Sonnet 96: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness
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Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport; Both grace and faults are loved of more and less: Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort. As on the finger of a throned queen The basest jewel will be well esteemed, So are those errors that in thee are seen To truths translated and for true things deemed. How many lambs might the stern wolf betray If like a lamb he could his looks translate, How many gazers mightst thou lead away If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state. But do not so, I love thee in such sort As thou being mine, mine is thy good report. |
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Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
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Some people say that your fault – or perhaps more specifically the cause of your faults – is your youth, and with it your inexperience and general lack of wisdom and reflection, and some people say that it is your exuberance, your carefree playfulness, your licentiousness.
'Wanton' is not necessarily a negative term in Shakespeare's day, but its meaning very much depends on context and can therefore be multi-layered, as it almost certainly is here. We first come across it in Sonnet 54: The canker blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses, Here 'wantonly' suggests a joyous, carefree, almost childlike abandon with with which the flowers play in the wind. Similarly in the sonnet that follows this one, 97, Shakespeare speaks of the "wanton burden of the prime," referring to the abundance of fruit that autumn brings. He also uses it to mean reckless and sexually unrestrained though, and it features in the outburst that prompts Ophelia to exclaim: "O what a noble mind is here orethrown!" after Hamlet tells her: "You jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t, it hath made me mad." And Gloucester in Act III Scene 1 of Henry VI Part One tells Winchester in no uncertain terms: Thou art a most pernicious usurer, Froward by nature, enemy to peace; Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems A man of thy profession and degree; In the context of the group of sonnets to which this poem belongs and forms the concluding part, it is clear that Shakespeare means to layer the word with lack of sexual restraint. |
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Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
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Some other people – implied is by contrast to those who find fault with you – say that what makes you so graceful and gives you your delightful charm is exactly your youth and what they therefore would describe as harmless, though perhaps high spirited, jinks and fooling around.
'Gentle' here has a sense of both, 'soft and mild', but also of 'seemly and befitting a gentleman', as in 'gentlemanly'; and 'sport' as we noted in our last episode, can mean simply pastime, but here, as there, carries strong sexual connotations, especially being ostensibly contrasted with the wantonness of the previous line. And as ever when Shakespeare places the word 'grace' in relation to his young man, we may also be allowed read into this a deliberate allusion to his strongly presumed nobility. |
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Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:
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Both, grace and therefore the 'sport' that goes with it, and faults together with their attendant causes, are loved of people who are better or worse off, who are of higher or lower status: some are of a more and some are of a less well to do position in life.
This use of 'more and less' to mean 'all and sundry' is virtually unknown to us, and here seems almost a tad puzzling, but it is exemplified in Henry IV Part One, where in Act IV Scene 3 Hotspur tells Blunt: Now, when the lords and barons of the realm Perceived Northumberland did lean to him, The more and less came in with cap and knee, Met him in boroughs, cities, villages, Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes, Laid gifts before him, proffered him their oaths, Gave him their heirs as pages, followed him Even at the heels in golden multitudes. He uses it in a similar way again in Henry IV Part Two, and also in MacBeth. Here, the line suggests as much as, everyone loves you regardless, whether they look upon your youth and wantonness as faults or whether they perceive the same actions and behaviours as grace and therefore the result of gentle sport. In this, the sonnet perfectly echoes Sonnet 95, which as we saw similarly suggested that it is impossible to hate or despise the young man. A line of argument that is now confirmed and further pursued: |
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Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort.
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You turn any fault that lives in you or that comes to you into a grace, in other words, 'those vices' which have made you their home in Sonnet 95, are by you – again, most likely a 'grace' also in social standing – turned into delightful idiosyncrasies.
Noteworthy is that, for the second time in quick succession, Shakespeare lets the vices in Sonnet 95 and the faults here come to the young man. He effectively absolves him – here perhaps also less grudgingly than in the last sonnet – from any actual wrongdoing by removing any agency from him: all these appalling things that you do effectively just happen to you, they visit themselves upon you, Shakespeare seems to be saying. |
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As on the finger of a throned queen
The basest jewel will be esteemed, |
Much as even the cheapest, most common or ordinary jewel made of the basest metal or material would, when worn by a rightfully enthroned queen, be considered valuable and precious...
This bears a special poignancy in view of the fact that at the time this sonnet is being composed, there is a throned queen who is now nearing the end of her long and successful reign, and without a doubt you could have put a copper band with a mother of pearl inset on her hand, and people would have oohed and aahed about it. |
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So are those errors that in thee are seen
To truths translated and for true things deemed. |
In just the same way, any faults that can be found or observed – seen – in you are interpreted as virtues.
Colin Burrow in the Oxford edition significantly points out that: "This is the only occurrence in Shakespeare of 'to deem for'. This form detracts from the stability of deem (which usually means 'to decide with the finality of a judge') by recalling the phrase 'to take for', which usually means 'to mistake something for'," and that therefore the sentence suggests that these faults or errors of yours are mistakenly thought of, by others, to be virtues, because in reality they are no such thing. |
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How many lambs might the stern wolf betray
If like a lamb he could his looks translate, |
How many lambs would a grim or harsh wolf be able to betray, meaning here to deceive and inveigle himself with, only to then devour them, if he could transform his looks to those of a lamb.
This of course reminds us of a wolf if sheep's clothing which is proverbial and therefore sure to be known to Shakespeare and anyone of his day who would have read or heard this sonnet. |
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How many gazers mightst thou lead away
If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state. |
How many people who look at you admiringly would you be able to lead away if you were to use all the powers you have owing to your position.
The implication is that you, with your beauty, your wealth, your status in society, with this capacity for turning every fault into a charming grace, could of course lead them away – for which we are positively invited to read 'lead astray' – and metaphorically do as the wolf does with his lambs, devour them in your ravenous appetite. |
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But do not so, I love thee in such sort
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report. |
But don't do this. I love you in such a way that, because you are mine, and I therefore yours, everything you do also reflects on me and if you damage your reputation then mine too will be tarnished.
This is a surprising, striking, and not entirely unproblematic recycling of the closing couplet of Sonnet 36. It is not entirely unproblematic, firstly because nowhere else in the sonnets does Shakespeare do this, and secondly because at first glance it doesn't seem to quite fit here as well as it does Sonnet 36, which very naturally builds up to this conclusion. Here, to remind us, is Sonnet 36: 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. Now, with Sonnet 96, the couplet appears to draw almost undue attention to Shakespeare's own standing in the world and makes us aware that whatever the young man is up to is not only painful for Shakespeare to bear, but also damages his reputation, a reputation which, after all, by now and evidently some time later, has acquired its own value that therefore needs to be protected. It also makes yet another valiant claim on the young man. Far from preparing to let him go, as Sonnet 87 did, this poem ends on imploring the young man to not bring them both down, thus implying that they are – as other sonnets have expressly said – one. Of course, it is possible that the sonnet has got corrupted and that the typesetter here simply made a mistake or couldn't read the manuscript he was working from and borrowed a couplet that seemed to fit. We really can't rule this out. But, having previously juxtaposed their different readings of passages in these sonnets, it is fair to also here now cite Colin Burrow citing John Kerrigan: "Kerrigan notes that both 36 and this poem end groups of sonnets which are critical of the friend: 'The common couplet makes the two groups rhyme, as it were'." And while strictly speaking two times two lines that are identical are not a proper rhyme, this, if intentional, would indeed be ingenious: Shakespeare would be tying these two groups together and in doing so highlight just how far the relationship has travelled: from a plea to the young man not to allow his reputation to be tarnished by associating with Shakespeare to a plea to the young man not to tarnish his own reputation out of respect for his association with Shakespeare. And this, if the case, further puts paid to any suggestion that this sonnet, or Sonnet 95, or any sonnet in this group could be addressed to any man or even a woman, they would irrefutably have to be addressed to Shakespeare's young lover. |
With Sonnet 96 William Shakespeare concludes the extraordinary group of sonnets that deal with his young lover's infidelity. Easing off on the harsh criticism of the young man's behaviour voiced in Sonnet 95, he here brings in a new conciliatory tone which acknowledges that the young man's powers of attracting other people are great and that he could seduce any number of them, but ending on a plea not to do so for the sake of both, and reiterating, for the first time since Sonnet 36, the words 'I love thee', whereby, at first glance perplexingly, it is not only these three words that are repeated here, but the closing couplet in its entirety.
This repetition of the closing couplet from Sonnet 36, with its eye-catching positioning at the end of the second coherent group of sonnets that concerns itself with the young man's character flaws and untoward behaviour is no doubt the first thing that is noteworthy about this poem. And because it is so unusual and so peculiar, it demands that we look at the sonnet from two angles, firstly with the couplet as a fully consciously deployed part of the composition, which we might call the default angle, since it makes sense and works and is what we have; and secondly with the couplet as an accident of printing or textural reproduction, which would therefore have to be a secondary perspective, as the principal reason for entertaining it is that we don't have any other repetition of the kind and so have to allow for this being an error as a real possibility.
There is in fact a third potential way in which the reuse may have come about: it is also absolutely possible that William Shakespeare did write the two lines and did mean them to close this sonnet, but had entirely forgotten about Sonnet 36, and that while the sense and sentiment are fully intended, the repetition is therefore accidental.
As we saw when 'translating' the sonnet, the idea of Shakespeare drawing a conscious and deliberate link to the group consisting of Sonnets 33 to 36 appeals: the arc that this draws is deeply satisfying for the reasons already given and, if true, solidifies our understanding of the relationship as evolving over the period covered by these sonnets so far, which we ventured a short while ago is likely to be approximately two years by now.
A slight caveat should be raised though under this view, and it is the same as we raised when looking at Sonnet 36: Sonnet 36 may or may not in reality form part of the group 33-36. It sprang itself on us as something of a surprise when it appeared because although it does refer to some reputational damage which would be congruent with taking sexual liberties too far, the sonnet more than infers, it asserts that this damage was incurred not by the young man but by Shakespeare. That said, we found some possible and to a greater or lesser degree plausible explanations why Shakespeare would do this, possibly, but speculatively, tied in with some external events.
We noted at the end of our observations on Sonnet 36 that it "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."
And indeed, it was the couple of Sonnets 69 & 70 that next spoke of the way the young man was being perceived by other people. This is the third time in total that we are made aware of how the world talks about him, and it does so with or without the closing couplet. From our second angle, where we discard the last two lines as making a rogue appearance here, the sonnet still tells us that some people think of what they witness in the way you lead your life as faults and/or wantonness, whilst others take the more benign view and look upon the same actions as essentially those that are to be expected, perhaps even a bit admired in a young man. And note again that they would not be admired in a young woman at the time...
Shakespeare himself did something very similar with Sonnet 41, which together with Sonnets 40 and 42, and following the 'interlude' of Sonnets 37 and 38, returned to the young lover's affair with Shakespeare's mistress but at least purported to be understanding and tolerant of his actions:
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
When I am sometime absent from thy heart
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits
For still temptation follows where thou art.
The third quatrain of this sonnet here seems to prepare for a similarly minded conclusion, quite unlike the conclusion, as it happens, of Sonnet 41 which drives home the fact that by getting off with Shakespeare's mistress, the young man has broken two bonds of trust, the one between Shakespeare and his mistress and the one between Shakespeare and the young man.
What we get from
How many gazers mightst thou lead away
If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state.
does lead us to expect something along the lines of: 'but you are not actually doing that', or, as we get 'but please don't do that, even though you can'. It is a bit like Dolly Parton addressing with her song not Jolene herself, but her man, and imploring him not to be taken by either her or by anyone else, even though he is clearly attractive enough to have his pick of people if he wanted them.
I am therefore with John Kerrigan here who in the Penguin edition reckons that "if the printer was short of a couplet he showed considerable ingenuity in returning to a poem so close to 96 in its concerns, so far back," because even if it wasn't Shakespeare himself who here draws this link, the link does seem warranted, and even if it wasn't Shakespeare who actively formulated this conclusion to this group, the sentiment expressed does make sense and it also justifies the lines preceding it.
And if Shakespeare did write the lines but didn't realise he was quoting himself: well, that poses no problem and it is an easy enough mistake to make: the couplet in itself sounds almost like an aphorism, albeit one that does not spell out a general truth but one specific to Shakespeare, and we can't rule out that it is a turn of phrase that was in effect currency at the time and used, in this or a similar way, much more widely than just in these sonnets. But in Shakespeare's works, these are the only two instances and that means that, by design or by accident, these two sonnets and therefore these two groups of sonnets are forever now connected.
Then again, it is my contention of course, as you will know by now if you have been following this podcast, that all these sonnets are intrinsically and often intricately, and very often quite clearly intentionally connected, even entwined...
This repetition of the closing couplet from Sonnet 36, with its eye-catching positioning at the end of the second coherent group of sonnets that concerns itself with the young man's character flaws and untoward behaviour is no doubt the first thing that is noteworthy about this poem. And because it is so unusual and so peculiar, it demands that we look at the sonnet from two angles, firstly with the couplet as a fully consciously deployed part of the composition, which we might call the default angle, since it makes sense and works and is what we have; and secondly with the couplet as an accident of printing or textural reproduction, which would therefore have to be a secondary perspective, as the principal reason for entertaining it is that we don't have any other repetition of the kind and so have to allow for this being an error as a real possibility.
There is in fact a third potential way in which the reuse may have come about: it is also absolutely possible that William Shakespeare did write the two lines and did mean them to close this sonnet, but had entirely forgotten about Sonnet 36, and that while the sense and sentiment are fully intended, the repetition is therefore accidental.
As we saw when 'translating' the sonnet, the idea of Shakespeare drawing a conscious and deliberate link to the group consisting of Sonnets 33 to 36 appeals: the arc that this draws is deeply satisfying for the reasons already given and, if true, solidifies our understanding of the relationship as evolving over the period covered by these sonnets so far, which we ventured a short while ago is likely to be approximately two years by now.
A slight caveat should be raised though under this view, and it is the same as we raised when looking at Sonnet 36: Sonnet 36 may or may not in reality form part of the group 33-36. It sprang itself on us as something of a surprise when it appeared because although it does refer to some reputational damage which would be congruent with taking sexual liberties too far, the sonnet more than infers, it asserts that this damage was incurred not by the young man but by Shakespeare. That said, we found some possible and to a greater or lesser degree plausible explanations why Shakespeare would do this, possibly, but speculatively, tied in with some external events.
We noted at the end of our observations on Sonnet 36 that it "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."
And indeed, it was the couple of Sonnets 69 & 70 that next spoke of the way the young man was being perceived by other people. This is the third time in total that we are made aware of how the world talks about him, and it does so with or without the closing couplet. From our second angle, where we discard the last two lines as making a rogue appearance here, the sonnet still tells us that some people think of what they witness in the way you lead your life as faults and/or wantonness, whilst others take the more benign view and look upon the same actions as essentially those that are to be expected, perhaps even a bit admired in a young man. And note again that they would not be admired in a young woman at the time...
Shakespeare himself did something very similar with Sonnet 41, which together with Sonnets 40 and 42, and following the 'interlude' of Sonnets 37 and 38, returned to the young lover's affair with Shakespeare's mistress but at least purported to be understanding and tolerant of his actions:
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
When I am sometime absent from thy heart
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits
For still temptation follows where thou art.
The third quatrain of this sonnet here seems to prepare for a similarly minded conclusion, quite unlike the conclusion, as it happens, of Sonnet 41 which drives home the fact that by getting off with Shakespeare's mistress, the young man has broken two bonds of trust, the one between Shakespeare and his mistress and the one between Shakespeare and the young man.
What we get from
How many gazers mightst thou lead away
If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state.
does lead us to expect something along the lines of: 'but you are not actually doing that', or, as we get 'but please don't do that, even though you can'. It is a bit like Dolly Parton addressing with her song not Jolene herself, but her man, and imploring him not to be taken by either her or by anyone else, even though he is clearly attractive enough to have his pick of people if he wanted them.
I am therefore with John Kerrigan here who in the Penguin edition reckons that "if the printer was short of a couplet he showed considerable ingenuity in returning to a poem so close to 96 in its concerns, so far back," because even if it wasn't Shakespeare himself who here draws this link, the link does seem warranted, and even if it wasn't Shakespeare who actively formulated this conclusion to this group, the sentiment expressed does make sense and it also justifies the lines preceding it.
And if Shakespeare did write the lines but didn't realise he was quoting himself: well, that poses no problem and it is an easy enough mistake to make: the couplet in itself sounds almost like an aphorism, albeit one that does not spell out a general truth but one specific to Shakespeare, and we can't rule out that it is a turn of phrase that was in effect currency at the time and used, in this or a similar way, much more widely than just in these sonnets. But in Shakespeare's works, these are the only two instances and that means that, by design or by accident, these two sonnets and therefore these two groups of sonnets are forever now connected.
Then again, it is my contention of course, as you will know by now if you have been following this podcast, that all these sonnets are intrinsically and often intricately, and very often quite clearly intentionally connected, even entwined...
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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!