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In rendering the Sonnets by William Shakespeare on this website, the following conventions are being applied throughout.
Much in line with common practice: - Archaic spellings are being contemporised, such as neuer to never, heire to heir, fewell to fuel, eate to eat; and obsolete letters replaced with contemporary ones, such as s for the 'long s' ſ. - Punctuation is being standardised and emended to aid the contemporary reader in their understanding of the text. - In most cases, capitalised words that in contemporary English do not require a capital letter are being converted to lower case, such as Winter to winter. Exceptions are made in cases where personification requires or strongly suggests that the word be given effectively as a name, such as in Time's scythe, or wasteful Time debateth, for example. Editors make different choices for conjugated verbs and the use of apostrophes to indicate syllables that are not pronounced or accents to mark those that are. Here, a decision has been taken to largely ease off on these aids as neither the Quarto Edition nor any subsequent one is entirely consistent as to the use of apostrophes, and of course accents do not feature in the Quarto Edition at all. So here, the text is set largely without extraneous marks, with notes given in the explanations to help with pronunciation where necessary and/or relevant. For example: 1.6 Quarto Edition feed'st is here given as feedst 1.11 Quarto Edition buriest is here also given as buriest; it is nevertheless pronounced with two syllables: 'buri'st' 1.12 Quarto Edition makst is here given as makest and pronounced with one syllable. Exceptions are made where an apostrophe clearly helps a contemporary reader make sense of the word, or where the archaic spelling simply doesn't register well today. For example: 5.8 Quarto Edition ore-snow'd is here given as o'resnowed, even though 'ore' is elsewhere in the Quarto Edition used to mean 'over'. 10.6 Quarto Edition gainst is here given as 'gainst 23.8 Quarto Edition ore-charg'd is here given as o'recharged Specific textual issues will be discussed in the notes for each sonnet as they are added and summarised here for easy reference. Sonnet 25: Let Those Who Are in Favour With Their Stars
Line 9: The painful warrior famoused for fight, The Quarto Edition here has The painefull warrier famosed for worth, which most people agree must be a typesetting error. Some editors, including Colin Burrow for the Oxford Shakespeare edition, adopt might. Others, including John Kerrigan for the New Penguin edition prefer fight. Some editors have suggested emending line 11 to obtain a rhyme with 'worth', such as: The painful warrior famoused for worth After a thousand victories once foiled Is from the book of honour razed forth This, however, is not very convincing and rarely retained today. Colin Burrow argues that the alliteration famoused for fight is "too harsh, even for this military context," but I disagree. I hold with John Kerrigan and opt for 'fight', as – to my mind – it yields by far the most satisfying and sensible solution, seeing that a warrior would, after all, be mostly famous for their fighting skill and prowess, whereas 'might' might more readily be ascribed to a prince or indeed an entire armed force. The issue, however, cannot be conclusively resolved. Sonnet 27: Weary With Toil I Haste Me to My Bed
Line 10: Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, The Quarto Edition here has Presents their shaddoe to my sightles view which is almost universally accepted to be a typesetting error: the vast majority of editors emend – as I do – to 'their' to 'thy'. Please note that this project and its website are a work in progress. If you spot any issues or mistakes, or if you have any questions or suggestions, please use the contact page to get in touch.
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