266. CVII. line 10: and death to me SUBSCRIBES.-Subscribes yields, as in Lear, i. 2. 24; and again in iii. 7. 65, a well-known crux. 267. CVII. line 14: When TYRANTS' CRESTS and TOMBS of BRASS. The line has a flavour in it of the regum apices and Horace's monumentum ære perennius. Compare the "gilded monuments" in lv. 1. 268. CVIII.-I can say nothing in your praise which I have not said before: yet these things which I have repeated so often can never seem old to me, because love which inspires them is ever fresh, and to true love the object loved must always remain young and beautiful as it was at first. The theme with which he closes the sonnet reminds us of xv. 13, 14: And, all in war with Time, for love of you, And again, civ. 1-3: To me, fair friend, you never can be old, &c. 269. CVIII. line 3: what NEW to register.-The Quarto has now. New is pretty certainly right. We gain noth ing by Sidney Walker's What's now to speak, what now to register. 270. CVIII. line 9: in LOVE'S FRESH CASE.-I believe this only means, in the case of love which is ever fresh. Love is the emphatic word: in the case of love time and change do not count. Fresh is added to strengthen the idea of love's abiding vigour. 271. CIX. line 5: if I have RANG'D.-Ranged = gone away or astray; so Tennyson, In Memoriam, canto xxi.: "her little ones have ranged." 272. CIX. line 7: Just to the time, &c.—At the right time and-half-quibblingly-not altered with the time, i.e. by 274. CIX. lines 13, 14: For nothing this wide universe I call, That is, you apart, excepted, I count the world nothing. With my rose cf. "beauty's rose" in Son. i. 2. So Othello, v. 2. 13-16. 275. CX. This and the following sonnet are generally regarded as a reference by Shakespeare to his actor's life. See what is said on the subject in Troilus and Cressida, note 67. 276. cx. line 3: GOR'D mine own thoughts.-Gor'd=done violence to; cf. Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3. 228. 277. cx. line 4: Made old offences of affections new.Dowden says: "Entered into new friendships and loves, which were transgressions against my old love." I do not altogether see how this sense can be got out of the English, though it agrees well with line 11. May it not mean: prostituted my love-a love so new, so unknown to other men, so rare--to the old hackneyed purposes and commonplaces of the stage, made capital out of my emotions, turned my passion to account, sold cheap what is most dear? All this being done in his capacity as actor. 278. CXI. line 1: WITH Fortune chide.-Q. has wish. 279. CXI. line 10: Potions of EISEL.-So Hamlet, v. i. 299: "Woo 't drink up eisel?" Nares quotes from Skelton: He drank eisel and gall To redeeme us withal. See Dyer's Folklore of Shakespeare, p. 275; and Hunter's Illustrations, ii. p. 263. 280. CXII. Your praise or blame is for me the sole standard of right and wrong. Pity in line 1 repeats the pity in cxi. 14. 281. CXII. line 10: my ADDER'S SENSE.-See Troilus and Cressida, note 127. 282. CXII. line 13: in my purpose BRED.-Bred = firmly established or harboured. Cf. Son. cviii. 13: Finding the first conceit of love there bred. 283. CXII. line 14: ARE dead.-Q. has y' are, and some editors read they're. I have followed the Globe ed. 284. CXIII.-Though away you are present to me in everything; cxix. is a continuation. 285. CXIII. line 6: which it doth LATCH.-So Macbeth, iv. 3. 195: Where hearing should not latch them. In Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 2. 36, latch smear. 286. CXIII. line 14: maketh MINE UNTRUE.-So the Quarto; but it is very strange. Untrue must be a substantive, with the sense, perhaps, error. Various proposals have been made; myself, I should like to read cyne. 287. CXIV. lines 4-6: your love taught it this alchemy, &c. So Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1. 232–234: 293. CXVI. line 7: It is the STAR.-Referring to the northern star. Cf. Much Ado, iii. 4. 59; and Julius Cæsar, iii. 1. 60-62. So The Faithful Shepherdess, i. 2: that fair star That guides the wandering seaman through the deep. 294 CXVI. line 8: Whose worth's unknown, &c.—A difficult and much-discussed line. Dowden says: "The passage seems to mean, 'As the star, over and above what can be ascertained concerning it for our guidance at sea, has unknowable occult virtue and influence, so love, beside its power of guiding us, has incalculable potencies.' This is not very satisfactory; but I am afraid I cannot suggest anything better. Perhaps the difficulty comes in this way, that we do not quite know how an Elizabethan regarded the stars. Popular astronomy may have held that the northern star was materially as rich in wealth as this earth. Suppose now that we take worth literally; the sense might be this: The height, altitude, of the star is known; but who can tell what riches it contains? The outward is visible to us; the inward is hidden. So, too, with love. We can gain a rough estimate and idea of its extent; we can measure it from the outward. But the real essence and worth of the passion is incalculable, unknown, just as the worth of the star is unknown. In either case we see little more than the outside, the surface. 295 CXVI. line 9: TIME'S FOOL.-Dowden compares I. Henry IV. v. 4. 81: "life time's fool." 296. CXVI. line 12: But BEARS IT out even to the EDGE of doom.-Compare All's Well, iii. 3. 5, 6. It is redundant, just as in an expression like "carry it;" cf. Othello, i. 1. 66, 67: What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe, If he can carry 't thus! 297. CXVII. line 3: FORGOT upon your dearest love TO CALL.-Compare Son. ci.: O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends 298. CXVII. lines 5, 6: frequent been with UNKNOWN MINDS, And given to TIME. Line 5 illustrates Dowden's interpretation of cx. 4. Time = the time, society; see Son. xvi. 10. Staunton, who seems to have had a mania for making needless emendations, proposed "to them." 299. CXVII. line 9: Book both my wilfulness.-Book= register, as in Henry V. iv. 7. 76, if, that is to say, we adopt Dyce's reading in the latter passage. 300. CXVII. line 11: within the LEVEL.-Level=aim; cf. A Lover's Complaint, 309: That not a heart which in his level came. 301. CXVII. lines 13, 14: I did strive to PROVE The constancy and virtue of your love. Contrast cx. 10, 11: Mine appetite I never more will grind 302. CXVIII. line 2: With EAGER compounds.-Eager = VOL. VIII. bitter, sharp, the French aigre. It is used twice in Hamlet in the same sense; cf. i. 4. 2: "a nipping and an eager air;" and i. 5. 69: "like eager droppings into milk." 303. CXVIII. line 6: did I FRAME my feeding.—Frame = suit, adapt. So the Passionate Pilgrim, 323: And to her will frame all thy ways; and III. Henry VI. iii. 2. 185: And frame my face to all occasions. 304. CXIX.-Carrying on idea of previous sonnet, with the same metaphor, "potions," "fever," &c. 305. CXIX. line 10: That better is by EVIL still MADE BETTER. -Repeating the "by ill be cured" of cxviii. 12. 306. CXIX. line 14: And gain by ILL.-The Quarto has ills; but I think the singular is required; cf. “O benefit of ill" in line 9. 307. cxx.-Remembering how much I suffered when you were untrue, I might have divined how much you would suffer by my disloyalty, and that thought should have given me reason to pause. Still the fact that you did trespass once must be an excuse for me now. We are quits. 308. CXX. line 9: 0, that OUR NIGHT OF WOE.-Compare Venus and Adonis, 481: The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day. Staunton proposed sour. 309. CXX. line 11: And soon to you, &c.-Sidney Walker would print the line thus: And soon to you, as you to me then, tender'd, I don't think the change is necessary. 310. CXXI. line 1: than VILE ESTEEMED.-Dyce and some other editors read vile-esteem'd. 311. CXXI. line 3: And the just PLEASURE lost. -Should we not read and the just pleasure's lost? the sense being: We lose that pleasure which seems vile ("is so deem'd") to others, but is not felt to be so by us. 312. CXXI. line 6: Give SALUTATION to my sportive BLOOD. -So Henry VIII. ii. 3. 103: "If this salute my blood a jot.” I owe the reference to Dowden. 313. CXXI. line 9: I AM THAT I AM.-We may remember Iago's "I am not what I am" (Othello, i. 1. 65). 314. CXXI. line 11: themselves be BEVEL.-Bevel=slanting or crooked: a builder's term. 315. CXXII. He has received some tables (memorandumbooks) from his friend and has given them away. Here he apologizes for having done so: the true tables on which you are written down are my heart and brain: what others should I need? 316. CXXII. line 1: Thy gift, thy TABLES. -For tables see Troilus and Cressida, note 262. 317. cxxIII. He takes up the idea of forgetfulness suggested in last line of last sonnet: he will be true in spite of time. The poem is full of conventional metaphor. 318. CXXIII. line 7: And rather make THEM born to our desire.-Them="what thou dost foist upon us;" the sense being, "you foist upon us things which really are old and 449 220 hackneyed, but which we imagine to be new-"born to our desire"-created just to please us. 319. CXXIV. lines 3, 4: As subject to Time's love, &c."My love might be subject to Time's hate, and so plucked up as a weed, or subject to Time's love, and so gathered as a flower" (Dowden). 320. CXXIV. line 7: THRALLED DISCONTENT.-Does this refer to the affected "melancholy" of which Jaques speaks? See note 126 on As You Like It; and cf. Thomas Lord Cromwell, iii. 2: "My nobility is wonderful melancholy is it not most gentlemanlike to be melancholy?” (Tauchnitz ed. p. 101). 321. CXXIV. line 12: nor GROWS with heat.-Steevens would read glows. 322. CXXVI. This poem is generally regarded as the envoy, the conclusion of the series addressed to Shakespeare's friend. The editor of the Quarto evidently thought that a couplet was missing, as he left a space for theapparently-absent lines 13, 14. 323. CXXVI. line 2: his SICKLE, HOUR.-There must be some corruption of the text. Unfortunately no emendation-sickle hoar, fickle hour, sickle-hour-is at all satisfactory. 324. CXXVI. line 14: And her QUIETUS is to render thee. -For quietus see Hamlet, iii. 1. 75. Sometimes we find the full expression quietus est. 326. CXXVII. line 1: BLACK was not counted FAIR.-See Troilus and Cressida, note 14. 327. CXXVII. line 3: beauty's SUCCESSIVE heir.-See Titus Andronicus, note 1. 328. CXXVII. line 9: my mistress' BROWS are raven black. -Q. has eyes, which, I think, must be wrong. I have followed the Globe editors. Walker proposed hairs. 329. CXXVII. line 10: Her EYES 80 suited, and they mourners seem.-It is worth noting that in the old prose History of Dr. Faustus Helen is described as having "most amorous cole black eyes;" and Helen, as we know from Marlowe, was taken as a perfect type of beauty. Sidney complains (Astrophel and Stella, vii. 1, 2): When Nature made her chief work-Stella's eyes; In colour black, why wrapt she beams so bright? -Arber's English Garner, vol. 1. p. 506. Suited clad, as in cxxxii. 12; and Lear, iv. 7. 6. Dyce reads as they. For the conceit in the line cf. cxxxii. 1-3. 330. CXXVII. line 11: not born FAIR.-The use of cosmetics in dyeing hair, and such like devices, are continually referred to; see, for instance, Stubbes' Anatomy of Abuses, part I. pp. 67-69; and Fairholt's Lilly, vol. i. pp. 288, 289. Perhaps these customs were introduced from Italy. Coryat in his Crudities has much to tell us concerning the ways of the Venetian ladies: "All the women of Venice every Saturday in the afternoone doe use to annoint their haire with oyle, or some other drugs, to the end to make it looke faire, that is whitish. For that colour is most affected of the Venetian Dames and Ladies." He describes the process, which included drying in the sun (vol. ii. pp. 37, 38). 331. CXXVIII. line 1: thou, my MUSIC.-Compare Son. viii. 1: "Music to hear." 332. CXXIX. As a study of lust contrasted with love this sonnet may be compared with Lucrece, 687-743, and the single stanza in Venus and Adonis, 799-804. It is a commonplace of criticism that Shakespeare's Sonnets almost suffer as works of art from this plethora of meaning; they are, in Trench's phrase, "so double-shotted with thought." I suppose there is nowhere in the plays and poems a more striking instance of compression than this sonnet affords. Every line is packed with passion. It may be noticed that the poem seems to be rather out of place; linked in no way with the preceding and following sonnets. 333. CXXIX. line 4: Savage, extreme, rude, CRUEL-Compare Hero and Leander, Second Sestiad, 299, 300: Love is not full of pity, as men say, But deaf and cruel where he means to prey. 334. CXXIX. line 10: HAD, HAVING, and in quest TO HAVE. -The sense is clear; the grammar less so. For similar compressions cf. Troilus and Cressida, ii. 3. 263: He must, he is, he cannot but be wise; and Hamlet, i. 2. 158: It is not nor it cannot come to good. 335. CXXIX. lines 11, 12: A bliss in proof,-and PROV'D, A VERY WOE; What win I, if I gain the thing I seek? and lines 867, 868: The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours 336. CXXX.-A description of his mistress in the conventional style of Elizabethan idealism. For a close parallel we may turn to Fidessa, Son. xxxix.-Arber's English Garner, v. p. 610; and for a good contrast to Watson's Teares of Fancy-Arber's Reprint, p. 43. We find such passages of highly-wrought description in Spenser, Sidney, Lodge; indeed, passim in the sonnet literature of the time. 337. CXXX. line 4: If HAIRS be WIRES.-Why do Elizabethan writers always compare hair with wire? It is not a particularly happy image: yet it occurs over and over again. Here are some instances: Spenser's Epithalamion: Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre. -Globe ed. p. 589: Parthenophil and Parthenophe, Son. xiii.: Her hair disordered, brown and crispéd wiry. -Arber's English Garner, vol. v. p. 346; England's Helicon, song: Her tresses are like wires of beaten gold. Whose ticing hair, like nets of golden wire, -Dyce's Greenes Peele, p. 602. Was it something in the Elizabethan coiffure which sug. gested the comparison? The hair may have been stiffened until it really looked like wire. 338. CXXX. line 14: As any she belied with FALSE COMPARE-Compare Son. xxi. 1-8. 339. CXXXI. line 3: to my DEAR DOTING heart.-Dyce reads dear-doting. 340. CXXXII. lines 1-4: Thine eyes 1 love, &c. -Compare Son. cxxvii. Much the same conceit occurs in Astrophel and Stella, vii. 11-14 (Arber's English Garner, vol. i. p. 506). 341. CXXXII. line 2: thy HEART TORMENTS.Q. has heart torment; and it has been suggested that we should place a comma after heart, and refer torment to eyes in the previous line. 342. CXXXII. line 6: the GRAY cheeks of the east.-See note on Titus Andronicus, ii. 2. 1. 343. CXXXIII.-A fresh idea. The "dark woman" has taken his friend from him. Connected with xl. xli. xlii.? 344. CXXXIII. line 5: Me from myself, &c.-Compare The Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii. 1. 172, 173. My next self in line 6 is repeated in that other mine in cxxxiv. 3. 345. CXXXIII. line 9: Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward. We have this idea several times; cf. Son. xxii. 6, 7: my heart, Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me; Son. cix. 3, 4: As easy might I from myself depart As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie; and Richard III. i. 2. 204: Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart. Compare too Barnes Parthonophil and Parthenophe, xvi. : Yet this delights, and makes me triumph much, That mine Heart, in her body lies imprisoned. -Arber's English Garner, vol. v. p. 349. 346. CXXXIII. line 13: being pent in thee.--See Troilus and Cressida, note 184. 347. CXXXIV. -The verbal links with the last sonnet are clear: "he is thine" echoes "perforce am thine;" and "that other mine" repeats "my next self." 348. CXXXIV. line 9: The statute of thy beauty, &c.-You will put the statute into execution and claim the letter of your bond, like a very Shylock. Statute="security or obligation for money" (Malone). 349. CXXXV.-Here, and in the next sonnet, we have elaborate quibbles, such as were common enough in Shakespeare's time. Sidney plays upon the word Rich in exactly the same way; see Astrophel and Stella, xxxvii. (Arber's English Garner, vol. i. p. 521). In line 2 "Will to boot" refers to his friend; Will in overplus"= Shakespeare him self. In the first line Will ought, I believe, to be written "will" desire, in antithesis to "wish." Possibly, however, the husband of the "dark woman" was a Will. 350. CXXXV. line 13: Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill. So the Quarto; but I can make no sense of the text. Of the emendations, two are noticeable: "Let no unkind 'No' fair beseechers kill" (Dowden); and "no fair beseechers skill"avail, i.e. against Shakespeare. The latter is Mr. W. M. Rossetti's proposal. 351. CXXXVI. line 8: Among a number ONE is RECKON'D NONE. SO Hero and Leander, First Sestiad, 255: " One is no number;" and Fifth Sestiad, 339, "for one no number is" (Bullen's Marlowe, vol. iii. pp. 15 and 84). Compare, too, Romeo and Juliet, i. 2. 32, 33, and note. 352. CXXXVI. line 10: in thy STORE'S account.-Q. has stores; but every where else the word occurs in the singular. 353. CXXXVI. line 12: a SOMETHING SWEET to thee.Query: a something, sweet, to thee, as Dyce reads. 354. CXXXVI. lines 13, 14: Make but my name thy love, &c.-Dowden says: "Love only my name (something less than loving myself), and then thou lovest me, for my name is Will, and I myself am all will, i.e. all desire." Is this right? I should have thought the sense was: "Let your love be named Will (i.e. his friend), and then in loving him you must indirectly love me, since my name too is Will. 355. CXXXVII. line 6: Be ANCHOR'D in the bay. -Compare Antony and Cleopatra, i. 5. 31-33; and Cymbeline, v. 5. 393. 356. CXXXVII. lines 9, 10: a SEVERAL plot Which my heart knows the WIDE WORLD'S common place. Several belonging to a private owner. Cf. Love's Labour's Lost, ii. 1. 223, where (as here) a quibble is intended: My lips are no common, though several they be. A several was an inclosed field, as opposed to public land = a common. Wide world, as in Son. cvii. 2. 357. CXXXVIII.-See the Passionate Pilgrim, poem 1. 358. CXXXIX. line 6: forbear to GLANCE thine EYE aside. -Compare cxl. 14: "Bear thine eyes straight." 359. CXXXIX. line 14: KILL ME OUTRIGHT with looks, &c. -So Constable, Diana, Son. v. of the Fourth Decade, 7-9: Dear! if all other favour you shall grudge, Do speedy execution with your eye! With one sole look, you leave in me no soul. -Arber's English Garner, vol. ii. p. 243. Dowden compares Astrophel and Stella, xlviii. 13, 14: Dear killer, spare not thy sweet cruel shot; A kind of grace it is, to slay with speed. -Arber's English Garner, vol. i. p. 527. 360. CXL. line 3: Lest sORROW LEND me WORDS.-We may remember Macbeth, iv. 3. 209, 210: the grief that does not speak Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break. "True grief is dumb," says a character in Old Fortunatus, ii. 2 (Mermaid edition of Dekker, p. 332); and Seneca long before had written: Cura leves loquuntur, majores stupent, a line which is quoted in the Returne from Parnassus (Arber's Reprint, p. 20); also in the Revenger's Tragedy, i. 4 (Webster & Tourneur in the Mermaid Series, p. 362). 361. CXLI. line 1: I do not LOVE thee WITH mine EYES.We may remember the song in the Merchant of Venice, iii. 2. 63-66: Tell me where is fancy bred, It is engender'd in the eyes. So Lilly in Love's Metamorphosis, i. 1: "in the blood is he (love) begot, by the fraile fires of the eye" (Fairholt's Lilly, ii. 215). 362. CXLI. line 9: But my FIVE WITS nor my five senses can. See note 269 on Lear. 363. CXLI. lines 11, 12: Who leaves unsway'd, &c.—“My heart ceases to govern me, and so leaves me no better than the likeness of a man-a man without a heart-in order that it may become slave to thy proud heart" (Dowden). 364 CXLI. line 14: she that makes me SIN.-Echoed in the next sonnet, lines 1, 2: "Love is my sin,” &c. 365. CXLII. line 4: And thou shalt find IT merits not reproving. In Dowden the line stands: Dowden quotes Edward III. ii. 1. 10: His cheeks put on their scarlet ornaments. "Ruby-colour'd portal" is said of Adonis' mouth, Venus and Adonis, 451. For the metaphor of sealing, see Troilus and Cressida, note 179. 367. CXLII. line 8: Robb'd others' BEDS' REVENUES.-Q. has beds revenues. Bed-revenues is a possible reading. 368. CXLIII. line 13: have thy WILL.-That is, his friend; scarcely Shakespeare himself. 369 CXLIV. This is the second poem in The Passionate Pilgrim; the variations in the text are not very noticeable. 370. CXLIV. line 2: do SUGGEST me still.-Suggest=tempt, as often in Shakespeare; cf. Othello, ii. 3. 358: They do suggest at first with heavenly shows. So Richard II. iii. 4. 75, 76; and suggestion in Macbeth, i. 3. 134. 371. CXLIV. line 6: from my SIDE.- The Quarto has sight; the metre requires side, which occurs in the other version. 372. CXLIV. line 8: WOOING his purity.-Compare xli. 6, 7. 373. CXLV. The only sonnet in Shakespeare in eightsyllable verse; its genuineness has been doubted. 374. CXLV. line 13: from hate away she THREW.-That is, she robbed "I hate" of its element of hate by adding "not you." Combined with "not you" it lost its sting. This seems to me an entirely satisfactory explanation, and the couplet may be paralleled by Lucrece, 1534-1537. Steevens suggested flew for threw. Let 375. CXLVI.-Loss to the body is gain to the soul. the body pine and perish that the soul may reap the advantage. Death can claim as his prey the body alone; in destroying the body the soul wins a victory over death. 376. CXLVI. line 2: PRESS'D BY these rebel powers that thee ARRAY.-In the Quarto the line stands thus: My sinful earth these rebel powers that thee array. Obviously the line is corrupt; as obviously, I think, the corruption came in this way-that the printer repeated the last words of line 1, leaving out the real beginning of line 2. We must supply a word; what that word should be depends rather on the sense which we give to array. I think that array must clothe; the body is the vesture which incloses the soul; and the soul says, with Saint Paul, "Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" Taking array thus, we may accept Dowden's press'd by or Furnival's hemm'd with there is not much to choose between them-and refer the participle to the soul. Ingleby, however, argues that array = abuse, afflict, a perfectly feasible interpretation, though Shakespeare does not elsewhere use the word in this sense. If we follow Dr. Ingleby, then we may read, as he does, leagu'd with, and refer the participle to the earth in line 1. Myself, I prefer the first of our alternatives. Dr. 377. CXLVI. line 11: Buy TERMS divine in selling HOURS of dross.-Hours of dross (i.e. sensual pleasure?) waste the body, and destruction of the body should be the ultimate end and aim of the soul. Here, as in cli. 7-9, the soul is the ruler who checks or allows the self-indulgence of the body. I think terms conditions, as though it were the terms of some bargain and compact between soul and body. Others, however, take it "in the legal and academic sense. Long periods of time, opposed to hours" (Sidney Walker). 378. CXLVII. The metaphor is much the same as in cxviii. and cxix. 379. CXLVII. line 9: PAST CURE I am, now reason is PAST CARE. Said obviously in allusion to the proverb, Past cure, past care, which, as the editors note, occurs in Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 28. Perhaps, too, the latter part of the line is meant to imply that reason has ceased to care for him. 380. CXLVII. line 10: with evermore UNREST.-A beautîful word, found in Titus Andronicus, iv. 2. 31, and Richard III. iv. 4. 29. Tennyson somewhere speaks of "the wild unrest that lives in woe." 381. CXLVII. lines 13, 14: For I have sworn thee fair, &c.-Compare Son. clii. 13. The couplet forms a link with the next sonnet, which in turn reminds us of exxxvii. 382. CXLVIII. line 8: all men's; NO.-Lettsom suggested: Love's eye is not so true as all men's no; thinking that a pun on eye-ay was intended. 383. CXLIX. line 4: all TYRANT.- Malone suggested truant; but cf. cxxxi. 1: "Thou art as tyrannous." All tyrant complete tyrant. |