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 13: O That You Were Yourself, But Love, You Are

O that you were yourself, but love, you are 
No longer yours than you yourself here live;
Against this coming end you should prepare
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again after your self's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
      O none but unthrifts, dear my love, you know
      You had a father, let your son say so.
Picture

​<

​>

Picture
LISTEN TO SONNETCAST EPISODE 13

O that you were yourself, but love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live;
O I wish that you could be yourself as you are now forever, but, love, you can no longer be you than you as a person live on this planet.

A dense couple of lines that once again pack a lot into few words. Most taxing for us is the omission of what 'being yourself' here implies, which is being durably in charge of your own destiny. William Shakespeare does not spell this out, but it is nevertheless pretty clear that this is what he means: your existence on earth is delimited to your physical life, and when that comes to an end, you will be gone.
Against this coming end you should prepare 
​And your sweet semblance to some other give.
You should prepare yourself for death – "this coming end" – by producing a child.

No surprises here: we are still firmly in the Procreation Sequence, and the way you can give your semblance or likeness to some other person is by making that person, namely a child. Here always, as we have established, a son.

ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION:
Note that in OP prepare rhymes with are with a pronounced r in a sound closer to our 'air': [air | prepair].
​So should that beauty which you hold in lease
This way the beauty that you are merely holding onto as a lease or a long-term loan...

This echoes Sonnet 4 where Shakespeare told the young man: "Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend."
Find no determination; then you were
​Yourself again after your self's decease

...would be without end: the lease would have no termination date specified, because you would be yourself again even after your own death, in other words, this lease or loan would simply continue...
​When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
When your lovely child – "your sweet issue" – will have your beautiful looks – "your sweet form should bear."

ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION:
Note that in OP 
bear rhymes with were ​with a sounded r and aligned with 'bear': ​[wear | bear].
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Who would let such a beautiful family fall to ruins...

The 'house' here once again, much as the "beauteous roof" of Sonnet 10 stands for a family name, a lineage, and an estate, By not having children, the young man will let this family tree fall to decay, as it will not be renewed but come to an end when he himself dies.
Which husbandry in honour might uphold
Which care and attention might honourably maintain and fortify...

The word play on 'husband' is no doubt deliberate. Husbandry is really the care and management of plants and livestock, but also by extension of an estate. We had "the tillage of thy husbandry" in Sonnet 3, where the poet asserted that no woman would be so beautiful as to disdain it from this young man.
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
​And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
...against the cold winds of winter and the empty rage of death.

One of the most strikingly powerful phrases to appear in these sonnets so far: "the barren rage of death's eternal cold." We are used to think of someone being 'filled with anger' and so the empty, void rage of a cold death is especially evocative. 
       O none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know
​       You had a father. Let your son say so.

And here comes the answer to that largely rhetorical question: only a wasteful, unthrifty person – "none but unthrifts" – would do so. Again, we have had "unthrifty loveliness" in Sonnet 4 and the charge against the young man of wanton wastefulness is a theme that runs through this early part of the series.

And then the startling personal plea: my dear love, you know you had a father, let your son say so, obviously by producing him in the first place. And we will have a lot more to say about this couple of lines in just a moment...

The personal, pleading, and particularly revealing Sonnet 13 marks an especially noteworthy change in tone and it provides one specific detail that narrows the field of candidates for the young man dramatically in one fell swoop.

Most immediately noticeable from the outset is the personal pronoun. This is the first sonnet in the series that addresses the young man as 'you'. Up until now, the poet has been addressing the young recipient of these poems as 'thou', which actually is the more familiar form of address that either an older person would use towards a younger one, or someone of higher social status to someone of lower social status, or two friends in a more casual setting to each other, roughly equivalent to the German 'du' or the French 'tu' or the Italian or Spanish 'tu'.

What exactly the significance of this is we do not know, as it is not explained, either in the sonnet itself or elsewhere, and any conclusion we might draw would be pure speculation, but that it is in one way or another of significance offers itself as highly likely, and in the absence of certainty, as we know, likelihood is our friend: I, the poet, William Shakespeare, am surely making a choice here and I am combining this choice with the second most striking feature of this sonnet: the relationship in which I position myself to the young man. Having unequivocally put myself into these sonnets for the first time only very recently with Sonnet 10, where I asked the young man to "make thee another self for love of me," I now go several steps further and call him "love" first, and then, just in case that wasn't quite clear enough, "my love." 

There is here, as there was before, a possibility that I am speaking on somebody else's behalf. That I place myself into the shoes of someone who is close enough to the young man to call him "my love," but we have no evidence of this being the case. And in the sequence as it has unfolded so far it does absolutely make sense for me to become yet bolder, more personal, more openly intimate. We have been on a trajectory, not entirely linear, but traceable, from a fairly uninvolved formality to a dismantling of these boundaries, and here now I speak with the voice of someone who knows this young man and cares for him and considers him to be "my love." And that can hardly be meaningless.

It may also quite conceivably be a pointer towards an answer to the question: why use the formal 'you' here? This is somewhat more tentative, but if I am writing to someone whom I am getting to know better and whom I am beginning to have more than just writerly feelings for, and this person is someone of eminently and obviously high social status, which does not, however, keep me from expressing the fact that I am beginning to feel actual personal care and love for this person, then now would not be a bad time to err on the slightly safe side and counterpoint the intimacy of the words with a greater level of formality and respect in the framing of these words. In fact, it would be quite an ingenious way of fending off any potential accusation of overstepping the mark or being way too presumptuous. It would signal: I know my place, but this is how I am starting to feel about you. It would be what a brilliant and daring poet just might do. Again, and to be clear: we don't know if this is what's happening here, whether this is the intention of William Shakespeare at this point. It is merely a possibility that in the context of what we have been seeing so far would make a degree of sense and be therefore quite attractive, and it is something that the words themselves do to a degree suggest. No more, but also no less.

Between the second and the twelfth line of this perfectly well constructed poem nothing occurs that we wouldn't expect or have not seen in one form or another expressed before: you should prepare yourself against your own demise by having a child so you can live on in your child when you die. A slightly new and certainly poetic tone is found with the third quatrain, as we saw in the 'translation' earlier. Shakespeare speaks of the 'barren rage of death's eternal cold'. It's the strongest we've heard him on death, and this will be a recurring theme. We do get a sense, certainly, that the poet knows about death and has experienced the harsh reality of untimely bereavement. And this is not in itself of course unusual: we have noted before how short life and how violent death could be in Elizabethan England. And how little sense a death might make in such a world.

Then, in the thirteenth line of the thirteenth Sonnet: "Dear my love, you know" – the strongest expression of affection yet from me, the poet, to you, the young man, and then a line that like a focus on a photographic lens narrows things down suddenly and substantially: "You know you had a father, let your son say so." 

Had. You had a father. Now, people have come up with all kinds of explanations why I, the poet, might here say to you, the young man that you had a father and not that you have a father, but none is as plausible and as obviously fitting as the one that obviously fits: you had a father. He is no more: once he was alive and you quite possibly remember him from your childhood, but now you are fatherless.

Could this be a mistake? An accident? Well, it could. But again: I, William Shakespeare, am the greatest poet ever to have written in the English language: if I felt so inclined I could write a sentence that rhymes and scans and tells the person I am talking to that he has a father. I choose not to do so. In the sonnet where I choose to address the young man with the more formal 'you' while at the same time calling him 'my dear love' I also choose to remind him that he had a father. It would be an insult supreme to use the past tense here if the young man's father were alive and well. And it would not make sense to bury any hidden message in this, not least because it would be so insulting. So there can hardly be any genuinely justified question as to whether this is deliberate and meaningful. Of course it is. I could have written: Dear my love, you know you have a father, let your son say so. The poem would work almost as well. Even for the slight nuance that it doesn't, I could make the line work for me and for the young man if the young man actual still had a father, if I so wished. I did not. And from a fellow writer's perspective, it is preposterous and patronising in the extreme to be told I may just have made a minor mistake here.

And we don't have to leave it there. What makes the argument for this being a direct and significant pointer towards the identity of the young man even more compelling is that it doesn't stand alone. In Sonnet 3 we wondered about the reasons why William Shakespeare is making such a deliberate point about the resemblance the young man bears to his mother. Not his father. And we thought there were three possible reasons: a) he really bears a striking resemblance to his mother, b) his father isn't around to be compared to, or c) possibly both.

Here now we have "you had a father." It tallies up directly. And, granted, it would perhaps still potentially appear a little far-fetched to imagine that there is a young English nobleman in his late teens or early twenties who is obstinate in his refusal to marry, who is either a first born or an only son, who bears a striking resemblance not to his father but to his mother, and whose father in any case is no longer alive, were it not for the fact that there is such a young man to whom absolutely all of the above applies.

We are not going to name him, not yet. Why? Because while it would no longer seem quite so premature now, seeing that the evidence is coming together bit by bit, it would still be a step too far too soon. We will get there, do not worry. We will discuss the potential candidates for the young man and we will be able to make some fairly well-informed choices about whom to allow and whom to dismiss as likely contenders. But doing so is a big deal: scholars have speculated, argued, even fought, over this question for four centuries now and there is no incontrovertible truth. There is no hard evidence that amounts to incontestable proof. And so this question of who the young man who receives these sonnets is merits a great deal of diligence and care when we come to it. And, indeed, its own episode. Before then though – most fortuitously – there will be quite a few more pointers and more evidence to gather...

​<

​>

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