SONNETCAST
  • Home
  • About
  • OVERVIEW
    • Introduction
    • The Procreation Sonnets
    • Special Guest: Professor Stephen Regan – The Sonnet as a Poetic Form
    • Special Guests: Sir Stanley Wells and Paul Edmondson – The Order of the Sonnets
    • The Halfway Point Summary
    • The Rival Poet
    • Special Guest: Professor Gabriel Egan – Computational Approaches to the Study of Shakespeare
    • Special Guest: Professor Abigail Rokison-Woodall – Speaking Shakespeare
    • Special Guest: Professor David Crystal – Original Pronunciation
    • The Fair Youth
  • THE SONNETS
    • Sonnet 1: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase
    • Sonnet 2: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow
    • Sonnet 3: Look in Thy Glass and Tell the Face Thou Viewest
    • Sonnet 4: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend
    • Sonnet 5: Those Hours That With Gentle Work Did Frame
    • Sonnet 6: Then Let Not Winter's Ragged Hand Deface
    • Sonnet 7: Lo! In the Orient When the Gracious Light
    • Sonnet 8: Music to Hear, Why Hearst Thou Music Sadly?
    • Sonnet 9: Is it for Fear to Wet a Widow's Eye
    • Sonnet 10: For Shame Deny That Thou Bearst Love to Any
    • Sonnet 11: As Fast as Thou Shalt Wane, So Fast Thou Growst
    • Sonnet 12: When I Do Count the Clock that Tells the Time
    • Sonnet 13: O That You Were Yourself, But Love, You Are
    • Sonnet 14: Not From the Stars Do I My Judgement Pluck
    • Sonnet 15: When I Consider Every Thing That Grows
    • Sonnet 16: But Wherefore Do Not You a Mightier Way
    • Sonnet 17: Who Will Believe My Verse in Time to Come
    • Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day
    • Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, Blunt Thou the Lion's Paws
    • Sonnet 20: A Woman's Face, With Nature's Own Hand Painted
    • Sonnet 21: So Is it Not With Me as With That Muse
    • Sonnet 22: My Glass Shall Not Persuade Me I Am Old
    • Sonnet 23: As an Unperfect Actor on the Stage
    • Sonnet 24: Mine Eye Hath Played the Painter and Hath Stelled
    • Sonnet 25: Let Those Who Are in Favour With Their Stars
    • Sonnet 26: Lord of My Love to Whom in Vassalage
    • Sonnet 27: Weary With Toil, I Haste Me to My Bed
    • Sonnet 28: How Can I Then Return in Happy Plight
    • Sonnet 29: When in Disgrace With Fortune and Men's Eyes
    • Sonnet 30: When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought
    • Sonnet 31: Thy Bosom Is Endeared With All Hearts
    • Sonnet 32: If Thou Survive My Well-Contented Day
    • Sonnet 33: Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen
    • Sonnet 34: Why Didst Thou Promise Such a Beauteous Day
    • Sonnet 35: No More Be Grieved at That Which Thou Hast Done
    • Sonnet 36: Let Me Confess That We Two Must Be Twain
    • Sonnet 37: As a Decrepit Father Takes Delight
    • Sonnet 38: How Can My Muse Want Subject to Invent
    • Sonnet 39: O How Thy Worth With Manners May I Sing
    • Sonnet 40: Take All My Loves, My Love, Yea Take Them All
    • Sonnet 41: Those Pretty Wrongs That Liberty Commits
    • Sonnet 42: That Thou Hast Her, it Is Not All My Grief
    • Sonnet 43: When Most I Wink, Then Do Mine Eyes Best See
    • Sonnet 44: If the Dull Substance of My Flesh Were Thought
    • Sonnet 45: The Other Two, Slight Air and Purging Fire
    • Sonnet 46: Mine Eye and Heart Are at a Mortal War
    • Sonnet 47: Betwixt Mine Eye and Heart a League Is Took
    • Sonnet 48: How Careful Was I When I Took My Way
    • Sonnet 49: Against That Time, if Ever That Time Come
    • Sonnet 50: How Heavy Do I Journey on the Way
    • Sonnet 51: Thus Can My Love Excuse the Slow Offence
    • Sonnet 52: So Am I as the Rich, Whose Blessed Key
    • Sonnet 53: What Is Your Substance, Whereof Are You Made
    • Sonnet 54: O How Much More Doth Beauty Beauteous Seem
    • Sonnet 55: Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monuments
    • Sonnet 56: Sweet Love, Renew Thy Force, Be it Not Said
    • Sonnet 57: Being Your Slave, What Should I Do But Tend
    • Sonnet 58: That God Forbid That Made Me First Your Slave
    • Sonnet 59: If There Be Nothing New, But That Which Is
    • Sonnet 60: Like as the Waves Make Towards the Pebbled Shore
    • Sonnet 61: Is it Thy Will Thy Image Should Keep Open
    • Sonnet 62: Sin of Self-Love Possesseth All Mine Eye
    • Sonnet 63: Against My Love Shall Be as I Am Now
    • Sonnet 64: When I have Seen by Time's Fell Hand Defaced
    • Sonnet 65: Since Brass, Nor Stone, Nor Earth, Nor Boundless Sea
    • Sonnet 66: Tired With All These, for Restful Death I Cry
    • Sonnet 67: Ah, Wherefore With Infection Should He Live
    • Sonnet 68: Thus Is His Cheek the Map of Days Outworn
    • Sonnet 69: Those Parts of Thee That The World's Eye Doth View
    • Sonnet 70: That Thou Are Blamed Shall Not Be Thy Defect
    • Sonnet 71: No Longer Mourn for Me When I Am Dead
    • Sonnet 72: O Lest the World Should Task You to Recite
    • Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold
    • Sonnet 74: But Be Contented When That Fell Arrest
    • Sonnet 75: So Are You to My Thoughts as Food to Life
    • Sonnet 76: Why Is My Verse so Barren of New Pride
    • Sonnet 77: Thy Glass Will Show Thee How Thy Beauties Wear
    • Sonnet 78: So Oft Have I Invoked Thee for My Muse
    • Sonnet 79: Whilst I Alone Did Call Upon Thy Aid
    • Sonnet 80: O How I Faint When I of You Do Write
    • Sonnet 81: Or I Shall Live Your Epitaph to Make
    • Sonnet 82: I Grant Thou Wert Not Married to My Muse
    • Sonnet 83: I Never Saw That You Did Painting Need
    • Sonnet 84: Who Is it That Says Most, Which Can Say More
    • Sonnet 85: My Tongue-Tied Muse in Manners Holds Her Still
    • Sonnet 86: Was it the Proud Full Sail of His Great Verse
    • Sonnet 87: Farewell, Thou Art Too Dear for My Posessing
    • Sonnet 88: When Thou Shalt Be Disposed to Set Me Light
    • Sonnet 89: Say That Thou Didst Forsake Me for Some Fault
    • Sonnet 90: Then Hate Me When Thou Wilt, if Ever, Now
    • Sonnet 91: Some Glory in Their Birth, Some in Their Skill
    • Sonnet 92: But Do Thy Worst to Steal Thyself Away
    • Sonnet 93: So Shall I Live, Supposing Thou Art True
    • Sonnet 94: They That Have Power to Hurt and Will Do None
    • Sonnet 95: How Sweet and Lovely Dost Thou Make the Shame
    • Sonnet 96: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness
    • Sonnet 97: How Like a Winter Hath my Absence Been
    • Sonnet 98: From You Have I Been Absent in the Spring
    • Sonnet 99: The Forward Violet Thus Did I Chide
    • Sonnet 100: Where Art Thou, Muse, That Thou Forgetst so Long
    • Sonnet 101: O Truant Muse, What Shall Be Thy Amends
    • Sonnet 102: My Love Is Strengthened Though More Weak in Seeming
    • Sonnet 103: Alack, What Poverty My Muse Brings Forth
    • Sonnet 104: To Me, Fair Friend, You Never Can Be Old
    • Sonnet 105: Let Not My Love Be Called Idolatry
    • Sonnet 106: When in the Chronicle of Wasted Time
    • Sonnet 107: Not Mine Own Fears Nor the Prophetic Soul
    • Sonnet 108: What's in the Brain That Ink May Character
    • Sonnet 109: O Never Say That I Was False of Heart
    • Sonnet 110: Alas, 'Tis True I Have Gone Here and There
    • Sonnet 111: O For My Sake Do You With Fortune Chide
    • Sonnet 112: Your Love and Pity Doth Th'Impression Fill
    • Sonnet 113: Since I Left You, Mine Eye Is in My Mind
    • Sonnet 114: Or Whether Doth My Mind, Being Crowned With You
    • Sonnet 115: Those Lines That I Before Have Writ Do Lie
    • Sonnet 116: Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
    • Sonnet 117: Accuse Me Thus, That I Have Scanted All
    • Sonnet 118: Like as to Make Our Appetites More Keen
    • Sonnet 119: What Potions Have I Drunk of Siren Tears
    • Sonnet 120: That You Were Once Unkind Befriends Me Now
    • Sonnet 121: Tis Better to Be Vile Than Vile Esteemed
    • Sonnet 122: Thy Gift, Thy Tables, Are Within My Brain
    • Sonnet 123: No! Time, Thou Shalt Not Boast That I Do Change
    • Sonnet 124: If My Dear Love Were But the Child of State
    • Sonnet 125: Were't Ought to Me I Bore the Canopy
    • Sonnet 126: O Thou, My Lovely Boy, Who in Thy Power
    • Sonnet 127: In the Old Age Black Was Not Counted Fair
    • Sonnet 128: How Oft When Thou, My Music, Music Playst
    • Sonnet 129: Th'Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame
    • Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun
    • Sonnet 131: Thou Art as Tyrannous, so as Thou Art
    • Sonnet 132: Thine Eyes I love, and They, as Pitying Me
    • Sonnet 133: Beshrew That Heart That Makes My Heart to Groan
    • Sonnet 134: So Now I Have Confessed That He Is Thine
    • Sonnet 135: Whoever Hath Her Wish, Thou Hast Thy Will
    • Sonnet 136: If Thy Soul Check Thee That I Come so Near
    • Sonnet 137: Thou Blind Fool Love, What Dost Thou to Mine Eyes
    • Sonnet 138: When My Love Swears That She Is Made of Truth
    • Sonnet 139: O Call Not Me to Justify the Wrong
    • Sonnet 140: Be Wise as Thou Art Cruel, Do Not Press
  • THE SONNETEER
  • EVENTS
  • TEXT NOTE
  • CONTACT
    • SUBSCRIBE

Sonnet 119: What Potions Have I Drunk of Siren Tears

What potions have I drunk of siren tears,
​Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win.
What wretched errors hath my heart committed
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never;
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever.
O benefit of ill, now I find true
That better is by evil still made better,
And ruined love when it is built anew
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
       So I return rebuked to my content
       And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.
Picture

​​​<

​>

Picture
LISTEN TO SONNETCAST EPISODE 119

What potions have I drunk of siren tears,
​Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,

The sonnet connects to the closing line of the previous one, which spoke of drugs that turn out to be poisonous, and now characterises these potions that Shakespeare suggests he has metaphorically taken by spending his time with other lovers: they were made of 'siren tears' which themselves had been distilled from alembics that contain a liquid as repulsive as hell, whereby 'foul' at the time also has a strong moral connotation, as in 'murder most foul'. 

If ever a metaphor came along mixed, this is surely it. Shakespeare either wittingly or – we can't rule this out as a possibility – haphazardly piles on top of each other multiple images and with them possible avenues for interpretation, starting with the potions, which clearly relate back to the drugs and 'eager compounds' of Sonnet 118, and which are here given an even more resolutely chemist connotation by being "distilled from limbecks." 

'Limbeck' is a variant term for 'alembic', which in turn goes back to the Arabic al-anbīq, meaning 'the still', hence 'the lembic', which without the article then transmutes into 'limbeck'.

A still, in case your knowledge of chemical apparatus is a little hazy, is a "gourd shape container" (Oxford Languages) used to heat up liquids and funnel their steam into a cooling vessel, thus literally dis-stilling from it.

The fact that the liquid from which these 'siren tears' are distilled is 'foul as hell' tells us a lot about Shakespeare's current feeling towards the kind of encounters he is alluding to, but fascinating in itself is the expression 'siren tears'.

It is not – as one might get the impression – proverbial or common, even at the time. Fake or false tears then as now are usually associated with crocodiles, whereas the Sirens are mythical creatures who first appear in Homer's Odyssey. They tempt passing sailors to their island with their 'siren song' there to devour them and pile up their bones in a heap of rotting carcasses. Odysseus heeds the warning he receives from the goddess Circe and plugs his sailors' ears with wax while having himself tied hand and foot upright to the mast of the ship so he can listen to the Sirens without being able to do anything stupid, such as jumping off ship and swimming to their island, as he would be unable to resist doing otherwise.

Whilst Homer provided no physical description of the Sirens but had them dwell on a meadow on their island, another Greek poet, Apollonius of Rhodes, five hundred years later, in the 3rd century BCE, gives them the appearance of half woman half bird, which is why over the centuries and by the time Shakespeare gets to use the term 'Syren', they often become conflated with mermaids, who are half woman half fish.

Katherine Duncan-Jones in her Arden edition of The Sonnets points out that Shakespeare's contemporary John Dickenson in his short narrative Greene in Conceipt, published in 1598, closely associates siren song with crocodile tears, and although we don't know whether Shakespeare had read this work, it suggests that the two concepts were at the time 'common currency', if we may call it that, in tandem. 

The relevant passage in Dickenson speaks of the personified vices of Gluttony and Lechery and how they ensnare their victim: 

They hauing Sirens tongues and Crocodiles teares, thereby entic'd him to in∣tangle him, and preuailed: for as the Hemlocke of Attica tempered with wine, is of all compounded poysons the most deadly: so of all enticements that is most dangerous, where wit and beautie lodg'd both in one subiect, are so employed. (p. 48)

Noteworthy about this is that it not only places siren tongues and crocodile tears right next to each other and in the possession of Gluttony and Lechery, but that it also mentions 'compounded poisons', which further hints at Shakespeare possibly having been consciously or subconsciously influenced by Dickenson.

The long and the short of it all being that these potions carried the essence of being false, deceptive, and seductive, yes, but also of being destructive. 
Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win.
And in doing so, I was applying – as one would apply an ointment or healing agent to a wound or a sore – my fears to my hopes and equally my hopes to my fears, effectively trying to cure one with the other, but never succeeding. Instead, when all the while I thought I was winning, I was in fact losing all the time.

This is a tremendously compact and insightful couple of lines: it sums up in 17 words and twenty syllables what it feels like to be chasing a fantasy. Here the fantasy is of better love elsewhere, but the same could be said of virtually any pursuit of the unattainable: you invest your hopes to overcome your fears only to then find your fears to have been fully justified and therefore now to be newly crushing your hopes, whence the cycle starts over, and each time you think you're winning, surely, at last, you are still forever losing, because it is, after all, just a fantasy that you are pursuing.

'Still' here as so often means 'always'.
What wretched errors hath my heart committed
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never;
What terrible mistakes has my heart made at these times and in these moments and on these occasions, when it thought of itself as more blessed – luckier, more fortunate, more privileged – than it had ever been before.

This – as so very much in Shakespeare – loses somewhat in translation, because 'making a mistake' is one thing, but 'committing an error' is really quite another. It evokes much more the conscious act of committing a sin or a crime, and it further strongly suggests what in the context of a marriage would be adulterous acts. And with Shakespeare's and the young man's, as Sonnet 116 told us, being a 'marriage of true minds', an equivalence would therefore appear to be directly implied.

PRONUNCIATION:
Note that 
blessed here has two syllables: bles-sèd.
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
​In the distraction of this madding fever.
How my eyes have popped during and because of the distraction caused by this fever or illness that drove me crazy, for which read my attraction to these other people.

'Fitted' here has the meaning of eyes being forced out of their sockets by fits or paroxysms of madness, the madness again being the love or lust of which the poet was at the time possessed, and this invokes both the image of a raving lunatic whose eyes are popping out of their skull in an insane rage, and also that of a person who is utterly smitten and whose eyes pop because of what they see, madness and love then as now, and particularly in Shakespeare, being closely and often humorously, but with appreciable grains of truth, associated. 

'Spheres', meanwhile, here clearly refers to the eyes' sockets, but Shakespeare also compares eyes to stars, for example in Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck | ...| But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, | And constant stars, in them I read such art...

and here he almost certainly is also referencing the celestial spheres: the orbits on which, according to ancient astronomy, all objects in the sky circle around the earth.
O benefit of ill, now I find true
​That better is by evil still made better,

O there is a benefit or an upside or a positive aspect to ill, meaning not only my metaphorical 'sickness' of having been attracted to these other people and 'committed errors' with them, but also that which is generally bad or indeed, as the next line suggests, evil. And now I find it to be true that that which is good, as in morally sound and virtuous, is by the trials and tribulations of evil, for which here in turn read also quite generally that which is challenging and problematic, made even better, perhaps a bit as we colloquially today might say: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Whereby the 'better' which is by evil made even better may refer not only to Shakespeare himself, who thus would be describing himself as essentially a good person, but also to his younger lover who through these 'evils' experienced by Shakespeare turns out to be even more worthy of his love, or indeed the love itself, as the following couple of lines also imply.

The way this realisation is formulated suggests that this is a generally recognised truth which Shakespeare here is latching on to.
And ruined love when it is built anew
​Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.

And love which has been ruined or wrecked or damaged, when it is newly restored turns out to be even more beautiful, stronger and far greater than it had been before this calamity fell upon it. 

Taken directly from the world of physical buildings and construction, this is borne out to this day. As a recent example we may point to being the magnificent restoration of Notre Dame de Paris, or, a little further back and by some margin less well known, the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, which was entirely destroyed by a fire on New Year's Eve 1921/22 and then rebuilt between 1924 and 1928 as a much larger, uniquely shaped and at the time revolutionary cast concrete structure that stands firm and strong to this day.
       So I return rebuked to my content
       And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.
And so I return to my state of contentment and overall wellbeing rebuked or chastised but strengthened and find that I have therefore actually gained three times more by my errors, my mistakes, the bad things that I have done and that have as a result also happened to me, than I have spent, for which read than it has cost me in emotional upset and damage.

With its echo of Sonnet 109, 'my content' may also have a layered meaning of that which gives me contentment, that which I really need and want, which is you:

That is my home of love, if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,


because of course the 'ills' here referred to are still, as in Sonnets 109, and 110, and most directly, and similarly using the 'sickness' metaphor, as in Sonnet 118, my philandering ways, my infidelities, my sexual escapades with other people.

With Sonnet 119, William Shakespeare further elaborates on his metaphor, introduced in Sonnet 118, of having taken bitter medicines to prevent himself from ever getting sick of his young lover, these potions having been affairs, encounters, or even relationships of sorts with other people. Who these other people were he still doesn't tell us, but he here makes it even clearer that they were fundamentally bad for him, their principal, if not sole, redeeming feature being that their experience has ultimately strengthened him and cemented his love for his young man.

The sonnet is the third of three sonnets which all attempt to explain and to some extent excuse Shakespeare's infidelities of the past, and they all do so in the wake, directly, of Sonnet 116 which famously and categorically posited a "marriage of true minds" to which "no impediments" may be admitted.

Immediately noteworthy about this poem are three things. Firstly, the forcefulness of its tone. The vocabulary Shakespeare employs here is not subtle and not hesitant: 'foul as hell', 'wretched errors', 'madding fever', 'evil', 'ruined love'. This is not, now, after the initial admission of Sonnet 110, "Alas tis true, I have gone here and there," someone saying, 'and this may be so, but these frolics didn't matter, they were but trifles, mere distractions'.

The entire argument, since the 'marriage of true minds' of Sonnet 116, has unfolded from 'I have been neglectful of and absent from you, but this was really my way of testing the constancy and quality of your love for me, or possibly also of my love for you', to 'I have taken other lovers to whet and sharpen my appetite for you and to avoid getting sick and tired of you', to 'actually these other lovers were – at least in hindsight – truly awful, in the sense that they really poisoned me. But I've come through it all and the one thing I can say about it now is that it made me a better, stronger, person, more capable of loving you'.

The confession, such as it is, thus is complete. And Shakespeare is now truly done with it. Sonnet 120, which is sometimes considered to be a part of this extended apologia, actually does something entirely different: it draws a final line under the matter and simply states both a hope and a request that these transgressions of mine now be considered 'paid' and settled, much as yours are in my book. After this, Shakespeare says 'sorry' no more.

Secondly: this sonnet is not addressed to anyone. It obviously and clearly connects to Sonnet 118, and so undoubtedly must be read in its context, its context undoubtedly being the context of Sonnet 117; and so we need not consider this a great uncertainty or mystery: whatever relationship requires of Shakespeare an apology is also the relationship that gives rise to this sonnet.

But this sonnet has no 'you' or 'thou' and 'thee' in it, no 'your' or 'thine'. And nor does it speak about a lover. No 'he' or 'his' or 'him'. This, as on several other occasions, prompts some scholars to argue that Sonnet 119 could be written about any relationship, that 'my content' here could be a man, a woman, his wife, some other person we don't know about.

But reading this sonnet out of context is like looking at the statute of David by Michelangelo and taking into consideration his frown and concluding from this that he must be wondering whether he's switched off the oven or not. It is, frankly, absurd. And poor scholarly practice: of course, look at the detail, go in close, examine, and allow for, all possibilities, but then take a step back again, look at the whole thing and take in the stance, the sling in his hand, and the name of the man, and your conclusion becomes a single and obvious one that may not be spectacular, revolutionary, radically new, but sane and sound: it is the David of David and Goliath, the biblical figure, at the moment of intense concentration before his audacious act of slaying the giant with brain and skill, rather than mere force and brawn.

The context of this sonnet, the whole picture, yields no pointer, no sign, no indication, that it fundamentally is about anything other than Shakespeare's principal relationship with anyone other than his principal young man.

Thirdly, the 'siren tears' and the sonnet's proximity, in tone, in allusions, in the evocation of desire as a disease, to Sonnet 147. This offers two further, so as not to say subsidiary, thoughts for consideration.

One, that Shakespeare with these other sexual relationships that he is referring to has in mind one or several women, because the Sirens are traditionally thought of and depicted as female. Although there is some debate as to whether or not Sirens could also have been male or been, at some point, thought of as chthonic deities, meaning ones related to the underworld, possibly with an ability to prophesy, it is more than a little unlikely that Shakespeare would have been aware of this, and so an inference of female sexual partners is not unreasonable.

Two, and leading on from this directly, that Shakespeare may be referring to none other than the Dark Lady of the sonnets that in the 1609 collection are now just about to follow. Many scholars believe – and this too is not an unreasonable assumption to make – that although the Dark Lady Sonnets are grouped together after the Fair Youth Sonnets, they actually dovetail with the ones that deal with the relationship with the Fair Youth.

We know for certain that there is at least some overlap between the Fair Youth relationship and at least one woman, because Sonnets 34 and 35, and then 40, 41, and 42 make this clear beyond reasonable doubt, with Sonnet 42 actually spelling out:

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
​A loss in love that touches me more nearly.


Sonnet 144, which belongs firmly in the Dark Lady sequence, will be as explicit, if not indeed more, and although we can't know whether or not it refers to the same period in Shakespeare's life and therefore to the same person, it leaves zero doubt about the fact that Shakespeare at that time, whatever that time is, finds himself involved with two people, a man and a woman, because:

Two loves I have of comfort and despair
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.


We will, of course, come to the Dark Lady Sonnets, and really quite soon, but since we are talking about context and underlining its importance to our exploration, let's have a sneak preview also of Sonnet 147 which carries more than a passing echo of this sonnet here.

My love is as a fever, longing still
​For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th'uncertain sickly appetite to please.


And we shall leave it at that, because to go further would require us to delve into the detail here, and for this, as certain as anything in this uncertain universe can be, there will be time and opportunity in an episode devoted to Sonnet 147.

What we know and learn then from Sonnet 119, not in isolation, because for such isolation to be maintained were utter folly, but in context – I have used the word here for the eighth time and not by accident or for no reason – is that Shakespeare is, with these three sonnets and following his declaration of and unimpeachable 'marriage of true minds', drawing a line under such other sexual adventures, temptations, relations as have clearly agitated him; and it opens up, more tantalising still for its implications, a real possibility that these other adventures, temptations, relations were not, or not only, an assortment of – as perhaps some of the previous sonnets suggested – random casual encounters, but that they entail the one other principal relationship this whole collection of sonnets concerns itself with: the one with the Dark Lady...

​​​<

​>
This project and its website are a work in progress.
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!
​​


©2022-25  |   SONNETCAST – WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS RECITED, REVEALED, RELIVED
​
  • Home
  • About
  • OVERVIEW
    • Introduction
    • The Procreation Sonnets
    • Special Guest: Professor Stephen Regan – The Sonnet as a Poetic Form
    • Special Guests: Sir Stanley Wells and Paul Edmondson – The Order of the Sonnets
    • The Halfway Point Summary
    • The Rival Poet
    • Special Guest: Professor Gabriel Egan – Computational Approaches to the Study of Shakespeare
    • Special Guest: Professor Abigail Rokison-Woodall – Speaking Shakespeare
    • Special Guest: Professor David Crystal – Original Pronunciation
    • The Fair Youth
  • THE SONNETS
    • Sonnet 1: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase
    • Sonnet 2: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow
    • Sonnet 3: Look in Thy Glass and Tell the Face Thou Viewest
    • Sonnet 4: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend
    • Sonnet 5: Those Hours That With Gentle Work Did Frame
    • Sonnet 6: Then Let Not Winter's Ragged Hand Deface
    • Sonnet 7: Lo! In the Orient When the Gracious Light
    • Sonnet 8: Music to Hear, Why Hearst Thou Music Sadly?
    • Sonnet 9: Is it for Fear to Wet a Widow's Eye
    • Sonnet 10: For Shame Deny That Thou Bearst Love to Any
    • Sonnet 11: As Fast as Thou Shalt Wane, So Fast Thou Growst
    • Sonnet 12: When I Do Count the Clock that Tells the Time
    • Sonnet 13: O That You Were Yourself, But Love, You Are
    • Sonnet 14: Not From the Stars Do I My Judgement Pluck
    • Sonnet 15: When I Consider Every Thing That Grows
    • Sonnet 16: But Wherefore Do Not You a Mightier Way
    • Sonnet 17: Who Will Believe My Verse in Time to Come
    • Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day
    • Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, Blunt Thou the Lion's Paws
    • Sonnet 20: A Woman's Face, With Nature's Own Hand Painted
    • Sonnet 21: So Is it Not With Me as With That Muse
    • Sonnet 22: My Glass Shall Not Persuade Me I Am Old
    • Sonnet 23: As an Unperfect Actor on the Stage
    • Sonnet 24: Mine Eye Hath Played the Painter and Hath Stelled
    • Sonnet 25: Let Those Who Are in Favour With Their Stars
    • Sonnet 26: Lord of My Love to Whom in Vassalage
    • Sonnet 27: Weary With Toil, I Haste Me to My Bed
    • Sonnet 28: How Can I Then Return in Happy Plight
    • Sonnet 29: When in Disgrace With Fortune and Men's Eyes
    • Sonnet 30: When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought
    • Sonnet 31: Thy Bosom Is Endeared With All Hearts
    • Sonnet 32: If Thou Survive My Well-Contented Day
    • Sonnet 33: Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen
    • Sonnet 34: Why Didst Thou Promise Such a Beauteous Day
    • Sonnet 35: No More Be Grieved at That Which Thou Hast Done
    • Sonnet 36: Let Me Confess That We Two Must Be Twain
    • Sonnet 37: As a Decrepit Father Takes Delight
    • Sonnet 38: How Can My Muse Want Subject to Invent
    • Sonnet 39: O How Thy Worth With Manners May I Sing
    • Sonnet 40: Take All My Loves, My Love, Yea Take Them All
    • Sonnet 41: Those Pretty Wrongs That Liberty Commits
    • Sonnet 42: That Thou Hast Her, it Is Not All My Grief
    • Sonnet 43: When Most I Wink, Then Do Mine Eyes Best See
    • Sonnet 44: If the Dull Substance of My Flesh Were Thought
    • Sonnet 45: The Other Two, Slight Air and Purging Fire
    • Sonnet 46: Mine Eye and Heart Are at a Mortal War
    • Sonnet 47: Betwixt Mine Eye and Heart a League Is Took
    • Sonnet 48: How Careful Was I When I Took My Way
    • Sonnet 49: Against That Time, if Ever That Time Come
    • Sonnet 50: How Heavy Do I Journey on the Way
    • Sonnet 51: Thus Can My Love Excuse the Slow Offence
    • Sonnet 52: So Am I as the Rich, Whose Blessed Key
    • Sonnet 53: What Is Your Substance, Whereof Are You Made
    • Sonnet 54: O How Much More Doth Beauty Beauteous Seem
    • Sonnet 55: Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monuments
    • Sonnet 56: Sweet Love, Renew Thy Force, Be it Not Said
    • Sonnet 57: Being Your Slave, What Should I Do But Tend
    • Sonnet 58: That God Forbid That Made Me First Your Slave
    • Sonnet 59: If There Be Nothing New, But That Which Is
    • Sonnet 60: Like as the Waves Make Towards the Pebbled Shore
    • Sonnet 61: Is it Thy Will Thy Image Should Keep Open
    • Sonnet 62: Sin of Self-Love Possesseth All Mine Eye
    • Sonnet 63: Against My Love Shall Be as I Am Now
    • Sonnet 64: When I have Seen by Time's Fell Hand Defaced
    • Sonnet 65: Since Brass, Nor Stone, Nor Earth, Nor Boundless Sea
    • Sonnet 66: Tired With All These, for Restful Death I Cry
    • Sonnet 67: Ah, Wherefore With Infection Should He Live
    • Sonnet 68: Thus Is His Cheek the Map of Days Outworn
    • Sonnet 69: Those Parts of Thee That The World's Eye Doth View
    • Sonnet 70: That Thou Are Blamed Shall Not Be Thy Defect
    • Sonnet 71: No Longer Mourn for Me When I Am Dead
    • Sonnet 72: O Lest the World Should Task You to Recite
    • Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold
    • Sonnet 74: But Be Contented When That Fell Arrest
    • Sonnet 75: So Are You to My Thoughts as Food to Life
    • Sonnet 76: Why Is My Verse so Barren of New Pride
    • Sonnet 77: Thy Glass Will Show Thee How Thy Beauties Wear
    • Sonnet 78: So Oft Have I Invoked Thee for My Muse
    • Sonnet 79: Whilst I Alone Did Call Upon Thy Aid
    • Sonnet 80: O How I Faint When I of You Do Write
    • Sonnet 81: Or I Shall Live Your Epitaph to Make
    • Sonnet 82: I Grant Thou Wert Not Married to My Muse
    • Sonnet 83: I Never Saw That You Did Painting Need
    • Sonnet 84: Who Is it That Says Most, Which Can Say More
    • Sonnet 85: My Tongue-Tied Muse in Manners Holds Her Still
    • Sonnet 86: Was it the Proud Full Sail of His Great Verse
    • Sonnet 87: Farewell, Thou Art Too Dear for My Posessing
    • Sonnet 88: When Thou Shalt Be Disposed to Set Me Light
    • Sonnet 89: Say That Thou Didst Forsake Me for Some Fault
    • Sonnet 90: Then Hate Me When Thou Wilt, if Ever, Now
    • Sonnet 91: Some Glory in Their Birth, Some in Their Skill
    • Sonnet 92: But Do Thy Worst to Steal Thyself Away
    • Sonnet 93: So Shall I Live, Supposing Thou Art True
    • Sonnet 94: They That Have Power to Hurt and Will Do None
    • Sonnet 95: How Sweet and Lovely Dost Thou Make the Shame
    • Sonnet 96: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness
    • Sonnet 97: How Like a Winter Hath my Absence Been
    • Sonnet 98: From You Have I Been Absent in the Spring
    • Sonnet 99: The Forward Violet Thus Did I Chide
    • Sonnet 100: Where Art Thou, Muse, That Thou Forgetst so Long
    • Sonnet 101: O Truant Muse, What Shall Be Thy Amends
    • Sonnet 102: My Love Is Strengthened Though More Weak in Seeming
    • Sonnet 103: Alack, What Poverty My Muse Brings Forth
    • Sonnet 104: To Me, Fair Friend, You Never Can Be Old
    • Sonnet 105: Let Not My Love Be Called Idolatry
    • Sonnet 106: When in the Chronicle of Wasted Time
    • Sonnet 107: Not Mine Own Fears Nor the Prophetic Soul
    • Sonnet 108: What's in the Brain That Ink May Character
    • Sonnet 109: O Never Say That I Was False of Heart
    • Sonnet 110: Alas, 'Tis True I Have Gone Here and There
    • Sonnet 111: O For My Sake Do You With Fortune Chide
    • Sonnet 112: Your Love and Pity Doth Th'Impression Fill
    • Sonnet 113: Since I Left You, Mine Eye Is in My Mind
    • Sonnet 114: Or Whether Doth My Mind, Being Crowned With You
    • Sonnet 115: Those Lines That I Before Have Writ Do Lie
    • Sonnet 116: Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
    • Sonnet 117: Accuse Me Thus, That I Have Scanted All
    • Sonnet 118: Like as to Make Our Appetites More Keen
    • Sonnet 119: What Potions Have I Drunk of Siren Tears
    • Sonnet 120: That You Were Once Unkind Befriends Me Now
    • Sonnet 121: Tis Better to Be Vile Than Vile Esteemed
    • Sonnet 122: Thy Gift, Thy Tables, Are Within My Brain
    • Sonnet 123: No! Time, Thou Shalt Not Boast That I Do Change
    • Sonnet 124: If My Dear Love Were But the Child of State
    • Sonnet 125: Were't Ought to Me I Bore the Canopy
    • Sonnet 126: O Thou, My Lovely Boy, Who in Thy Power
    • Sonnet 127: In the Old Age Black Was Not Counted Fair
    • Sonnet 128: How Oft When Thou, My Music, Music Playst
    • Sonnet 129: Th'Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame
    • Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun
    • Sonnet 131: Thou Art as Tyrannous, so as Thou Art
    • Sonnet 132: Thine Eyes I love, and They, as Pitying Me
    • Sonnet 133: Beshrew That Heart That Makes My Heart to Groan
    • Sonnet 134: So Now I Have Confessed That He Is Thine
    • Sonnet 135: Whoever Hath Her Wish, Thou Hast Thy Will
    • Sonnet 136: If Thy Soul Check Thee That I Come so Near
    • Sonnet 137: Thou Blind Fool Love, What Dost Thou to Mine Eyes
    • Sonnet 138: When My Love Swears That She Is Made of Truth
    • Sonnet 139: O Call Not Me to Justify the Wrong
    • Sonnet 140: Be Wise as Thou Art Cruel, Do Not Press
  • THE SONNETEER
  • EVENTS
  • TEXT NOTE
  • CONTACT
    • SUBSCRIBE