nowhere to live and so she sought out him as her place to be, and when she stayed there, in the beautiful parts that made up his body, then, as in a temple, she was 'newly deified', meaning her status as a goddess was reaffirmed.'
Love here is not just personified as a female entity but described in terms of a goddess, which in the classical tradition makes her Venus/Aphrodite. It is of course not unusual for poets to describe the person they are in love with as the home of love. Shakespeare does so verbatim in Sonnet 109, speaking to his young male lover: As easy might I from myself depart As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie: That is my home of love, if I have ranged, Like him that travels I return again, What is interesting about Shakespeare's use of the commonplace here is that the young woman of this poem sees her lover as the home for the goddess of love, and one that is capable of 'newly deifying' her at that. Shakespeare's young man, incidentally, also at one point – according to our Will – makes a perfect home for something rather less flattering, in Sonnet 95: 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! |
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‘His browny locks did hang in crooked curls,
And every light occasion of the wind Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls, |
'His locks, which were of a brownish or light brown colour – a colour inclining towards brown, rather than a dark brown – hung in curved curls from his head, and even the slightest breeze or waft of wind would move their 'silken parcels' – the soft-sheened pockets of his curls – to play upon his lips'.
'Crooked' is an unusual and therefore noteworthy choice of word for something as sensual and subtly erotic as is being described here, because then as now it bears a connotation not just of the physical curve or bent of strands of hair, but also of a 'crookedness', as in "dishonest, false, treacherous, not straight in conduct" (Etymonline), all of which is, of course, what the young suitor turns out to be. |
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What’s sweet to do, to do will aptly find,
Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind: |
'Anything that is a pleasure to do will find ample opportunity to be done', in other words: if something is pleasurable, it will be done or happen a lot, and so – unsurprisingly, as is implied – everyone who saw him found themselves enchanted.
Giving the beholders' eyes an active agency in this is, once again, subtly significant. It isn't just the case that everyone who looks at him is passively enchanted, but every person's eye actively enchants the mind of the person looking, because it finds looking so pleasurable: the eye effectively seeks out the object of beauty and causes the mind to admire him, so it can look upon him more. |
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For on his visage was in little drawn,
What largeness thinks in paradise was sawn. 91 |
'Because on his face was drawn out in miniature or in the small, personal, individual size of one human being, what the "largeness" of the whole wide world imagines would have been sawn or carved out in paradise': he was what everybody dreams of, the epitome of beauty.
Again, this description of the young suitor and the world's fascination with him matches well with the Fair Youth of the sonnets, for example Sonnet 5 which speaks of "The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell," Sonnet 10, "thou art beloved of many," or Sonnet 17: 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 never touched earthly faces'. |
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‘Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
His phoenix down began but to appear, |
'There was only a small hint of a beard as yet on his chin, and what little there was beginning to show was soft as down and resembled the bright coloured splendid plumage of the mystical phoenix'...
Of course, a man's beard also renews itself after its 'death' – when it has been shaved off or trimmed – by growing back, a bit like the phoenix, who rises from his own ashes in a never-ending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. How much Shakespeare is here playing on this slightly trivial analogy as well as on the vivid colour of the young man's down, we cannot be sure, though it clearly offers itself too. What is beyond doubt is that the young man – again in a parallel to Shakespeare's Fair Youth that is striking – looks barely old enough to grow a beard and, as is about to be made clear, that it is doubtful whether a beard would even suit him better than his youthful loveable appearance without. ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION: Note that in OP appear rhymes with wear below in a sound similar to our 'pear'. |
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Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin,
Whose bare out-bragged the web it seemed to wear; |
This 'phoenix down' looks like uncut velvet on that skin which is 'termless' because there are no words that can describe it, and which is so beautiful that where it lies bare it 'out-brags', meaning it outdoes in splendidness, the beard which seems like a 'web' or soft fabric that the skin is wearing.
Uncut velvet, in contrast to cut velvet, has a woolly, downy texture that is comparable to the soft early growth of a young man's facial hair, and 'web' here would similarly refer to a soft woven fabric, such as silk, rather than to a rough piece of utility. 'Bare' meanwhile is here used as a noun. It is the 'bare' – for which read 'bareness' – that 'out-bragged the web'. |
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Yet showed his visage by that cost more dear,
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt If best were as it was, or best without. 98 |
'His face by this rich or expensive ornament' – the 'phoenix down', the 'unshorn velvet' – 'was made to look even more attractive, desirable, precious, and people who pay close attention to this kind of thing' – 'nice' here having a sense of 'fastidious', and 'affections' one of 'admirers' – 'didn't know whether they should declare that what looked best on him was his tentative soft down of a beard or whether he would in fact be even more beautiful without it.'
In Sonnet 91, William Shakespeare tells his young man: Thy love is better than high birth to me, Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost, Of more delight than hawks or horses be, there too using 'cost' to mean an expensive, ornamented, materially rich type of fabric. PRONUNCIATION: Note that wavering is here pronounced as two syllables: [wav-ring]. ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION: Note that in OP dear rhymes with wear above, like appear in a sound similar to our 'pear'. |
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‘His qualities were beauteous as his form,
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'The qualities of his character were as beautiful as his outward appearance...'
This is a classical conceit that we come across in the sonnets regularly too: the congruence, ideally, of inward character and outward form, which, when present, makes for a perfect human being. The sonnets though do both, praise Shakespeare's young lover for possessing these enjoined qualities, and also admonish him for allowing them to diverge and his behaviour to lapse. |
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For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
|
Here some examples of his mild but manly nature: 'Because he was soft spoken, like a maid or young woman, and generous in his speech', meaning that he was apt to praise and slow to judge, and generally at ease in conversation.
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Yet if men moved him, was he such a storm
As oft twixt May and April is to see, When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be. |
'But if provoked by others, his anger was like the kind of storm or wind that often blows between May and April: strong und maybe unruly, but nonetheless tempered by warmth and infused with the fragrance of spring.'
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His rudeness so with his authorised youth
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth. 105 |
'And thus any harshness or apparent violence of temper in him was able to use his youth as the kind of justification that lent his failings an appearance of proud presentability and sincerity.'
In other words, his youth gave him licence to cover any shortcomings of his character with the splendid appearance of sincerity. This internally contradictory or, as has been pointed out, oxymoronic characterisation of the young woman's lover continues to mirror Shakespeare's 'issue' with his young male lover too, so potently expressed in Sonnet 95: 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 comment on thy sport, Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise: Naming thy name blesses an ill report. PRONUNCIATION; Note that authorised is stressed on the second syllable for prosody: [au-tho-rised]. |
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‘Well could he ride, and often men would say
"That horse his mettle from his rider takes, Proud of subjection, noble by the sway, |
'He could ride well, and often men' – for which as usual we here may read people generally – 'would say that that horse takes his skill, his spirit from him, his rider; that he is proud to be subdued' – trained, commanded – 'by someone as skilful as him and therefore himself ennobled by being under the young man's control and sway.'
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What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!"
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The expressions of admiration for his riding continue in exclamations: "how he turns, and jumps, and runs, and how he stops!" All of which are obviously essential manoeuvres in horsemanship.
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And controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed, Or he his manage by th’well-doing steed. 112 |
'And from this arises among the admiring observers a question of dispute: whether the horse is shaped by the rider and takes all his powerful qualities from him, or whether in fact the young man absorbs, internalises, and inhabits all the tremendous performance of his steed through being effectively trained by him.'
'Manage' here is a noun to mean "the handling or training of a horse; horsemanship" (Etymonline), from French manège, where we still get today's 'manege' from, a riding school. PRONUNCIATION: Note that controversy here is stressed on the first and third syllables: [con-tro-ver-sy]. |
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‘But quickly on this side the verdict went,
His real habitude gave life and grace To appertainings and to ornament, |
'But very soon the verdict from this dispute came down on the side that said it was his real qualities that lent his grace and spirit to everything he possessed, whether that be belongings or ornaments', in other words it was not his horse, or his equipment, or his rich garments, or his jewellery that lent him grace and that enhanced his position and appearance; rather it was his tremendous character that lent everything he touched his own splendour.
'Real' in the Quarto Edition is spelt 'reall' and there is a possibility, though that must remain speculation, that William Shakespeare is here punning on 'real' from Spanish, to mean 'royal' or on the Real, also spelt Ryal, which was an old English gold coin from the 15th century, known as the Rose-Noble and that therefore this habitude of the young man is not so much 'real' as in reality-related, as noble. The word is surprisingly rare in Shakespeare though: it occurs only three times in total, and the other two instances are in prose, so we cannot say, unfortunately, whether the disyllabic pronunciation points towards an additional layer of meaning than merely the common 'real'. PRONUNCIATION: Note that real here is pronounced as two syllables: [re-al]. |
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Accomplished in himself, not in his case;
All aids, themselves made fairer by their place, Came for additions; yet their purposed trim Pieced not his grace, but were all graced by him. 119 |
'He being accomplished in himself and not merely in his outward "casing" or appearance, every object or thing that was there to assist him was made more beautiful by finding itself in its place, being owned or used or worn by him; all these things may have come to him to add to his powers, but the fully intended adornment or trappings that they brought did not serve to augment his grace but were in fact all graced by him.'
All of which is to reiterate and confirm: he was not graced by the things he touched but everything he touched was graced by him. Again, much as the Fair Youth of the sonnets. |
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‘So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kind of arguments and question deep, All replication prompt, and reason strong, For his advantage still did wake and sleep, To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep: |
A new quality of his is now expounded:
'To such an extent did the following apply: When he spoke with his compelling command of rhetoric, any kind of argument that was being made, any deep question that was being asked, any prompt reply or riposte to what he put forward, or any strong reason that was given to support an opinion or a point of view, would always turn out in his favour; so much so that he could make those who were crying laugh and those who were laughing cry.' In other words: he was able to speak and argue so convincingly that he could turn people's views around and their emotions inside out. 'On the tip of his tongue' here does not have the meaning we would readily interpret; the young suitor of this woman is not lost for a word, quite the opposite: it is on the tip of his tongue that the words form trippingly and pleasingly, quite as Hamlet instructs the players to deliver their lines in Act III, Scene 1: "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue." And a 'replication' here is not a duplication or copy, but a reply, specifically, in legal terms, "a plaintiff's response to a defendant's plea." (Oxford Languages) ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION: Note that in OP tongue rhymes with strong below. |
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He had the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will, 126 |
'In fact, he had a way of speaking and the varied rhetorical skills – of persuasion, of argument, of reasoning, of convincing – that he was able to capture and therefore effectively deal with and respond to all and any kind of emotions he encountered'...
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‘That he did in the general bosom reign
Of young, of old, and sexes both enchanted, To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain In personal duty, following where he haunted, Consents, bewitched, ere he desire, have granted, And dialogued for him what he would say, Asked their own wills, and made their wills obey. 133 |
To such an extent did all of the above apply ...'that he effectively ruled over the hearts of everyone, young and old, and enchanted both sexes to the point where they sought to be with him in their thoughts, or to stay loyal to him in his trail, to follow him wherever he went; that he would receive the consent from people to what he wished or desired before he even desired it, let alone expressed his desire for it, and had people say for him exactly what he was going to say, enquiring from themselves what they wanted but then guiding or ruling their own wills to obey his.'
This effusive incantation of the young man's wondrous rhetorical skills and powers of persuasion, and the overall effect he has on people, stretching over two stanzas, serves to portray an utterly charming, delightful young man, of course, though also, it can and will be argued, a masterful manipulator of those who are in his thrall. Again, and always, just as with the Fair Youth of the sonnets. PRONUNCIATION: Note that both personal and following are here pronounced as two syllables in each case: [pers-nal], [foll-wing]. |
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‘Many there were that did his picture get
To serve their eyes, |
'There were many who obtained or procured his picture so that they could feast their eyes on him'...
The kind of picture we are to imagine is, in all likelihood, a miniature that you could keep in a locket or as a keepsake: these were entirely common at the time, and in fact a recent find (Autumn 2025) of such a miniature portrait by Nicholas Hilliard of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, mounted on a playing card, fuelled speculation that it may connect Southampton as the Fair Youth to William Shakespeare, because the heart on the back of the card had been deliberately painted over with a black spade or 'spear'. |
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and in it put their mind,
Like fools that in th’imagination set The goodly objects which abroad they find, Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assigned, And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them, Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them. 140 |
...'and they put their thoughts, desires, and dreams into this picture, just like those fools who in their imagination possess the valuable goods they see around them that belong to others, such as lands and mansions, which they fantasise about being theirs, and which they spend more time and effort thinking about and dreaming up joys they could have with them than the "gouty landlord" who does actually own them.'
What William Shakespeare describes is not dissimilar to us today fantasising about winning the lottery or a dream house and getting way more excited about the potential this holds than anyone rich enough to actually own that kind of money or property. 'Gouty' is a common shorthand at the time for a wealthy but by his wealth turned unhealthy and therefore unhappy and grumpy person who cannot find true pleasure in their worldly goods. |
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‘So many have, that never touched his hand,
Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart. |
'And there were Just as many' – as those who got his picture –'who thought of themselves as his mistress in some sweet delusion, even though they never even came so close as to touch his hand'.
While up until now this young lover was presented and described as universally attractive to people of both sexes and, in our terms today, all genders, the young woman now for the first time specifically invokes the notion of a 'mistress of his heart', as she goes on to speak of her own stance towards him. |
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My woeful self that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee simple, not in part, |
'I, who I am now in my woeful state of sorrow and, as is implied, by contrast, who I was entirely free and in complete possession of my own rights'...
'Fee simple' is a legal term relating to land or property ownership, and denotes a freehold: "a permanent and absolute tenure in land with freedom to dispose of it at will, especially (in full fee simple absolute in possession) a freehold tenure, which is the main type of land ownership." (Oxford Languages). Shakespeare thus gives the young woman of this story an absolute independent agency over herself, which she further emphasises by declaring this to have been the case fully and 'not in part'. |
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What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
Threw my affections in his charmed power, |
'Faced with his skilfulness in youth and the youthfulness in his skills' – of everything expounded above and also, again by implication, of his seductive technique – 'I threw my affection, my love, my devotion at him and into the power of his charm,' for which we may read his pleasing nature, and also his enchanted, near magical powers, again of persuasion and seduction.'
PRONUNCIATION: Note that charmed here has two syllables: [charm-ed]. |
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Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower. 147
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The line is highly ambiguous.
On the surface it can be read as: 'And doing so, I kept my innermost core, my truth, or my essence still to myself while giving him all my beauty, my appearance, my radiance, my outward loveliness.' Editors note though that 'flower' often at the time refers to a woman's virginity, which would invite a reading of the line as: I kept my inner core to myself but I gave him all of my virginity, meaning, I had sex with him, and he was the first one. The next stanza though directly contradicts this, claiming 'unlike others in my situation, I did not yield to him: even though I was being desired, I shielded my honour'. This in turn then is followed by a lengthy passage that ultimately leads to the young woman succumbing to the advances of the young man. So either William Shakespeare here has her anticipate the final outcome of the relationship before narrating how she held out for quite some time, in which case the second of the two readings applies, or he has her telling the older man that she was effectively already all the young suitors, except she held back for as long as she could until she finally gave in to him. As is so often the case with Shakespeare in the sonnets, it is entirely plausible that he means to do both at the same time, allowing us to take our pick and read the story in whichever way most pleases us. |
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‘Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of him, nor being desired, yielded, |
'And yet I did not' – here comes said contradiction – 'as some of my peers or as other maidens in a comparable situation to mine did, make any demands of him, nor did I yield to him, even though I was being desired by him,' this perhaps in contrast to some of these other young women, who, after all, had never even touched his hand.
PRONUNCIATION: Note that being here has one syllable only: [being]. |
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Finding myself in honour so forbid,
With safest distance I mine honour shielded. |
'I found myself so honour-bound to my own integrity and reputation that I kept myself at the safest distance from him to shield my honour' – my virginity – 'from him.'
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Experience for me many bulwarks builded
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remained the foil Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil. 154 |
'I had many a defensive bulwark or wall built for me through the experience of other young women who had fallen for him.'
'Proofs new-bleeding' suggests a physical evidence, such as a newly wounded soldier, which would go with the imagery of the battlefield with its bulwarks, but, having planted the idea of a flower in us a moment ago, and speaking of young maidens, it also obviously evokes the bleeding of newly deflowered virgins. The 'foil' is the metal against which which a jewel can be set to enhance its appearance, and so these other women were but the surface on which this 'false jewel' of a man – 'false' because of his treacherous behaviour, his philandering, his lying, as we are about to learn – could shine even more brilliantly while totally obscuring them. And, continuing the language of war in the context of 'love', his 'amorous spoil' is therefore simply his conquest, his trophy, which we may readily interpret also sexually, of course. PRONUNCIATION: Note that Experience is here pronounced as three syllables: [ex-per-ience]. |
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‘But ah! Who ever shunned by precedent
The destined ill she must herself assay, |
'But ah, who ever let the precedent of others persuade or convince her that she should shun or avoid the bad experience she herself is destined to make'. In other words: nobody can learn from others' mistakes.
To 'assay' means to test by experience, to try out. |
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Or forced examples gainst her own content,
To put the by-passed perils in her way? |
'Or who cared for or took note of examples against her own desire or wishes to avoid the dangers that present themselves to her?'
The construction here is unusual, because it describes the perils as 'by-passed', which suggests that such perils – like a seductive, attractive young man – have been put in the way of this woman before, but that she has hitherto successfully negotiated and avoided them. But the question asks who has ever 'forced examples' to 'put' such 'by-passed perils in her way', which logically would imply that the examples are used to bring these perils that were already once by-passed back in her way, which doesn't make much sense. Unless we allow for 'by-passed' to be effectively a 'proleptic epithet' making these perils newly in the way 'by-passed' as a consequence now of these examples. |
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Counsel may stop a while what will not stay:
For when we rage, advice is often seen By blunting us to make our wills more keen. 161 |
'The sage counsel of experience – or indeed of others – may be able to stop for a while something that will not be held at bay forever, because when we are in the thrall of the "rage" or madness that is love or desire, what actually happens a lot is that advice which is intended to moderate us makes our determination to do what we were about to do or to get what we want or to follow our desire all the more keen.'
This is astute observation of human behaviour: more often than not, a surefire way of getting someone to do something is telling them not to do it... The Quarto Edition here for 'wills' has 'wits', which some editors retain, and there are some fairly good reasons for doing so: the juxtaposition of advice that blunts us making our wits – our cunning, our sharpness of mind – actually more keen on its own would work. What doesn't quite work is the supposition that someone who is 'raging' with love and desire is having their wits sharpened by advice that is also, as intended, 'blunting us'. I therefore follow here the emendation to 'wills', albeit somewhat reluctantly... |
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‘Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,
That we must curb it upon others’ proof, To be forbode the sweets that seems so good, For fear of harms that preach in our behoof. |
'Nor does it satisfy our desire' – our sexual appetite – 'if we have to curb it and restrain ourselves on the hearsay and advice of others, if we are forbidden from tasting the sweet delights' – again of love, of sex – 'that seem so good, for fear of some harm that others preach "on our behalf" or warn will come to us.'
'Blood' appears often in Shakespeare's works with a variety of meanings: there are 719 instances in total, eight of which in the sonnets. Of these, Sonnets 109 and 121 both use 'blood' to mean sexual appetite: Sonnet 109: Never believe, though in my nature reigned All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stained To leave for nothing all thy sum of good, Sonnet 121: 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? |
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O appetite, from judgement stand aloof!
The one a palate hath that needs will taste, Though reason weep and cry, “It is thy last.” 168 |
'Oh appetite' – desire, lust – 'stand aloof from judgment! Rise above reasoned counsel and heed it not. One of these two, appetite and judgement, has a palate' – obviously appetite – 'and it must and will taste what it hungers for, even though the other' – reason or judgement – 'may weep at this and cry "this is the last thing you will ever enjoy,"' because after this there is only doom and desperation.'
ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION: Note that in OP taste and last rhyme on a flat 'a' sound, similar to a Northern English 'last'. |
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‘For further I could say, “This man’s untrue,”
And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling; |
'Because in addition to all of the above, I could also say that this man is untrue, meaning unfaithful, deceitful, lying, and that I knew of his vile seduction techniques.'
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Heard where his plants in others’ orchards grew,
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'I had heard where he had "planted his seed" in other people's "orchards" – where he had fathered children in other men's wives.'
In Sonnet 16 Shakespeare tells his young man, with the express aim of convincing him that he should marry and produce an heir: 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; Here the young woman speaks not of gardens but of "others' orchards" which strongly suggests places where other men 'grow their plants', that is in their wives. |
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Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;
Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling; |
'I saw how he gilded his deceit and his lies with his smile, and I knew that his vows were not to be trusted but were employed merely as brokers towards his intent to defile women.'
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Thought characters and words merely but art,
And bastards of his foul adulterate heart. 175 |
Two readings offer themselves for the first part of this line. Either:
a) His thought, the letters and verses he wrote, and the words he spoke or b) I thought that his letters and verses and the words he spoke were all just artifice, nothing was genuine; they were the illegitimate spawn of his adulterate heart. The long and the short of it is: I knew full well what I was dealing with and letting myself in for. |
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‘And long upon these terms I held my city,
Till thus he ’gan besiege me: |
'And for these reasons and under these conditions did I hold on to my virginity for a long time, until he began to insist and effectively harrangue me with these following words:'
The vocabulary of a siege continues and is now also adopted in the words of the young man himself: |
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“Gentle maid,
Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity, And be not of my holy vows afraid: That’s to ye sworn, to none was ever said, For feasts of love I have been called unto, Till now did never invite, nor never woo. 182 |
"Gentle maid, take some pity on my suffering youth and don't be afraid of the holy vows I make: what I swear to you has never been said to anybody by me, because I have been called or invited to many a 'feast of love'" – sexual encounter – "but until now I never initiated this or invited anyone to be with me, nor did I ever woo anyone."
From what we know so far of the young man, these are patent and brazenly bold-faced lies. PRONUNCIATION: Note that suffering is here pronounced with two syllables, [suff-ring], and never as one syllable: [ner]. |
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‘“All my offences that abroad you see
Are errors of the blood, none of the mind: |
"All of the offences I have committed which you can see around you" – as in the many sexual encounters I've had with young women that you either know of or have heard stories about – "are only sins of lust or appetite, not of the mind," for which also read the heart.
We have discussed on a few occasions the close connection in Shakespeare's understanding of 'mind' and 'heart': thought and emotion are closely linked, not least because both were believed to reside in the heart as much as in the brain. Sonnet 69 makes this most directly explicit: Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend; though this is by no means the only instance in Shakespeare where heart and mind are effectively conflated. |
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Love made them not; with acture they may be,
Where neither party is nor true nor kind, |
"It was not love that made, or made me commit, these 'errors', they may be found merely in actions between two parties that are neither true" – as in faithful, honest, sincere – "nor kind."
Which amounts to an admission as bold in its honesty as was the lie in its dishonesty above. |
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They sought their shame that so their shame did find,
And so much less of shame in me remains, By how much of me their reproach contains. 189 |
"Those who found 'shame' with me" – because they had sex with me and were as a result disgraced, or found themselves betrayed by me – "had sought this out for themselves: they enticed or seduced me, and so really the more they reproach me for having visited 'shame' upon them by having sex with them, the less this actually shames me, because this is exactly what they wanted all along."
Editors tend to take a dim view of the young man's reasoning here, and although suggesting, as has been done, that the young man is effectively 'victim shaming' these women in a context of sexual violence – of which there is absolutely no mention or indication – is going way too far, the argument he puts forward to excuse his actions is certainly contorted. Still, the young woman's account of him does speak of many women fantasising about him and seeking his attention, and women's agency and sexual independence at the time should probably not, as we learnt in our conversation with Professor Phyllis Rackin about Shakespeare and Women, be underestimated. This is a long pre-Victorian time in which both men and women were known to be at very liberal with their sexuality. That said, the young man portrayed here is clearly a cad: |
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‘“Among the many that mine eyes have seen,
Not one whose flame my heart so much as warmed, Or my affection put to th’smallest teen, Or any of my leisures ever charmed: |
"Among the many women that my eyes have seen, there was not one whose flame of love as much as warmed my heart, let alone lit it up in a heat of passion, or that administered the slightest injury or damage to my feelings, or was able to charm and beguile me and make me love them in my 'leisures'," for which here readily read my sexual adventures.
'Teen' in Shakespeare's day means 'harm', 'injury', 'grief', 'sorrow', or 'vexation. None of which, the young man claims, these many women caused him. |
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Harm have I done to them, but never was harmed;
Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free, And reigned commanding in his monarchy. 196 |
"I have done them harm" – very much as in 'teen' above of the heart: emotional harm, hurt, or sorrow: there still is no suggestion of the young man actually physically hurting these women – "but I wasn't harmed" – still in the same sense, of course – "by them. I made their hearts servants to me, but my own heart was free and reigned supreme above them in its state and status of a king or lord over all other hearts."
To be 'under livery' means being in service, since liveries are the uniforms worn by the staff of a household or court at the time. PRONUNCIATION: Note that never here again is pronounced as one syllable, [nehr], and liveries as two syllables: [liv-ries]. |
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‘“Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me,
Of pallid pearls and rubies red as blood, |
"Look here what gifts and tokens of love these women in their emotionally wounded or deluded fancies have sent me; made of, or containing, pale, white pearls and rubies red as blood..."
The white pearls and the blood red rubies no doubt are profoundly symbolic and echo the roses in the unusually 15-lines-long Sonnet 99: The roses fearfully on thorns did stand: One blushing shame, another white despair. Though white here is as likely to stand for innocence and virginity, and red for passion and love. |
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Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me
Of grief and blushes, aptly understood In bloodless white and the encrimsoned mood; |
With these gifts, the women 'figure' or imagine, indeed intend, that they, the tokens so bestowed, would lend the passions they represent to the young man, of pale grief and sorrow for unmet desire, as well as the red blushes for the lived and experienced and, so the suggestion, consumed passion.
'Encrimsoned mood' is a particularly evocative expression which conjures up at once the face of a person who is blushing with love and possibly shame or coyness for being so in love and, the body of a person in impassioned embraces, and also of course, during such embraces, the man's blood-engorged erection. PRONUNCIATION: Note that figuring here is pronounced as two syllables: [fig-ring]. |
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Effects of terror and dear modesty,
Encamped in hearts, but fighting outwardly. 203 |
All these states of terror and modesty are, in these women, 'encamped' or temporarily housed in the enclosure of the heart while struggling visibly to the outside world through their faces going pale and blushing red in turn.
What exactly the 'terror' experienced is of is not here specified, but we may continue to read this as heightened states of amorous emotion, rather than maidens being in our sense 'terrorised'. The fear is likely one of not being loved back, one of losing as much as of not getting to lose one's virginity with this man whom one so desires, fear of the unknown both in him and in oneself. |
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‘“And, lo! behold these talents of their hair,
With twisted metal amorously empleached, |
"And look at these curls of their hair, lovingly entwined with gold or silver wire"...
'Talents' gives rise to numerous subtly different interpretations. Some editors spell it as 'talons', with Katherine Duncan-Jones in her Arden edition of The Sonnets speculating it may refer to claw-shaped brooches, while citing others who have read it as 'coins', though reasonably arguing that interweaving hair with 'twisted metal' around coins doesn't make all that much sense. The Quarto Edition spells it 'tallents' and my guess is that Shakespeare simply means 'cuts', perhaps derived from French tailler, to 'cut', 'prune'. 'Empleach' meanwhile means to 'interweave' or 'interlace', often used in relation to plants, such as vines. The objects that the young man is drawing the young woman's attention to in any case are made of strands of hair, delicately and decoratively interwoven with precious wire to make charms or keepsakes. |
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I have received from many a several fair,
Their kind acceptance weepingly beseeched, |
These talents or tallents that "I have received from many different beauties who weepingly asked me to accept them as their gifts to me."
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With th’annexions of fair gems enriched,
And deep-brained sonnets that did amplify Each stone’s dear nature, worth and quality. 210 |
The description of these objects continues, they are: "enriched with the addition of beautiful gems and deeply thought sonnets to amplify or reinforce each of these gem stones' characteristics and symbolic meaning."
ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION: Note that in OP quality rhymes with amplify on an 'aye' sound. |
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‘“The diamond? Why, twas beautiful and hard,
Whereto his invised properties did tend, |
These stones' qualities are now outlined:
"The diamond? Well, it was beautiful and hard," much as one might expect, hence the rhetorical 'why'; and that is also "what its inward, invisible properties tended towards," 'invised' meaning 'unseen' or 'invisible', 'hidden'. In other words: the diamond was beautiful hard on the outside as it was also within, and that is therefore what it stood for. |
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The deep green emerald, in whose fresh regard
Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend; |
Then there was "the deep green emerald, which through its fresh appearance mends or refreshes weak, sick eyesight in those who look at it."
It was a prevalent belief at the time that emerald possessed healing properties for weak or damaged eyesight, though Shakespeare, and through him the young man speaking, allows for a modicum of doubt by employing the subjunctive mood here: rather than stating it 'does amend', he relates that it is said or believed it 'do amend'. We sadly no longer in English make much use of this subtle device for refinement in our language. |
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The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend
With objects manifold; each several stone, With wit well blazoned smiled, or made some moan. 217 |
"The sky-blue sapphire and the opal both blend together with many different other objects, and each of these stones was accompanied or furnished with well crafted 'wit'," for which read clever verses such as the thoughtful sonnets mentioned a moment ago, "which correspondingly made each of them either metaphorically smile or moan, as befitted its meaning and purpose."
PRONUNCIATION: Note that heaven here has one syllable, [hean] and several is pronounced with two syllables in this instance: [sev-ral]. |
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‘“Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,
Of pensived and subdued desires the tender, |
"Look, all these trophies and gifts and symbols of hot affection, which are the offerings resulting from deeply thoughtful and subdued or unspoken desires..."
'Trophies' here obviously and primarily refers to all these objects that have been mentioned and described. It does nevertheless carry a strong sense of 'winning trophies' attesting to conquests of the heart and to sexual triumphs. In Sonnet 31, William Shakespeare tells his young lover: Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, Who all their parts of me to thee did give, That due of many now is thine alone. Their images I loved I view in thee, And thou, all they, hast all the all of me. 'Tender' here is a noun meaning an offering, as in Sonnet 83: I found, or thought I found, you did exceed The barren tender of a poet's debt. |
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Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,
But yield them up where I myself must render, That is, to you, my origin and ender: |
"Nature has commanded or instructed me that I should not hoard them, but instead yield them up to the person to whom I must give up myself, that is to you, who you are my beginning and my end, my alpha and omega, that is, my all."
William Shakespeare, in Sonnet 109, tells his young man in the closing couplet: For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all. And in Sonnet 112: "You are my all the world," and so the parallels to the sonnets quite naturally continue. |
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For these of force must your oblations be,
Since I their altar, you empatron me. 224 |
"Because these all must by necessity be oblations – again offerings – to you, because they have been laid on me as the altar, but if I am the altar then you are the patron god or saint to whom this altar is devoted and so all of these gifts needs must come to you."
And there is one more direct reference to the sonnets here too, Sonnet 125, the penultimate of the Fair Youth Sonnets, where Shakespeare tells his young lover: No, let me be obsequious in thy heart, And take thou my oblation, poor but free, Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art, But mutual render, only me for thee. |
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‘“O then advance of yours that phraseless hand,
Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise; |
"Oh, all of this being the case, extend to me your hand, which is beyond praise and incapable of adequate description; its white is so pure that if it were put on a scale it would easily outweigh any praise that might be put in the opposing bowl."
In other words: no praise can match the whiteness of your hand. White being the absolute standard for female beauty in England at the time, as we have seen and discussed throughout the sonnets, and particularly in the Dark Lady section. |
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Take all these similes to your own command,
Hallowed with sighs that burning lungs did raise: |
"Take all these similes" – these expressions of love and affection to and for the young man from these many women – "into your own possession and under your command, seeing as they are sanctified with the sighs of lungs burning with love."
The religious tone and the reverberation of the sonnets continues, here with Sonnet 108: I must each day say ore the very same, Counting no old thing old – thou mine, I thine – Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name, PRONUNCIATION: Note that similes here, to scan with Line 225 above should ideally be read as two syllables: [sim-lies]. |
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What me, your minister for you, obeys,
Works under you; and to your audit comes Their distract parcels in combined sums. 231 |
"Whatever obeys me, who I am your minister, as in the priest now also, as well as the altar to goddess you, therefore by extension works under you, it comes to your reckoning, your assessment, your final accounting, and what was given to me as individual small pieces and gifts from different people, all put together now comes as a grand total to you."
At least two sonnets are here referenced, whether deliberately and directly or inadvertently and by coincidence: Sonnet 49: 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; And the last of the Fair Youth Sonnets, 126: If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back, She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill May Time disgrace and wretched minute kill. Yet fear her, o thou minion of her pleasure, She may detain but not still keep her treasure: Her audit, though delayed, answered must be, And her quietus is to render thee. |
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‘“Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,
Or sister sanctified of holiest note, |
"Look, this object" – token of love, gift – "was sent to me from a nun, a sanctified sister of the holiest kind or order..."
The 'Or' is a tad puzzling, but not very. A nun may be any of many women who joined convents at the time, the young man here is making sure the young woman he is talking to understands that this is not just any old nun, but a 'sister of holiest note', meaning one of holiest, most devout character and standing. |
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Which late her noble suit in court did shun,
|
"Who had in the past declined the offers of noblemen at court..."
|
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Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;
|
The line is slightly ambiguous but most likely means: she, whose rarest, as in most exquisite attributes in physical appearance and character made the blossoms of court – the most eligible young courtiers who were in full bloom of their youth – dote on her...
An alternative, but in view of how the sentence then continues perhaps less likely reading also allows for 'whose' to refer to the 'noble suit', which would make the 'rarest havings' his possessions and/or characteristics and the the blossoms doting on him the ladies and possibly also the other young noblemen at court. As so often with Shakespeare, it is not at all impossible that he is aware of the ambiguity and uses it constructively... |
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For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,
|
"...because she was sought after and propositioned to by men of the most splendid coat of arms," for which read the highest level of nobility.
'Spirits' suggests that these men were also intellectually superior, which is not entirely spurious: as members of the aristocracy they would have been educated and very possibly have gone to university, unlike the great majority of the population. PRONUNCIATION: Note that spirits here is pronounced as one syllable: [sprits]. |
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But kept cold distance, and did thence remove
To spend her living in eternal love. 238 |
"But she kept her distance from these men and removed herself from court to spend her life devoted to the eternal love of God, as opposed to temporal love of another human being."
In other words: this woman could have had the best of men but chose the life of a nun instead, that's how pious she was. ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION: Note that in OP love rhymes with remove, in a short u sound similar to 'luv'. |
|
‘“But O, my sweet, what labour is’t to leave
The thing we have not, mastering what not strives, Planing the place which did no form receive, Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves? She that her fame so to herself contrives, The scars of battle scapeth by the flight, And makes her absence valiant, not her might. 245 |
"But, oh my dear, what effort is it really to leave something behind which we never actually had; mastering something that puts up no resistance or challenge to us; smoothing or making plane something which was never anything other than smooth or plane in the first place and thus had never received any form at all; playing at being patient and showing endurance for being put in gyves – shackles or fetters – that don't actually forcibly constrain you? She who in this way contrives a reputation for herself escapes the battle scars that a true brave warrior might have acquired through standing up to an enemy in adversity and thus makes her absence valiant and praiseworthy perhaps, but not really her powers of resistance."
The stanza seems a bit curious on its own: why – we might wonder – would the young man be downplaying the strength and achievement of this nun? But he is not referring to her escaping from court into the chaste life of a 'sanctified sister', he is building up to comparing the effort it takes her to resist him to the effort it must have taken the young woman he is talking to to do so. The nun has already forsworn men and sex and earthly pleasures, and so resisting his advances would have been easy. The young woman, by contrast, had made no such commitment to God and was therefore eligible and at least in terms of her status and situation in life open to seduction and being wooed, yet she, as he is about to acknowledge, stood firm, which makes her far more valiant and way stronger and more impressive than the nun. The Quarto Edition here has "Playing the place which did no form receive," but it seems really rather unlikely that Shakespeare would repeat the same action in two so different contexts, and also the sentence thus doesn't make much sense, whereas with the emendation, first proposed by Edward Cappell in the 18th century, to 'Planing' - making plane, smoothing – it does. |
|
‘“O pardon me, in that my boast is true,
The accident which brought me to her eye, Upon the moment did her force subdue, And now she would the caged cloister fly: |
"Oh forgive me for the boast I am to make, since it is after all true: the chance encounter which brought me into her sight immediately led to her power of conviction and resistance to temptation to be subdued, and now, having met me, she wanted to flee again from the caged cloister where she had taken refuge from life at court."
PRONUNCIATION: Note that caged here is pronounced as two syllables: [ca-ged]. |
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Religious love put out religion’s eye:
Not to be tempted would she be immured, And now to tempt all, liberty procured. 252 |
"A religious kind of devotion to me extinguished the light of religion she had previously seen: so as not to be tempted by former suitors she had chosen to live 'immured', within walls, and now, to tempt everything by tempting me, she obtained her freedom."
Sonnet 31 is here again being echoed, in which Shakespeare says to his young lover: How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye As interest of the dead, which now appear But things removed that hidden in thee lie: And we've also come across 'immured' before, in Sonnet 84, though there in a somewhat different context, when Shakespeare tells his young man that in him 'immured' is the blueprint, so to speak, for a man's perfection. |
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‘“How mighty then you are, O hear me tell!
The broken bosoms that to me belong Have emptied all their fountains in my well, And mine I pour your ocean all among: |
"How powerful that then makes you, let me tell you! The broken hearts that belong to me, because I conquered them all, have emptied their fountains of love into my metaphorical well, and I now pour my well, which contains all the love from all these women, into your equally metaphorical ocean."
|
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I strong oer them, and you oer me being strong,
Must for your victory us all congest, As compound love to physic your cold breast. 259 |
"I rule over them, and since you rule over me, you must put or gather all of us – the women who loved me and me – together now and use this as a composite remedy for your cold heart which was until now unable to love."
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‘“My parts had power to charm a sacred nun,
|
"My qualities and physical attributes had the power to charm a sacred nun..."
The Quarto Edition here has 'sacred Sun', but although it could just conceivably also make sense as a metaphor, editors across the board tend to emend this to the much more logical, though also, in all fairness, slightly more pedestrian, 'sacred nun', which, because it may well be a simple misprint, I, once again reluctantly, follow. Another echo here of Sonnet 31, in which, as we quoted earlier when we discussed Lines 218 and 219, Shakespeare talks to his young man about all his previous lovers "Who all their parts of me to thee did give," PRONUNCIATION: Note that power here is pronounced as one syllable: [powr]. |
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Who disciplined I dieted in grace,
|
Two possible ways of reading this line; either:
a) "Whom, while she was living her disciplined life as a nun, I 'dieted', meaning that I gave her food for her love, in grace, either by virtue of my own nobility or in a graceful, manner;" or b) "Whom I similarly dieted in a disciplined fashion." Some editors, finding the notion of the young man 'dieting' the nun uncomfortable or nonsensical, emend 'I' to 'aye' or 'and', but that is not really necessary or useful, since we need the 'I' as a subject also for the following line: |
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Believed her eyes when they t’assail begun,
All vows and consecrations giving place. |
"And I believed her eyes when they began to assail me," meaning when she began to make eyes at me and entice me, "with all her vows – of chastity – and consecrations – of herself as a sacred nun – now making way for her love for me."
|
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O most potential love! Vow, bond, nor space,
In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine, For thou art all and all things else are thine. 266 |
The young man now returns to addressing the young woman whose narration we are listening to: "Oh you who are the most potent or powerful love of them all! Neither vow, nor any bond or commitment to anyone or anything, nor any space for you has the sting, or the knot, or the confinement associated with them respectively, because you are – once again – everything and everything is yours, meaning in your control."
The three entities 'vow', 'bond', and 'space' are being correlated each to another entity that would serve to vex or limit the young woman. A vow would entail the sting of guilt if it were broken; a bond would tie a person to another person or a commitment with a tight, undetachable knot; and space would set limits or boundaries – confines – to where she could be and therefore whom she could love; but none of these apply to her, because she is the goddess or mistress of all things and so all things are hers to rule over. And this once again of course echoes Sonnets 109 and 112, as did Lines 220-222 above. |
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‘“When thou impressest, what are precepts worth
Of stale example? |
"When you impress yourself or make an impression on somebody's heart and mind" – by implication as on mine – "then what are those rules that are derived from old and therefore stale and obsolete examples worth?
|
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When thou wilt inflame,
How coldly those impediments stand forth, |
"When you are set or minded, or are simply going to, inflame the heart with love, how cold and therefore ineffectual do these objections or restrictions stand against you or the love of you..."
'Impediments' most famously appears in Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: And such impediments are now being listed; they are: |
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Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!
|
"Of wealth; of the respect a son or daughter would have for their parents and therefore the fear they would harbour of being censured for loving the wrong person in the wrong way; of the law itself; of kinship, since, as would have been the case, a person is expected to love someone of their own social standing; and of reputation."
All of which seems to not so subliminally suggest that these are impediments the young man himself would face: he is characterised as wealthy; if, as is also implied, he is a member of the aristocracy then his parents with his father in particular would have or at least want a strong say in whom he chose to marry or be seen to be courting; the law would certainly speak against any sex outside marriage; citing kinship implies that he is of a higher social status than she; and his reputation would have to be of some considerable concern at the time, since for the nobility much of life was lived in the public or semi-public sphere. And all of which, as it happens, continues to be entirely applicable to the Fair Youth of the sonnets. |
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Love’s arms are peace, gainst rule, gainst sense, gainst shame,
And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears, The aloes of all forces, shocks and fears. 273 |
"The weapons of love are those of peace" – unlike the weapons of power, for example, which are those of war – "and they, these weapons of peace are used against rules, against cold rationality or even just dull common sense, against any shame that might arise from practising love; and it, love, sweetens and softens, even in these pangs of pain that the lover suffers, the bitterness of all the forces or powers that are against you, the shocks you sustain, and the fears you may have."
In other words, and again as has been expressed before: love conquers all, whereby the suggestion here is that the love of this young man for this young woman overpowers everything else. 'Aloes' are bitter tasting drugs used for the purpose of purgation. |
|
‘“Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,
Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine, And supplicant their sighs to you extend, To leave the battery that you make gainst mine, Lending soft audience to my sweet design, And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath, That shall prefer and undertake my troth.” 280 |
"Now all these hearts of all these women who loved and apparently still love me and therefore depend on my heart to live and be well, feeling this heart of mine break, they now with their bleeding, as in wounded and pained, and possibly also deflowered, groans long for and send their sighs to you to implore you to desist in this assault you make against my heart, to listen with soft kindness to my sweet intentions, and to believe the strong-bonded, for which read lasting and lastingly tying, oath that I make, which supports or sponsors and undertakes my troth: my promise of my hand in marriage to you."
The conceit, and it is a bold one indeed, is that all these women who have loved me and whom I have had sex with, made pregnant, and rejected, are still so in love with me and so have my best interest at heart that they now long as much as I do, if not more, and beg, for you to stop resisting my advances and to believe what I am saying when I swear to you that I will be faithful to you and that I want to marry you. PRONUNCIATION: Note that both battery and audience are here pronounced as two syllables: [batt-ry], [au-dience]. |
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‘This said, his watery eyes he did dismount,
Whose sights till then were levelled on my face; |
The young woman now reverts to speaking in her own voice, having quoted her suitor for nearly 15 stanzas, and continues her narration about him.
'This said, he lowered his eyes which until then had been fixed on my face'... Much as she herself had 'levelled' her eyes as if she were intending a "battery to the spheres" in line 22, so the young man's eyes throughout his monologue were levelled at her face; and akin to 'battery', 'dismount' is a term from the battlefield, where guns are dismounted from their carriage. PRONUNCIATION: Note that watery here is pronounced as two syllables: [wat-ry]. |
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Each cheek a river running from a fount
With brinish current downward flowed apace. |
'Each of his cheeks had a river – tears – running from a fount or source – his eyes – and flowed rapidly downward in a salty current.'
|
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O how the channel to the stream gave grace,
Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses That flame through water which their hue encloses! 287 |
'Oh how the channel or riverbed' – the young man's face or cheeks – 'lent grace to the stream, which glazed with a "crystal gate" these roses' – specifically again the young man's cheeks – 'which glow like flames through the water that encloses their colour.'
Shakespeare apparently imagines the streams of tears glazing with a 'crystal gate' the young man's cheeks. whereby it is not entirely clear from our perspective today what he means by 'gate', though we get the idea that they are enclosed by this layer of tears. 'Flame' here is a verb: the roses 'flame' – as in glow or shine – through the water that so encloses them. |
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‘O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear! But with the inundation of the eyes What rocky heart to water will not wear? |
'Oh father, what hellish witchcraft lies in just the small sphere of one particular tear! But when you see someone's eyes inundated with tears, whose heart would be so rock hard that it would not be moved by them?'
The idea is that if one single tear has a fiendish bewitching power that can melt people's hearts, then how can anyone resist a whole flood of tears, whereby this is here fused with the proverbial notion that constant drop wears down any stone over time. ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION: Note that in OP tear rhymes with wear in a sound similar to our 'care'. |
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What breast so cold that is not warmed here?
|
The rhetorical question is rephrased: 'what breast,' for which again read heart, 'could be so cold that it would not be warmed with pity and care at such a sight for such a person?'
PRONUNCIATION: Note that warmed here has two syllables: [warm-ed]. |
|
O cleft effect! Cold modesty, hot wrath,
Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath. 294 |
'Oh what a divided effect these tears have on me! Both my cold modesty, meaning my cool rejection of him, and my hot anger, such as at his presumption, his persistence, the way he agitates me to desire him against my better judgement, receive from these tears that I am talking about their opposing force: the cold modesty gets fire to undo it, and the hot wrath finds a cool extinguishing.'
ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION: Note that in OP wrath rhymes with hath below, in a sound similar to our 'math'. |
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‘For lo, his passion, but an art of craft,
Even there resolved my reason into tears; |
'Because look, his passion – his passionate tears, his declaration of love – although it was nothing but a crafty deception or artful pretence, even there and then dissolved my reason or rational thinking into tears as well.'
PRONUNCIATION: Note that Even here is pronounced as one syllable: [Een]. |
|
There my white stole of chastity I daffed,
Shook off my sober guards, and civil fears, |
'There and then I cast off or threw away my white stole of chastity, shook off any sober considerations to guard me from him, as well as the fears that proper, civil conduct and upbringing had instilled in me about men like him'...
The 'white stole of chastity' is of course symbolic and metaphorical, though it has been noted that the gesture of throwing it off evokes the image of the young woman there and then also throwing off some literal clothes for the young man. |
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Appear to him as he to me appears,
All melting, though our drops this difference bore: His poisoned me, and mine did him restore. 301 |
...'and appeared to him just as he appeared to me: all melting with tears, although these tears of ours carried the following difference: his tears poisoned me – because they were false and led to my undoing – whereas my tears, which were genuine, served to restore him to his erstwhile self, because with them he finally got what he wanted.'
Shakespeare here as on several occasions in this poem switches between the past and present tense, presumably mostly for dramatic effect rather than for any deeper meaning. |
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‘In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives, |
'In him a plentiful quantity of malleable material is shaped into all kinds of strange – as in unusual, disturbing – forms for the particular purpose of 'cautels': deceptions, skilful deceit, cunning.'
What the young woman is saying is that the young man's body is capable of transforming itself into all kinds of performative expressions to feign emotions such as the ones as she is about to describe, making him, as has been noted, appear the perfect actor. |
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Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,
Or swooning paleness; |
'He can give himself burning blushes, make himself cry, go pale as if he were about to swoon'...
|
|
and he takes and leaves,
In either’s aptness, as it best deceives, To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes, Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows, 308 |
...'and he takes or leaves these wiles or techniques' – as pulling registers – 'according to how apt or appropriate they are to any given situation and to achieve the best and most convincing deception, for example to blush at foul or embarrassing or offensive language or to faint at displays or expressions of tragic misfortune.'
|
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‘That not a heart which in his level came
Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim, |
'So much was this the case that not a single heart that came within the range of his aim could escape the hail or barrage of his metaphorical assault', which is 'all-hurting' because it is all-conquering.
The imagery is again of warfare with 'level' again meaning the shooting range of a gun or of an archer, but we need to always bear in mind: this is an assault on the heart. Reading this is a literal physical assault or as sexual violence would be completely misinterpreting the games of love of the era. The young woman is telling the older gentleman that the young man was so overpoweringly convincing, charming, passionate, attractive, beautiful that no heart could ever put up any effective defence against him. |
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Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;
And veiled in them, did win whom he would maim. |
'And by this he shows or exemplifies that a beautiful nature is gentle and kind – as we might, perhaps foolishly, expect – but that hidden or masked by that beauty and that kind and gentle demeanour, this man was able to win what he would end up maiming or destroying, namely me, as well as all these other women.'
|
|
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
When he most burned in heart-wished luxury, He preached pure maid, and praised cold chastity. 315 |
'And then, once he had won me over, he would exclaim against the very thing that he sought, namely sex with me: right at the point when he most burned in the luxuriant passion that his heart so wished' – for which read right when he was most engaged in the sex he had wanted so much – 'he preached the virtues of pure maidenhood or virginity and sang the praises of cool, aloof chastity.'
From which we learn: he was not only a shameless seducer but also a blatant hypocrite. |
|
‘Thus merely with the garment of a grace,
The naked and concealed fiend he covered, That th’unexperient gave the tempter place, Which, like a cherubin, above them hovered. |
'And so in this manner, just with the outward appearance of a virtuous, graceful, decent person, or, metaphorically, of an angel, he covered the otherwise naked, as in bare, unembellished, obvious, but now in this way concealed fiend, or deceitful, evil, malevolent person, or, metaphorically, devil, so that the inexperienced and therefore innocent victims of his seduction, namely I and all the other women he deceived, made room in their hearts for this tempter who had hovered above them like a cherub.'
This evocation of a devil who tempts and seduces the maidens in the guise of an angel is powerful and compelling indeed. PRONUNCIATION: Note that concealed here has three syllables: [con-ceal-ed]. |
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Who, young and simple, would not be so lovered?
|
'Who in the world who is – by implication like me – young and simple, would not want to be lovered in this way.'
'Lovered' may be my favourite word in the entire poem, if not collection: it's obviously made up for the purpose, and conveys three things at once: 1) made love to, being loved; 2) being furnished with a lover; 3) being turned into a lover, William Shakespeare, I am sure, being fully aware and fully intending all three. It also points towards and highlights the curiosity inherent in the title of the poem, in that this complaint is not so much by a lover – which would imply the young man – but about a lover – that same young man – by someone who is themselves being turned into a lover, and that may well, as we discussed in the introduction to this text and as the many references and parallels to the Fair Youth suggest, be William Shakespeare himself. |
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Ay me! I fell, and yet do question make
What I should do again for such a sake. 322 |
'Ay me! I fell – for him, into his arms, surrendered my virginity to him and as a result became what I am today: a fallen woman – and yet I do wonder what I would do again in such a situation for the sake of such a man as he.'
Shakespeare uses 'Ay me!' as an expression of woe and sorrow often in his plays but only once in the sonnets, in Sonnet 41, when he complains bitterly about his young man having gone off with none other than his, Shakespeare's, own mistress: Aye 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. He also, as it happens, uses 'I do question make' once in the sonnets, in Sonnet 12, where he ponders the fact that time will make the young man's beauty fade, and ultimately, as with everything else in the world, undo it and take it away. |
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‘O, that infected moisture of his eye,
O, that false fire which in his cheek so glowed! O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly, O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed, O, all that borrowed motion, seeming owed, |
'Oh, those false tears of his' – they are infected with deceit and artifice, there is nothing pure and healthy about them – 'oh, that fake glow of his cheeks; oh that forced, fake passion that seemed to fly from his heart in words and gestures and betokenings of love; oh that pretend sad, as in pitiful or pitiable, breath, meaning his whispers and his sighs of love, which his lungs brought forth and bestowed on me' – the lungs are 'spongy' because they are moist and absorbent, thus providing capacity for all that false emotion – 'oh all that acting, all that performative display of affection, that going through the motions, which are borrowed, as in put on for show and copied rather than genuinely felt and truly owned by him as they seem to be'...
|
|
Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed,
And new pervert a reconciled maid.’ 329 |
....'all of this, and with the full knowledge I now have, and being perfectly and obviously aware of how fake and how deceitful and how manipulative it all was, all of this would yet again seduce and then betray me, the person who has already been once betrayed by him before, and would thus once again corrupt me, who I am now a 'reconciled maid', meaning a young woman who is newly returned to the righteous path, or at least tries to be, seeing that I could be seduced by him all over again.'
'Reconciled' here borrows its meaning from the religious sense of being returned to the, specifically Catholic, faith. PRONUNCIATION: Note that reconciled here is pronounced as four syllables: [re-con-ci-led]. |
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If you spot a mistake or if you have any comments or suggestions, please use the contact page to get in touch.
To be kept informed of developments, please subscribe to the email list.
If you would like to donate, you can do so here. Thank you!