The above image is the dedication that prefaced the 1609 edition of Shakespeare's sonnets. Since its first printing, this sonnet cycle -- comprised of 154 interrelated poems -- has become one of the most famous groups of poems in the world.
The sonnets can be broken up into large sequences based on who they are addressed to; the first 126 are addressed to a young man, with sonnets 1 through 17 all regarding a specific subject (procreation); the last 28 are addressed to a woman. There is considerable speculation around who exactly -- if anyone -- these two people are. For example, 'Mr. W.H.' of the dedication, assumed to be the subject of the first 126 sonnets has been postulated as being any number of people , including Henry Wriothesly, Third Earl of Southampton, William Herbert, Third Earl of Pembroke (under the theory that the initials were mistakenly transposed during the printing process) and even Shakespeare himself (assuming another typo, that the initials should have read W. Sh.). Because of the varying tone and diction used in this set of sonnets, many have been led to question the nature of Shakespeare's assumed relationship with the unidentified young man, and the interpretations range from the strictly platonic to the passionately homosexual.
There is also speculation regarding the identity of the so-called Dark Lady, the woman referred to in sonnets 127 to 154. Among the candidates are Mary Fitton, a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth and Emilia Lanier, an English poetess and proto-feminist.
There is, of course, a strong possibility that all of these people are simply poetic conventions, fictional people being addressed by a fictional narrator. There is boundless speculation regarding the authenticity of the dedication: the 1609 edition of the sonnets is thought to have been a printing unauthorized by Shakespeare, with the dedication having been inserted by the printer Thomas Thorpe ('T.T.').
But despite all these unanswered questions, the sonnets remain important pieces of literature because they break away from poetic conventions of the time. Before Shakespeare's, sonnets followed strict rules not only in form, but in content; sonnets were only supposed to be about love, and then were ever only supposed to be serious and chaste, disdainful of the physical aspects of love. Shakespeare broke away from these confines by writing about human evils that do not have to do with love (Sonnet 66) and political events (Sonnet 124), by making fun of love (Sonnet 128), by parodying beauty (Sonnet 130), by reversing gender roles (Sonnet 20), by speaking plainly about sex (Sonnet 129) and even by introducing witty pornography (Sonnet 151).
NOTE:
I have elected to present The Sonnets singly, as well as in the groups scholars have put them in based on their content, which are as followed (and which can be found at the very bottom of this page):
THE PROCREATION SONNETS (1 - 17)
THE FAIR YOUTH SONNETS (18 - 77, 87 - 126)
THE RIVAL POET SONNETS (78 - 86)
THE DARK LADY SONNETS (127 - 154)
SeanJ - OldPoetry Researcher
- Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold desert a beggar born,14 lines, 2 comments - That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang17 lines, 1 comment - Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there
And made myself a motley to the view,14 lines - Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust14 lines, 2 comments - My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:26 lines, 7 comments - When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,14 lines - Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.13 lines, 22 comments - Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
[......] these rebel powers that thee array,14 lines - Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;14 lines - Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,14 lines - When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state14 lines, 3 comments - Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,14 lines, 1 comment - What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?14 lines, 4 comments - Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;14 lines - Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love13 lines, 23 comments - When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,14 lines, 1 comment - When I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,14 lines - If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,14 lines, 1 comment - When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;14 lines, 1 comment - They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,14 lines, 5 comments - O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,14 lines - Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,14 lines, 2 comments - How can my muse want subject to invent,
While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse14 lines - From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,14 lines, 1 comment - When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,14 lines, 1 comment - Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;14 lines, 1 comment - From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,15 lines, 2 comments - Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?14 lines - Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,14 lines, 1 comment - Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.15 lines - Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breath'd forth the sound that said I hate15 lines, 3 comments - Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:14 lines - Lo in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye14 lines - Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?14 lines - For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any
Who for thy self art so unprovident.14 lines - As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st,
In one of thine, from that which thou departest,14 lines - When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,14 lines - O that you were your self, but love you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live,14 lines - Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy,14 lines - But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?14 lines - Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled with your most high deserts?14 lines - A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,14 lines - So is it not with me as with that muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,14 lines - My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date,14 lines - As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put beside his part,14 lines - Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,14 lines - Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;14 lines - Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,14 lines - How can I then return in happy plight
That am debarred the benefit of rest?14 lines - Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,14 lines - Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,14 lines - No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,14 lines - Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:14 lines - As a decrepit father takes delight,
To see his active child do deeds of youth,14 lines - O how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?14 lines - Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?14 lines - Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,14 lines - That thou hast her it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,14 lines - When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected,14 lines - If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way,14 lines - The other two, slight air, and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide,14 lines - Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight,14 lines - Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other,14 lines - How careful was I when I took my way,
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,14 lines - Against that time (if ever that time come)
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,14 lines - How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek (my weary travel's end)14 lines - Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,
Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,14 lines - So am I as the rich whose blessed key,
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,14 lines - O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!14 lines - Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,14 lines - Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,14 lines - Being your slave what should I do but tend,
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?14 lines, 1 comment - That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,14 lines, 1 comment - If there be nothing new, but that which is,
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,14 lines - Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?14 lines - Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,
And all my soul, and all my every part;14 lines - Against my love shall be as I am now
With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn,14 lines - Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,14 lines - Ah wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,14 lines - Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,14 lines - Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view,
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:14 lines - That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair,14 lines - No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell14 lines - O lest the world should task you to recite,
What merit lived in me that you should love14 lines - But be contented when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away,14 lines - So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;14 lines - Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?14 lines - Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;14 lines - So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse14 lines - Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;14 lines - O! how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,14 lines - Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,14 lines - I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook14 lines - I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set;14 lines - Who is it that says most, which can say more,
Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you,14 lines - My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise richly compiled,14 lines - Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all too precious you,14 lines - Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,14 lines - When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,14 lines - Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
And I will comment upon that offence:14 lines - Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,14 lines - Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,14 lines - But do thy worst to steal thyself away,
For term of life thou art assured mine;14 lines - So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband; so love's face14 lines - How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,14 lines - Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;14 lines - How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!14 lines - The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,15 lines - Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?14 lines - O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?14 lines - My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming;
I love not less, though less the show appear;14 lines - Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,14 lines - To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,14 lines - Let not my love be called idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,14 lines - What's in the brain, that ink may character,
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?14 lines - O! never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify,14 lines - Your love and pity doth the impression fill,
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;14 lines - Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
And that which governs me to go about14 lines - Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you,
Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?14 lines - Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer:14 lines - Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,14 lines - Like as, to make our appetite more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge;14 lines - What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,14 lines - That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,14 lines - 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
When not to be receives reproach of being;14 lines - Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,14 lines - No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
Thy pyramids built up with newer might14 lines - If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,14 lines - Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,14 lines - O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;12 lines - In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;14 lines - How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds14 lines - Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;14 lines - Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain,14 lines - Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!14 lines - So now I have confessed that he is thine,
And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,14 lines - Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in over-plus;14 lines - If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,14 lines - Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold, and see not what they see?14 lines - When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,14 lines - O! call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;14 lines - Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;14 lines - In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;14 lines - Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:14 lines - Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feather'd creatures broke away,14 lines, 1 comment - Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:14 lines - My love is as a fever longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease;14 lines - O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight;14 lines - Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
When I against myself with thee partake?14 lines - O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,
With insufficiency my heart to sway?14 lines - Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?14 lines - In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;14 lines - Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,14 lines - The little Love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,14 lines - The Procreation Sonnets are grouped together because they all address the same young man, and all encourage him -- with a variety of themes and arguements -- to262 lines
- Comprising the largest grouping of poems, the Fair Youth sonnets are addressed to the same young man in the Procreation Sonnets. But their themes and subjects a1502 lines
- A sub-group within the Fair Youth sonnets, the Rival Poet sonnets are poems in which the speaker is railing against the young man for paying undue attention to144 lines
- CXXVII
In the old age black was not counted fair,473 lines, 3 comments
Adding your comment: