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
  • THE SONNETEER
  • EVENTS
  • TEXT NOTE
  • CONTACT
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Sonnet 36: Let Me Confess That We Two Must Be Twain

Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one;
So shall those blots that do with me remain
Without thy help by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which, though it alter not love's sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name.
       But do not so, I love thee in such sort
​       As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
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LISTEN TO SONNETCAST EPISODE 36

Let me confess that we two must be twain
Although our undivided loves are one,

Let me admit that we have to be apart, even though we are undivided and in our love as one.
So shall those blots that do with me remain
Without thy help by me be borne alone.

This way those moral stains on my reputation which result from my own faults or sins that I have committed will stay with me and will not tarnish you, and I will bear them and deal with them alone, without your help.

What these sins are or might be we don't know and the sonnet doesn't say, but what is most intriguing is that they are cited here so hard on the heels of the young man's blatant and strongly suggested faults and sins of the previous three sonnets.

ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION:
Note that in OP 
alone rhymes with one in a long 'ow' sound, resembling our 'own'.
In our two loves there is but one respect
Our two loves only have one mutual regard, namely mine to you and yours to me, or possibly, also we two are one and so we both look in the same direction and see things the same...
​Though in our lives a separable spite
...but in our lives there is an element or a force that spitefully – which implies a deliberate maliciousness – aims to separate us.
Which, though it alter not love's sole effect,
​Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.

...and this force, although it cannot change the singular effect that our love for each other has on us, it still takes away our ability to spend delightful hours together and enjoy each other's love.
I may not ever more acknowledge thee
​Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,

I may not acknowledge you in public any more or associate with you, or see you, because if I were to do so then this guilt of mine, which causes me such grief, would tarnish your own reputation.

PRONUNCIATION:
Note that 
bewailed is pronounced with three syllables: be-wail-èd.
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name.

Nor should you show me any kindness in public and in doing so honour me, because if you do so you will dishonour yourself.
       But do not so: I love thee in such sort
​       As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

But do not do this, do not dishonour yourself in this way, because my love for you is such that since you are mine, your good reputation is therefore also mine, in other words: if you look after your good name and standing in the world, then because of the love I bear you and because I consider you a part of me, I am then sufficed and content and, importantly, I consider my standing in the world to be intact.

The same couplet also closes Sonnet 96, but when here it makes perfect sense, there, as we shall see when we get to it, it really doesn't, which may simply mean that it slipped in there by mistake.

With the curious Sonnet 36 William Shakespeare appears to be either inverting the guilt and shame that the previous three sonnets have laid upon the young man for his evident transgression and projecting it directly on himself, or to be uncovering a new source of scandal that gives him reason to suggest – borderline disingenuously, it might seem – that they dissociate themselves from each other, even though in the same breath it also emphatically confirms the love they hold for each other.

After everything that has happened – or, to be more precise, that is reflected as having happened – in the last three sonnets, Sonnet 36 comes as something of a surprise. And here, before delving into its possible significance in the sequence, it may be prudent to remind ourselves that the sequence may in fact be corrupt. This is the first time this really suggests itself – and it does so as a partial explanation for the radical change of perception in who is at fault, because up until now we have not seen any reason to question the order of events. With Sonnet 36 though, a tentative question mark arises. Then again, we also have made ourselves aware some time ago that we do not know what happens in-between sonnets. Neither do we know how much time passes, nor do we know what, if anything, the young man says or writes in response to reading or hearing these sonnets, if he reads or hears them at all. 

All that said as a general caveat, Sonnet 36 breaks fascinating new ground. It states quite categorically two 'facts', or at any rate perceived facts, that stand at odds with each other: one, we two are one; two, we two must be apart. Having just admonished the young man for having done wrong, it now speaks of the "blots that do with me remain," without expounding what these blots are, and so we do not know whether William Shakespeare is taking the notion of two lovers being one to its ultimate consequence by saying you have done me wrong by – as we saw in the previous sonnet – clearly committing some sexual misdeed and because we are one the stain that this causes on your reputation is now also on me, and so therefore to protect you I shall bear this blot without you by myself so that your standing in society is not further threatened, or is William Shakespeare taking what has just happened as his opportunity to load blame and contrition upon himself for what he has done himself with and in relation to other people, such as, perhaps the person whom the young man seems to have 'stolen' from him. Either are possible, as is a combination of the two. 

Sonnet 36 gives no answers to this question: all it says, with a great deal of conviction, is that this shame or dishonour that is now upon me is something I shall have to bear by myself, I will protect you as best I can from being dragged down with me, and, significantly, this calamity does not stem from anything you or I have done in relation to each other, because "our undivided loves are one." This thing that we are talking about is caused by a "separable spite" in our lives, in other words: an external factor that is not purely coincidental but that appears to have some malign intent against us.

Sonnets 40, 41, and then particularly 42 will give us a great deal more insight into what is likely to have been the cause for the crisis that triggered the previous three sonnets, and it is entirely possible, though not certain, that this Sonnet 36 also attempts to deal with the same situation.

And here is where, exceptionally, we may do well to avail ourselves of one of the rare external sources to lend a bit of tantalising context. Again, it behoves me to urge caution and to emphasise that we cannot know whether this reference here applies or not, all we can say is that it exists, and that it could well match up. And the best reason we have for even introducing it here is simply that the sonnet on its own poses such an odd proposition that in itself seems to beg for a bit of context.

In September 1594, a writer named Henry Willobie published in pamphlet format a narrative poem entitled Willobie His Avisa. It would go way too far to enter in on any detail about this piece which was not then and is not now held in high literary regard. But this did not stop it from being exceptionally popular, allowing it to go into several reprints, even though – or quite possibly because – it was also censored and banned for a while, five years after its initial publication.

The piece is interesting because it talks of a W. S. and his close or, as its author puts it, 'familiar' friend H. W. who share "the curtesy" of a "like passion" for a lady, resulting in a "like infection." The initials H. W. of course are compatible with Henry Willobie, but although a Henry Willobie existed, some people doubt that he actually wrote this. H. W. certainly though are also the initials of Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton, and while nobody seriously believes he wrote the pamphlet, he is one of the strongest candidates for the Fair Youth and thus the person whom all of these sonnets so far are addressed to or about, as we discussed a little while ago and will examine in a great deal more detail in episodes to come.

Without wishing to read too much into any of this, and whether any of it is based in actual fact, in mere gossip, or some person's fertile imagination, this much we can say: in September 1594, at a time when the relationship between William Shakespeare and the young man may well be established enough for it to entail all the components we have come across thus far, and when Shakespeare would have had reason and opportunity to leave London because of the plague and also return to be reunited with his lover; at a time when he would now have turned thirty and the most likely candidate for his young lover within this time frame would be approaching 20, somebody publishes a piece of print that is so full of coded references, allusions, and nudging innuendo that the general public lap it up even though it isn't very good, the authorities ban it until after the death of Queen Elizabeth I, and one of the central constellations in it appears to mirror to some extent the events in the sonnets that could absolutely have been written around that time. That is all we know.

We don't know whether the person who wrote Willobie His Avisa was deliberately referencing the Queen herself or her court or people around her court when he made the maid protagonist of his poem, Avisa, sign her letters with the words "always the same," which just happens to be a direct English translation of the Queen's motto semper eadem, We don't know whether he meant to implicate William Shakespeare with his W. S. character, let alone Henry Wriothesley with his young but familiar friend H. W., and we don't know exactly what the implication is of the claim contained in the publication that “there is some thing under these false names and showes that hath been done truly.” 

What we do know is that if such a pamphlet was published at a time when our Will and his young man were undergoing a relationship crisis caused by the young man 'stealing' or 'robbing' – as Sonnet 35 strongly suggests – a person whom William Shakespeare considered to be his, then this would, in London at the time, be widely known and talked about, and if it involved, as it may well have done and as so far we have been led to believe, a notable, extremely well-connected young nobleman, this would heighten the stakes considerably. If the two people thus satirised are indeed William Shakespeare and Henry Wriothesley, who, after all was brought up as the ward of Lord Burleigh, chief advisor to the Queen, then the situation could potentially be explosive. And so this "separable spite" that has burrowed itself into the union between these two men may suddenly be exceptionally real. The young man getting off with someone is one thing. The young man getting off with my own lover, affair, bit on the side, mistress, is quite another. Any of this being made public, or as near as public as anyone would dare, even though it be in coded language: that is a scandal in the most applicable sense. The town would be talking about this, the young man's reputation would be severely threatened, the Queen herself may be incensed. And that is not a fire you want to play with...

We have swerved and departed unusually far from the words themselves. The words of this Sonnet 36 make no mention of Willobie, of Avisa, of the Queen. They don't directly refer to the young man's transgression and they certainly don't give us a date to plot on the timeline. What they do give us is an indication that if I am William Shakespeare and you are a young English nobleman of some considerable note, then no matter how much we two love each other, there is a world out there, and this world is not all accepting, embracing, and benign. There are adverse factors out there, and some of these factors may well be just people who, for whatever reason – be it envy, be it disapproval, be it arrogance or ignorance – and given the chance, would come between us. 

Sonnet 36 seems to stand on its own in this acute awareness of what other people think or say about us. And for quite a while it does. This tone, and this conscious reflection on the outside world does not reappear for another thirty-odd sonnets. Before then though, we will get many twists and turns and many profound reflections from Shakespeare on life, and time, and death, and beauty, and love.

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©2022-25  |   SONNETCAST – WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS RECITED, REVEALED, RELIVED
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  • 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
  • THE SONNETEER
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