Sonnet 125: Were't Ought to Me I Bore the Canopy
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Were't ought to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which proves more short than waste or ruining? Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent; For compound sweet foregoing simple savour: Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent? 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. Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul When most impeached, stands least in thy control. |
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Were't ought to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring, |
Would it mean anything to me if I were tasked with carrying the ceremonial canopy of some great dignitary or even of the monarch, and thus with my external appearance in such a position were participating in and therefore visibly honouring the outward pomp and circumstance of state, status, and power?
A canopy here is "an ornamental cloth covering hung or held up over something, especially a throne or bed" (Oxford Languages), and at a coronation or a royal procession, this would have been carried by high-ranking courtiers close to the monarch. Indeed, at the royal procession that was held in London on 15 March 1604 to welcome King James VI of Scotland as King James I of England, such a canopy was "borne over him by eight knights," as Katherine Duncan-Jones cites Stephen Harrison in her Arden edition of the Sonnets. William Shakespeare being a commoner would not therefore have been chosen to literally 'bear the canopy' of the king at such an event, but he may here be posing not only a purely rhetorical question – would it matter to me if I were a member of the highest and most favoured layer of society? – but also a metaphorical one: as Katherine Duncan-Jones also points out, "Sonnets 123-5 can be read as a comment on the 'wonderful year' 1603-04, during which many poets wrote tributes to James I, but Shakespeare did not." Why he did not, and was not, as far as we can tell, in any way involved in the pageantry for the Royal Entry to London, we don't know, but it may simply be the case that he wasn't asked or commissioned to. And that would to some extent explain the distance he puts between himself and all such ceremonial spectacle and ostentation here as in the previous sonnet. The question here being posed then would mean more generally: 'does it matter to me or should I care that I am not involved in these outward displays of honouring the powerful and mighty?' We should also bear in mind though and acknowledge that we have no proof that this or either of the other two sonnets in this group of three make direct reference to this particular year and this particular event – this remains conjecture – but the fact that we have here a renewed and really rather plausible allusion to it makes this significantly more likely. |
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Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which proves more short than waste or ruining? |
The question continues: or would it mean anything if I were in a position to put down great bases for a body of work or an edifice that lasts all eternity, when such bases or this kind of eternity prove more short-lived than the perennial process of time's decay?
Such bases or any eternity aspired to with such bases, crumble and fall just as soon as time dictates: the only thing that is genuinely long-lived and therefore close to 'eternal' is time itself and the unending entropy, as we today would call it, that comes with it. Again, it is unlikely that Shakespeare here wants us to imagine him literally laying bases or foundations for any physical structures: he is surely talking about literary bases: works of poetry or prose, plays or indeed encomia that will outlive all else, and so he here directly contradicts what he himself is saying in many of his other sonnets, starting with 18 for a most famed example, where he asserts that: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. This is a sentiment that is repeated and reiterated in one way or another throughout the collection, in Sonnets 19, 55, 60, 63, 65, 74, 81, and 107. Shakespeare also though speaks of "these poor, rude lines," for example, in Sonnet 32, and in Sonnet 73 he warns his younger lover: For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth. But we then, when discussing these sonnets, as now, when we bring them to mind, have reason to doubt his sincerity in thus disparaging his own writing. Generally, and as the instances mentioned just a moment ago attest to, he views his verse as absolutely having the potential to outlast even the most massive monuments. |
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Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent; |
Is it not the case that I have seen people who live within the formalities of the court and of society and who bask in the favour of the queen or the king or those in power lose everything they had, and even more, by ending up expending way too much metaphorical rent on their metaphorical home?
This not only echoes the "leases of short-numbered hours" of the previous sonnet, but also recalls Sonnet 25: Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread But as the marigold at the sun's eye, And in themselves their pride lies buried, For at a frown they in their glory die. Whether Sonnet 25 has anyone in particular in mind, we cannot know any more than whether here, a hundred sonnets later, Shakespeare means to reference a specific person, but if this sonnet was written in the early 1600s then a most prominent example of someone who had recently lost all, and arguably more than, he had, was Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Born the year after Shakespeare in 1565, he was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, but after military failures in Ireland and a bodged coup attempt against The Queen in February 1601, he was tried for treason, found guilty, and executed by beheading on the 25th day of the same month. |
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For compound sweet foregoing simple savour:
Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent? |
Such dwellers on form and favour as are here being talked about are now further characterised as people who forego simple, and therefore by implication honest, wholesome food for complex, supposedly sophisticated fare; they are pitifully ambitious in their striving for success, for riches, and recognition, consumed in their gazing upon that which they aspire to, that which they desire, that which they envy in others and wish for themselves.
Considering how intricate and, as John Kerrigan in the Penguin edition of the Sonnets puts it, "extraordinarily complex" this line is, it seems almost ironic that Shakespeare here once again, as he has done on several occasions, exhorts the honest truth of simplicity. In Sonnet 66 he forcefully objects to "simple truth" being "miscalled simplicity," and in Sonnet 76 he wonders: Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods and to compounds strange? And there may here be tucked away yet another allusion. Katherine Duncan-Jones ventures: "It is tempting also to find in compound sweet a reference to the Earl of Essex who as a young courtier was rewarded, c. 1590, with 'the farm of sweet wines' – the right to charge tax on all imported sweet wine – but lost it in 1599 after his unlicensed return from Ireland..." And while hardly obvious or let alone compelling as 'evidence', we cannot put it past Shakespeare that he here may be embedding this nearly final poem to his younger lover in these then recent and heavily meaning-laden events. |
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No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free, |
No, let me be, and therefore dwell, dutiful, even devoted in your heart, and take you my offering, which may be poor in the sense that it comes from a lowly person like myself on the one hand and also 'poor' in the sense of "these poor rude lines" mentioned above in Sonnet 32, but it is given freely and willingly, not under duress, and not to curry favour, or to ingratiate myself...
With Sonnet 110, we noted that Shakespeare "completes his apotheosis of his young lover," calling him "a god in love, to whom I am confined." Since then, even in light of his confessions of, and explanations for, his infidelities, Shakespeare has not really wavered from this elevation of the young man to an exalted and uniquely, as well as singularly, loved person. Here this is once more reinforced: an 'oblation' in Shakespeare's day as today is "a thing presented or offered to God or a god" (Oxford Languages), and it is maybe fitting that, now, after a poem addressed to time, and one to the general reader, he offers his young lover both 'obsequiousness' – positioned here clearly as a positive obedience and service in love – and oblation. For 'obsequious' to have such an untarnished, positive ring contrasting with our reading of the word as a fawning and insincere willingness to please, we need look no further than Sonnet 31: How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye. But in his plays, too, he uses the word sincerely, as in Hamlet, where in Act I, Scene 2 the usurper King, Claudius, at first seems to gently admonish the prince: ’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, To give these mourning duties to your father; But you must know, your father lost a father, That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound In filial obligation, for some term To do obsequious sorrow. Before he then rebukes him in much stronger terms for excessive grieving for his father. |
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Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee. |
It is an oblation that is not mixed in with inferior material, nor is it artificial, or the product of artful or skilled manipulation or pretence, such as one would find it at court, but it constitutes only and simply an offering of myself for you in a mutual gesture of surrender.
'Seconds', as in second pressings of seeds or olives for oil or grapes for wine, or second grounds of flour are of a generally lower quality than first ones and so something that is 'mixed with seconds' is a product that has deliberately been stretched to yield more volume at the expense of its quality and therefore integrity. It has been suggested that "only me for thee" signals a one-sided exchange, because Shakespeare appears to be offering himself to his younger lover without asking anything specific back – there is no 'and thee for me' here to complement the 'only me for thee'– but such a reciprocity is surely implied: if you offer yourself – your heart, your love, your devotion – not to someone but for someone, then that makes it an, if not equal, then equitable, exchange. A notion that is strongly supported by its characterisation as a 'mutual render'. |
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Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul
When most impeached stands least in thy control. |
Begone you bribed informer or false witness, a true soul – a person who is truthful, loyal, honest – when they are most accused of wrongdoing or disparaged is least beholden to you and therefore in your control.
To suborn means "to bribe or otherwise induce (someone) to commit an unlawful act such as perjury" (Oxford Languages) and so a 'suborned informer' is someone who is prepared to betray someone else or themselves for personal gain. Who or what that someone is in this case though is subject to much debate: Some editors are convinced that this must be an actual individual, possibly one who prompted this group of three sonnets by accusing William Shakespeare of opportunism, and against whom Shakespeare would now be defending himself. This is possible, but would be an odd thing for Shakespeare to do: these three sonnets clearly belong together and the first of these three is emphatically addressed to Time. More plausibly, therefore this 'suborned informer' here again is Time. These two lines complete the triad that opened with "No! Time thou shalt not boast that I do change," and so here for Shakespeare to conclude that "a true soul | When most impeached stands least in thy control," and with this mean time, absolutely does make sense. Some editors have surmised that the sonnet may here continue to address the young man himself, who is spoken to directly in the fourth quatrain, but that would turn the person in whose heart he wants to be 'obsequious' and to whom he offers his 'oblation, poor but free' into the same as the one he then calls a false witness or bribed spy. And not only does that not make sense within this sonnet – who would the young man be bearing witness to or spying for? – but it also makes no sense in the constellation as we know it. The sonnet does anything but tell the young man to go away, it concludes a whole series of sonnets that have been affirming the young man's position in Shakespeare's heart; a love that offers itself unadulterated and freely given, 'only me for thee'. |
Sonnet 125 is the last in this group of three which effectively concludes the series of sonnets that concern themselves with William Shakespeare's love for his young man. Sonnet 126 also speaks to the Fair Youth directly, but it forms almost a coda, an epilogue so to speak, to the body of poems addressing their relationship. Here, in Sonnet 125, Shakespeare once more acknowledges that what he has to offer is not status, nobility, riches, or power, but an honest love that comes from the heart: an admiration, respect, and liking for the young nobleman that is not borne out of duty or a desire to manoeuvre himself into a favoured position, but out of a genuine affection, which he senses, and expresses, he receives in return.
This may well be the lynchpin of this sonnet and the core also of this triad, in fact the thing that all these sonnets composed for, about, and in the context of, this young man, with all their ups and downs, their doubts and their despair, their joy and their celebration, build up to and yield into: an offering of love that is simple but genuine, unadulterated and free from artifice, that is given in a mutual and in this sense exclusive exchange, "only me for thee."
Having dealt with the challenges their relationship has faced, with the periods of separation, the apparently at times wilful neglect on Shakespeare's part and the evidently wilful neglect at times on the young man's part, having settled the score of their respective infidelities, and having now, with these technically penultimate but really last three sonnets about this love, handled the ever-impinging factors of time, of politics both at court and in society at large, and of outward ostentation and therefore public perception, William Shakespeare stands tall and upright in this space he has created for himself and for his love and declares himself to be a 'true soul', one who cannot and will not be buffeted, swayed, indeed controlled by outward factors, be that now time, politics, or public perception.
And so how we read 'only me for thee' is vastly significant.
If we espouse the reading put forward by Colin Burrow in the Oxford edition of the Sonnets and conclude "the exchange seems one-sided: me for thee without any clear return," then William Shakespeare ends his exceptional series of sonnets to, for, and about a young man empty handed: he offers his 'oblation, poor but free', and gets nothing back that is tangible, other than perhaps the experience of having been in love with the unattainable. The dejected low of Sonnet 87 then becomes the operative 'verdict':
Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
If, on the other hand, we allow for the reciprocity to be contained in any render that is mutual, then William Shakespeare ends his exceptional series of sonnets to, for, and about a young man richly rewarded indeed. A 'render' in this sense is "the action of making something over to another; surrender of a person or a place" (Oxford Dictionary) and Will unambiguously, boldly, calls it 'mutual': he surrenders himself to his young man, his young man equally surrenders himself to him. Thus Sonnet 116 comes into its own, when it calls what these two men have "the marriage of true minds."
A cynic might balk at this and find a raft of reasons why this could never be the case, why Shakespeare's love for his young man was doomed from the start. And we don't need to list them in detail, they are obvious: from Shakespeare's marriage to his wife Anne and his young man's already established or soon to be inevitable marriage to his wife, via their difference in age, in status, in social standing, to their much referenced sexual escapades with other people, right through to Shakespeare's relationship with the woman who is about to make her entrance into his collection of sonnets and whom we today refer to as The Dark Lady.
And all of this would be to a greater or lesser extent justified. But we know nothing about William Shakespeare and his relationship with his young man other than what these sonnets tell us, and these sonnets have not shied away from telling us when things went wrong, when he was jealous, when he felt dejected, when he was outraged, when he was unsure of himself and let alone of the feelings he could find in his younger lover.
These three sonnets, in which a categorical 'no' cascades through the quatrains, refuting the power of time, of politics, of public perception to diminish him and his love, they show no weariness, no worry, no weakness: they come along in their confident stride with a tone that affirms rather than negates, that embraces rather than rejects, that sends the suborned informer – whoever, whatever this may be – packing, for Shakespeare to stand his ground even when he most may find himself under attack.
That, certainly, is the gesture of this sonnet, and it is the gesture of this final triad: I am here for you, you are here for me: our love is here to stay.
What happens next, we don't know. We don't know whether here the story ends or whether here it only just begins. We don't know why William Shakespeare writes only one more poem, Sonnet 126, directly to his young man: has everything that could be said been said, or would what ought to be said now require a whole new format, a whole new outlet to be properly expressed, or do things simply change, or is it all, after all, and has always been, but in Shakespeare's mind and the mind has now found other things to think and sonneteer about?
We may never know. What Shakespeare leaves us with is one more sonnet to his young man, and this one sonnet is in itself a mystery that has never been, nor is it ever likely to be, solved: a sonnet that comes to us, and in a way bids farewell to the young man, with the most powerful rhetorical device a poet could choose to deploy: a poised pause, a deliberate, bracketed void: silence.
This may well be the lynchpin of this sonnet and the core also of this triad, in fact the thing that all these sonnets composed for, about, and in the context of, this young man, with all their ups and downs, their doubts and their despair, their joy and their celebration, build up to and yield into: an offering of love that is simple but genuine, unadulterated and free from artifice, that is given in a mutual and in this sense exclusive exchange, "only me for thee."
Having dealt with the challenges their relationship has faced, with the periods of separation, the apparently at times wilful neglect on Shakespeare's part and the evidently wilful neglect at times on the young man's part, having settled the score of their respective infidelities, and having now, with these technically penultimate but really last three sonnets about this love, handled the ever-impinging factors of time, of politics both at court and in society at large, and of outward ostentation and therefore public perception, William Shakespeare stands tall and upright in this space he has created for himself and for his love and declares himself to be a 'true soul', one who cannot and will not be buffeted, swayed, indeed controlled by outward factors, be that now time, politics, or public perception.
And so how we read 'only me for thee' is vastly significant.
If we espouse the reading put forward by Colin Burrow in the Oxford edition of the Sonnets and conclude "the exchange seems one-sided: me for thee without any clear return," then William Shakespeare ends his exceptional series of sonnets to, for, and about a young man empty handed: he offers his 'oblation, poor but free', and gets nothing back that is tangible, other than perhaps the experience of having been in love with the unattainable. The dejected low of Sonnet 87 then becomes the operative 'verdict':
Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
If, on the other hand, we allow for the reciprocity to be contained in any render that is mutual, then William Shakespeare ends his exceptional series of sonnets to, for, and about a young man richly rewarded indeed. A 'render' in this sense is "the action of making something over to another; surrender of a person or a place" (Oxford Dictionary) and Will unambiguously, boldly, calls it 'mutual': he surrenders himself to his young man, his young man equally surrenders himself to him. Thus Sonnet 116 comes into its own, when it calls what these two men have "the marriage of true minds."
A cynic might balk at this and find a raft of reasons why this could never be the case, why Shakespeare's love for his young man was doomed from the start. And we don't need to list them in detail, they are obvious: from Shakespeare's marriage to his wife Anne and his young man's already established or soon to be inevitable marriage to his wife, via their difference in age, in status, in social standing, to their much referenced sexual escapades with other people, right through to Shakespeare's relationship with the woman who is about to make her entrance into his collection of sonnets and whom we today refer to as The Dark Lady.
And all of this would be to a greater or lesser extent justified. But we know nothing about William Shakespeare and his relationship with his young man other than what these sonnets tell us, and these sonnets have not shied away from telling us when things went wrong, when he was jealous, when he felt dejected, when he was outraged, when he was unsure of himself and let alone of the feelings he could find in his younger lover.
These three sonnets, in which a categorical 'no' cascades through the quatrains, refuting the power of time, of politics, of public perception to diminish him and his love, they show no weariness, no worry, no weakness: they come along in their confident stride with a tone that affirms rather than negates, that embraces rather than rejects, that sends the suborned informer – whoever, whatever this may be – packing, for Shakespeare to stand his ground even when he most may find himself under attack.
That, certainly, is the gesture of this sonnet, and it is the gesture of this final triad: I am here for you, you are here for me: our love is here to stay.
What happens next, we don't know. We don't know whether here the story ends or whether here it only just begins. We don't know why William Shakespeare writes only one more poem, Sonnet 126, directly to his young man: has everything that could be said been said, or would what ought to be said now require a whole new format, a whole new outlet to be properly expressed, or do things simply change, or is it all, after all, and has always been, but in Shakespeare's mind and the mind has now found other things to think and sonneteer about?
We may never know. What Shakespeare leaves us with is one more sonnet to his young man, and this one sonnet is in itself a mystery that has never been, nor is it ever likely to be, solved: a sonnet that comes to us, and in a way bids farewell to the young man, with the most powerful rhetorical device a poet could choose to deploy: a poised pause, a deliberate, bracketed void: silence.
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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!