What's he saying?

"From fairest creatures we desire increase / That thereby beauty's rose might never die,"

We want the best-looking people to have children so that their beauty can be appreciated by future generations,

"But as the riper should by time decease / His tender heir might bear his memory:"

For once the elder has passed away, his young will share the memory of his ancestor's beauty (and may look like the elder):

"But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes / Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,"

But you, obsessed with your own beauty, selfishly consume all of that beauty's light,

"Making a famine where abundance lies / Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel."

Depriving the world of that beauty when there is plenty to be had by all; you are your own enemy, you are cruel to your own sweet self, for not having a child to carry on your memory.

"Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament / And only herald to the gaudy spring,"

You who are now a beautiful thing on earth, and the one who announces the coming of spring,

"Within thine own bud buriest thy content / And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding."

Are burying your self-satisfied beauty within yourself, and wasting it by being selfish.

"Pity the world, or else this glutton be / To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee."

Have pity on the world and bear a child; otherwise you are a glutton, keeping your beauty to yourself by taking it with you to the grave.

Why is he saying it?

Sonnets 1-126 comprise the first unit of Shakespeare's sonnets, although the second unit is considerably smaller, comprising only 28 sonnets. We often call sonnets 1-126 the "fair lord sonnets" because they tell the story of the poet's growing affection for (and eventual rejection by) a young and beautiful man that some critics also describe as the poet's financial benefactor. Almost all of the fair lord sonnets are addressed directly to the fair lord himself, and those that are not are surely about either him or the effect he has on the poet's emotional state.

Sonnets 1-17 are sometimes referred to as the "procreation sonnets," for in these sonnets the poet pleads with the fair lord, begging him to have a child so that his beauty may be passed on for future generations. This mini-theme of procreation continues until sonnet 18, whereupon the poet seemingly abandons it in favor of a new course. From then on the poet seeks to eternalize the fair lord's beauty in the lines of his verse, a plan he foreshadows in some preceding sonnets, e.g., "But were some child of yours alive that time / You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme" (sonnet 17).

From the beginning the poet appears infatuated with the fair lord's beauty, as the fair lord is infatuated with it himself. Knowing that Shakespeare often drew on Greek and Latin myth and legend in his works, we see a possible allusion to the story of Narcissus in the fair lord's obsession with his own appearance. The fair lord seems not only obsessed with his own beauty but also immoderately selfish with it - at least in the eyes of the poet. The selfishness of the fair lord with respect to his beauty is alluded to elsewhere in the procreation sequence, e.g., "Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend / Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?" (sonnet 4).

This first sonnet introduces the reader to a number of the sonnets' recurring themes: a possible homoerotic undertone (a man's appreciation of another man's beauty), the imagery of financial bondage (as in "contracted"), and the theme of selfishness and greed embodied in the fair lord's unwillingness to eternalize his beauty himself, thereby "making a famine where abundance lies." In fact, the sonnet as a whole can be encapsulated under the theme of the ravages of time, as a one-line summary of its content might be made thus: "Have a child now, beautiful man, because the clock is ticking; don't be selfish."

In line 11, the word "content" could have two very different meanings depending on the position of the stress. If we follow the iambic rhythm, the stress falls on the second syllable, giving the word the meaning of "happiness" or "pleasure," i.e. "you are burying your happiness within yourself." However, some scholars have suggested that the poet is actually making a pun, with the alternate meaning of "content" (stress on the first syllable) a reference to the fair lord's content, his beauty (or even semen: the fair lord is keeping it all to himself, thereby wasting it). It is clear that the poet was very deliberate in his choice of words - his sonnets and plays show numerous other examples of similarly subtle and bawdy puns - so such speculation may seem more reasonable as one becomes more familiar with the sonnets and Shakespeare's work as a whole.

What's he saying?

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate:"

What if I were to compare you to a summer day? You are lovelier and more temperate (the perfect temperature):

"Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May / And summer's lease hath all too short a date:"

Summer's beauty is fragile and can be shaken, and summertime fades away all too quickly:

"Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines / And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;"

Sometimes the sun is far too hot, and often it is too cool, dimmed by clouds and shade;

"And every fair from fair sometime declines / By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;"

And everything that is beautiful eventually loses its beauty, whether by chance or by the uncontrollable course of nature;

"But thy eternal summer shall not fade / Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;"

But your eternal beauty (or youth) will not fade, nor will your beauty by lost;

"Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade / When in eternal lines to time thou growest:"

Nor will Death boast that you wander in his shadow, since you shall grow with time through these sonnets:

"So long as men can breathe or eyes can see / So long lives this and this gives life to thee."

For as long as people can breathe and see, this sonnet will live on, and you (and your beauty) with it.

Why is he saying it?

Sonnet 18 is arguably the most famous of the sonnets, its opening line competitive with "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" in the long list of Shakespeare's quotable quotations. The gender of the addressee is not explicit, but this is the first sonnet after the so-called "procreation sonnets" (sonnets 1-17), i.e., it apparently marks the place where the poet has abandoned his earlier push to persuade the fair lord to have a child. The first two quatrains focus on the fair lord's beauty: the poet attempts to compare it to a summer's day, but shows that there can be no such comparison, since the fair lord's timeless beauty far surpasses that of the fleeting, inconstant season.

Here the theme of the ravages of time again predominates; we see it especially in line 7, where the poet speaks of the inevitable mortality of beauty: "And every fair from fair sometime declines." But the fair lord's is of another sort, for it "shall not fade" - the poet is eternalizing the fair lord's beauty in his verse, in these "eternal lines." Note the financial imagery ("summer's lease") and the use of anaphora (the repetition of opening words) in lines 6-7, 10-11, and 13-14. Also note that May (line 3) was an early summer month in Shakespeare's time, because England did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752.

The poet describes summer as a season of extremes and disappointments. He begins in lines 3-4, where "rough winds" are an unwelcome extreme and the shortness of summer is its disappointment. He continues in lines 5-6, where he lingers on the imperfections of the summer sun. Here again we find an extreme and a disappointment: the sun is sometimes far too hot, while at other times its "gold complexion" is dimmed by passing clouds. These imperfections contrast sharply with the poet's description of the fair lord, who is "more temperate" (not extreme) and whose "eternal summer shall not fade" (i.e., will not become a disappointment) thanks to what the poet proposes in line 12.

In line 12 we find the poet's solution - how he intends to eternalize the fair lord's beauty despite his refusal to have a child. The poet plans to capture the fair lord's beauty in his verse ("eternal lines"), which he believes will withstand the ravages of time. Thereby the fair lord's "eternal summer shall not fade," and the poet will have gotten his wish. Here we see the poet's use of "summer" as a metaphor for youth, or perhaps beauty, or perhaps the beauty of youth.

But has the poet really abandoned the idea of encouraging the fair lord to have a child? Some scholars suggest that the "eternal lines" in line 12 have a double meaning: the fair lord's beauty can live on not only in the written lines of the poet's verse but also in the family lines of the fair lord's progeny. Such an interpretation would echo the sentiment of the preceding sonnet's closing couplet: "But were some child of yours alive that time / You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme." The use of "growest" also implies an increasing or changing: we can envision the fair lord's family lines growing over time, yet this image is not as readily applicable to the lines of the poet's verse - unless it refers only to his intention to continue writing about the fair lord's beauty, his verse thereby "growing." On the other hand, line 14 seems to counter this interpretation, the singular "this" (as opposed to "these") having as its most likely antecedent the poet's verse, and nothing more.

What's he saying?

"A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted / Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;"

Nature painted you with the face of a woman, you master and mistress of my passion;

"A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted / With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;"

You have the gentle heart of a woman, yet you are not fickle like so many changeable women;

"An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling / Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;"

Your eyes are brighter than women's, but not as deceptive as theirs; you shed golden light upon any object you gaze upon;

"A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling / Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth."

A man of your appearance sets the standard for what a man should look like; your beauty attracts the eyes of men and amazes the souls of women.

"And for a woman wert thou first created; / Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,"

And you were first created to be a woman, but Nature fell in love with you (or made a mistake) as she was crafting you,

"And by addition me of thee defeated / By adding one thing to my purpose nothing."

And defeated me by adding one thing to you, a thing that does not aid my goal.

"But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure / Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure."

But since she chose you to be for women's pleasure, your love will be mine, yet the use of your love is for women's benefit.

Why is he saying it?

Sonnet 20 is considered one of the most interesting of the sonnets for its various insights into some of the sonnets' perpetual mysteries, including the true identity of the fair lord and the exact nature of the love that the poet expresses for him. The sonnet is fraught with wordplay and ambiguity - the perfect battleground for scholarly interpretation. Sonnet 20 has generated one of the largest bodies of criticism among the sonnets.

The first quatrain of sonnet 20 describes the fair lord as feminine: having "a woman's face," "a woman's gentle heart," etc. Note that the "master-mistress" appellation can be interpreted both in a literal sense (the fair lord is the poet's master, having control over him, as well as his mistress, with whom he is unfaithful) and in a figurative sense, androgenously (the fair lord is both male and female, or perhaps neither male nor female). The beauty of the fair lord is that of a woman, yet he is still a man; as we read in quatrain two, his appearance attracts both men and women alike.

It is almost as though the narrator is saying all this with the ulterior motive of justifying his own attraction to the fair lord. Scholars are divided over what this attraction really equates to, but the prevailing view is that although the attraction is certainly present, this does not necessarily imply that it is sexual. In lines 11-12, for example, the poet explicitly bemoans the fact that the fair lord was created as a man, but at the same time he explicitly denies any interest in the fair lord's genitalia: "And by addition me of thee defeated / By adding one thing to my purpose nothing." That "thing" is presumably the fair lord's penis, following common Shakespearean wordplay.

In the sonnet's closing couplet - tying in with the theme of platonic love vs. carnal lust - the poet concedes that the fair lord's love can belong to him even as the use of his love (that is, the sexual act) remains for the ladies. Note the poet's pun on the word "prick" in line 13: as a verb it can mean "to choose," while as a noun it can be a vulgar term for "penis." Finally, note that sonnet 20 is the only of Shakespeare's sonnets to use exclusively feminine rhyme - that is, end rhymes of at least two syllables with the final syllable unstressed - perhaps a deliberate attempt to further feminize the fair lord.

For a good example of the kind of creativity used by interpreters of the sonnets, let us consider the position held by some scholars that the poet intentionally encrypted the actual name of the fair lord into the lines of sonnet 20. Support for this hypothesis comes from the fact that the letters HEWS (with U at times in place of W) appear in every line in the sonnet but one; also note the "hue" and "hues" in line 7 (this second instance italicized in the Quarto), and the assonating "use" in line 14. Some take this as evidence for a Mr. Hughes as the true identity of the fair lord. Others see the letters as the poet's initials (WS) plus the first two letters of either Henry or Herbert (HE), possibly resorting to these names since the first letter of William or Wriothesley was already being used. One might even go so far as to claim that Shakespeare's use of the word "wrought" in line 10 was a deliberate alliterative reference to Wriothesley, or that the poet numbered the sonnet in accordance with the fair lord's age (Herbert would have turned 20 in 1600, Wriothesley in 1593). Obviously such interpretation is highly speculative and must remain inconclusive without corroborating historical evidence. But readers can enjoy wondering whether any of these ideas is true.

What's he saying?

"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past,"

When I am in a pensive state and recall my memories of past things,

"I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought / And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:"

I regret that I did not achieve many things I tried to get, and with old regrets renewed I now grieve over having wasted my precious time:

"Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow / For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,"

Then I can cry, being unaccustomed to crying, over dear friends who have died,

"And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe / And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:"

And weep again over former loves that I put behind me long ago, and cry over the pain of many faded memories:

"Then can I grieve at grievances foregone / And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er"

Then I can grieve over past griefs and recount each sadness with a heavy heart,

"The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan / Which I new pay as if not paid before."

The sad remembrance of things I have grieved over already, which I now grieve over anew as though I never did before.

"But if the while I think on thee, dear friend / All losses are restored and sorrows end."

But as soon as I think of you, my dear friend, all those wounds are healed, and my sorrows come to an end.

Why is he saying it?

Sonnet 30 is at the center of a sequence of sonnets dealing with the narrator's growing attachment to the fair lord and the narrator's paralyzing inability to function without him. The sonnet begins with the image of the poet drifting off into the "remembrance of things past" - painful memories, we soon learn, that the poet has already lamented but now must lament anew. The fair lord enters the scene only in the sonnet's closing couplet, where he is presented as a panacea for the poet's emotional distress.

Closely mirroring the message of sonnet 29, here Shakespeare cleverly heightens the expression of his overwhelming anxiety by belaboring the theme of emotional dependence. Whereas in sonnet 29 he quits his whining after the second quatrain, in sonnet 30 three full quatrains are devoted to the narrator's grief, suggesting that his dependence on the fair lord is increasing. Meanwhile sonnet 30's closing couplet reiterates lines 9-14 of sonnet 29 in compact form, emphasizing that the fair lord is a necessity for the poet's emotional well-being: the fair lord is the only thing that can bring the poet happiness.

This pinnacle of the poet's plaintive state is beautifully conveyed through an artful use of repetition and internal rhyme. Beyond the obvious alliteration of "sessions of sweet silent thought," note the "-nce" assonance of "remembrance" and "grievances," to which may be added "since" and "cancell'd"; the correspondence of "sigh," "sought," and "sight"; and the rhyme in "foregone," "fore-bemoaned," "before," and "restored." It is as though the poet wishes to hammer in his hardship with the repetitive droning of his troubled soul.

Beyond its poetics, sonnet 30 also provides some prime examples of the poet's recurring tendency to describe his relationship with the fair lord in financial terms. The opening lines of the sonnet remind us of being called to court (cf. "court sessions" and "summon a witness"). This is followed by a slew of money-related terms, including "expense," "grievances," "account," "paid," and "losses." The phrase "tell o'er" in line 10 is an accounting expression (cf. the modern bank teller) and conjures up an image of the narrator reconciling a balance sheet of his former woes and likening them to debts that he can never pay off in full. The only cure for his financial hardship is the fair lord's patronage - perhaps something to be taken literally, suggesting that the fair lord is in fact the poet's real-world financial benefactor.

What's he saying?

"So am I as the rich, whose blessed key / Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,"

I am like a rich person whose wonderful key can open up his dear, locked-up treasure,

"The which he will not every hour survey / For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure."

Which he will not visit too often for fear of dulling the excitement of experiencing a rare pleasure.

"Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare / Since, seldom coming, in the long year set,"

That is why feasts are so special and rare, for they occur so seldom throughout the year,

"Like stones of worth they thinly placed are / Or captain jewels in the carcanet."

Sparsely placed like precious stones, or like the largest gems in a jeweled necklace.

"So is the time that keeps you as my chest / Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,"

Similarly, time (or memory) keeps you like my treasure chest, or like a wardrobe hides the robe within,

"To make some special instant special blest / By new unfolding his imprison'd pride."

Awaiting some special occasion to be brought out, to uncover the pride that has been imprisoned.

"Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope / Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to hope."

You are blessed, you whose worthiness gives measure; to have had you is to triumph, to lack you is at least to hope.

Why is he saying it?

Sonnet 52 is wild, hotly contested among scholars for its (possible) abundance of sexual innuendo. It also can be argued that because sonnet 52 comes later in the sequence than sonnet 20, sonnet 52 represents a later stage or evolution of the poet's desires - but arguments based purely on the sonnets' ordering are shaky at best, since some scholars believe that the ordering of the sonnets does not conform to any actual chronology of events.

In sonnet 52 the poet describes the fair lord as a locked-up treasure, a solemn feast, a robe for a special occasion - something special and beautiful and blessed, as only something so rare can be. The language of the sonnet is overtly laudatory and also rationalizing, as it attempts to justify the narrator's separation from the fair lord or the infrequency of his being able to delight in him. As though only permissible on special occasions, the robe is awaiting its chance to come out of the closet, "To make some special instant special blest / By new unfolding his imprison'd pride."

Note the possible sexual innuendo captured in the seemingly phallic "fine point of seldom pleasure," the penetration of a key into a lock, and the "unfolding ... pride." Also note that the word "had" (line 14) is found elsewhere in the sonnets referring to sex, cf. "Past reason hunted, and no sooner had . . . Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme" (sonnet 129). Such are the clues that have led some scholars to the idea that sonnet 52 is in fact a revelation of the poet's having been sexually attracted to the fair lord.

But did Shakespeare really intend for this sonnet to be read as replete with sexual innuendo? Or is it just readers with a modern way of thinking who are taken aback by its amorous language and led to draw conclusions that are merely the products of our own imagination? These questions apply not only to sonnet 52 but also to the sonnets as a whole; however, in sonnet 52 the language seems to cross the line, warranting some attempt at explanation.

Some scholars have argued that the sonnet clearly expresses the narrator's homoerotic desire for the fair lord, while others suggest that if there were any such desire on the part of the poet he would have taken better care to hide it, as homosexuality was viewed as a serious crime during Shakespeare's time, and he could very well have been punished for it. Critics of this latter conviction sometimes propose the alternative interpretation that whatever innuendo present in sonnet 52 is there for the sake of humorous double entendre, while others deny its existence outright. As with many of the sonnets' enduring mysteries, Shakespeare's clever ambiguities are likely to remain as such forever.

What's he saying?

"Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore / So do our minutes hasten to their end;"

Like waves moving toward the pebbled shore, the minutes of our lives are ticking down,

"Each changing place with that which goes before / In sequent toil all forwards do contend."

Each minute (or wave) replacing the previous one, in a continuous forward march.

"Nativity, once in the main of light / Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,"

The newborn sun rises above the sea and crawls up to maturity (noontime), where it is kingly,

"Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight / And Time that gave doth now his gift confound."

But slanting eclipses challenge the sun's glory, and Time, which gave the noon sun, now clouds it over.

"Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth / And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,"

Similarly, time destroys the perfection of youth, and carves wrinkles in a beautiful face,

"Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth / And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:"

And time feeds on the preciousness of nature's perfection, and lays waste to all in its path.

"And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand / Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand."

And yet I hope my verse will stand the test of time, praising your worth in spite of Time's cruel hand.

Why is he saying it?

This is one of the most famous of the sonnets and perhaps the best illustration of the theme of the ravages of time. Each quatrain engages the theme in a unique way, with the destructive force of time redoubling with each successive line. Although the poet seems certain that Time's destruction is inevitable, he is nonetheless hopeful that his verse will get away with it in the end.

In quatrain one the flow of time is compared with the incessant beating of the waves against a shore, each wave building in strength and then crashing down again only to be followed by another in its place. The second quatrain uses the sun as a metaphor for human life: it is born ("Nativity") and "crawls" (like a baby) until it reaches its highest point, whereupon it is "crown'd" (with maturity) and then proceeds to fall back into darkness, or death. Line 8 concludes the metaphor with the assertion that Time both gives the gift of life and takes it away again.

This sentiment is repeated in lines 9-12, only more strongly and deeply. Time destroys the perfection of youth: he digs deep wrinkles in a beautiful face and devours the preciousness of nature in its most perfect shape - "And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow." (Time and Death each were often pictured carrying a scythe.) Nevertheless, the final couplet speaks of the poet's intention to outsmart Time himself, defying his "cruel hand" by eternalizing the fair lord in his verse. This intention has been expressed in previous sonnets; see sonnets 17-19 for examples.

Again, sonnet 60 may be the best exemplar of the theme of the ravages of time. This theme is prevalent throughout the sonnets, and it takes many different forms, sometimes referring to the destructive power of time in general, other times focusing on the effects of time on a specific character in the sonnets such as the narrator or the fair lord. The narrator seems to be hauntingly preoccupied with the passing of time and everything that it entails, including mortality, memory, inevitability, and change. He is distressed over such things that he has no control over, and at times he appears to be fighting a futile battle against time itself, just like the sun in line 7 of sonnet 60: "Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight."

Finally, some scholars have suggested that the ordering of the sonnets does not in fact correspond to the chronological order of the events they describe. Could this possible rearrangement be a deliberate attempt on Shakespeare's part to defy the one-way linear progression of time? It is interesting to note that certain sonnets with "special" (i.e. time-related) numbers take up the theme of time themselves. Sonnet 60 is a good example of this: note the pun on "our minutes" in line 2 - the phrase sounds like "hour minutes" - this is sonnet 60, and there are 60 minutes in an hour. For another example see sonnet 12, which begins, "When I do count the clock that tells the time"; as we all know, there are 12 hours on a clock face. Could these just be coincidences?

What's he saying?

"That time of year thou mayst in me behold / When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang"

You may see in me the autumn of my life, like the time when yellow leaves, or no leaves, or a few leaves still hang

"Upon those boughs which shake against the cold / Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang."

(The leaves hang on) branches, which shiver in anticipation of the cold; the branches are like empty, ruined church choir pews, and sweet birds used to sing on the branches.

"In me thou seest the twilight of such day / As after sunset fadeth in the west,"

You see in me the twilight of my life, like when the sunset has faded to darkness in the west,

"Which by and by black night doth take away / Death's second self, that seals up all in rest."

Which before long is replaced by the black night, Death's second self, which covers everything in a deathly sleep.

"In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire / That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,"

You see in me the glowing of a fire that is burning atop the ashes of its earlier burning (my youth),

"As the death-bed whereon it must expire / Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by."

The ashes are now the death-bed upon which the fire will go out, consumed by the very thing it was nourished by before.

"This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong / To love that well which thou must leave ere long."

Because you see this, your love is made stronger, to love well that which you must soon leave.

Why is he saying it?

Sonnet 73 is almost as exemplary as sonnet 60 in expressing the theme of the ravages of time. The sonnet focuses on the narrator's own anxiety over growing old and, like sonnet 60, each quatrain of sonnet 73 takes up the theme in a unique way, comparing the narrator's "time of year" (i.e., stage of life) with various examples of the passing of time in nature. The metaphors shorten in duration from months to hours to what may be minutes, the acceleration itself a metaphor for the increasingly rapid rate at which old age begins to take its toll on the human body.

In the first quatrain, the narrator compares himself to the late autumn season, that time of year when the trees have begun to lose their leaves and the cold is setting in. Some scholars suggest that this metaphor was deliberately chosen for its imagery of barrenness where there once was growth, a possible allusion to Shakespeare's incipient baldness. Quatrain two makes life still shorter, going from the seasons of the year to the hours of the day. The narrator is at the twilight of his life: his sun has set, and Death is soon upon him.

But even so, the emptiness of death is not fully established until quatrain three, where it is finally understood by the narrator as something permanent. Whereas the changing of the seasons and the passing of day and night occur in (presumably) infinite cycles, a fire is not reborn from its ashes, and its extinguishment means the end. Time is the enemy; Time is Death. The passing of time is the creator and the destroyer of life.

With that said, the closing couplet of sonnet 73 is like an admonition: one's love should grow stronger as one's time left to love is running out. It is not entirely clear whether this line is addressed specifically to the fair lord or in fact to himself, or perhaps even to both, since the narrator's approaching death will mean that each must bid the other farewell. In any case, the narrator is clearly distressed by his inevitable fate: old age, death, and eternal separation from the fair lord.

A great number of parallels can be drawn between the imagery of sonnet 73 and that of the other sonnets, which makes this an interesting example of the consistency of Shakespeare's symbolism and figurative language. The passing of the seasons was encountered in sonnet 18: "And summer's lease hath all too short a date." We also saw the sun as a metaphor for human life in sonnet 60, although there we followed its development from birth to maturity whereas here in quatrain two it has already begun to die. Finally, the image in the third quatrain of a fire being "Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by" reminds us of a line from sonnet 1: "Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel." Note the two instances of color symbolism in sonnet 73, also with referents in other sonnets: yellow is used in sonnets 17 and 104 as the color of age or passing time, while black is used repeatedly throughout the sonnets to symbolize the "other," that which is sinful or dreaded.

What's he saying?

"Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing / And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:"

Farewell! You are too precious for me to possess; you yourself likely know how precious you are:

"The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing; / My bonds in thee are all determinate."

Your preciousness gives you the privilege of being set free from me; your responsibilities to me are not forever.

"For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? / And for that riches where is my deserving?"

For how have I managed to keep you, other than by your permission? And how have I deserved your preciousness?

"The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting / And so my patent back again is swerving."

There is no good reason for you to have given yourself to me, and you are regaining control over your ability to choose whom to give yourself to.

"Thy self thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing / Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking;"

You gave yourself to me when you did not know how precious you were; or perhaps you did so because you misjudged me, to whom you gave yourself, as more worthy than I am;

"So thy great gift, upon misprision growing / Comes home again, on better judgment making."

And so your great gift, having grown from that misjudgment, now returns to its owner (you yourself), now that your judgment has improved.

"Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter / In sleep a king, but waking no such matter."

And so I have had you like a dream, flattering me as though I were a king, but in reality I never was.

Why is he saying it?

Sonnet 87 is the first sonnet after the rival poet sequence (sonnets 79-86). It begins a new sequence of sonnets dealing with the narrator's "breakup" with the fair lord. The first word captures the essence of the sonnet precisely: "Farewell!" Immediately we are reintroduced to the theme of self-deprecation and inadequacy that was especially predominant in the preceding rival poet sequence: "thou art too dear for my possessing." This sentiment is repeated again and again throughout the sonnet, e.g. in line 6: "And for that riches where is my deserving?" The narrator thereby acknowledges his unworthiness and presents that as justification for the fair lord's rejection.

The narrator sees two possible explanations for how he ever managed to obtain the fair lord's attention in the first place: either the fair lord was not then aware that he was too good for the narrator, or he had not yet realized that the narrator was not good enough for him. In any case, the narrator's love for the fair lord was not realistic, for it took on the character of a dream. Note the abundance of feminine rhyme (end rhymes of at least two syllables with the final syllable unstressed), the repetition of the -ing suffix resulting in uncharacteristic monotony, and the fact that almost all of the lines in the sonnet have 11 syllables; perhaps the poet's farewell to the fair lord is hereby symbolized in his abandonment of the poetic conventions he once relied on for sonnets of praise.

Beyond the theme of self-deprecation and inadequacy, sonnet 87 also contains some excellent examples of Shakespeare's frequent use of the imagery of financial bondage. As with the court imagery found in sonnet 30, this theme often takes on the form of legal metaphors, here seen in the words "charter," "patent," and "misprision." Meanwhile from the language of finance are the words "estimate," "worth," "bonds," and "riches."

Lines 3-4, for example, offer some good discussion of the theme of financial bondage. Following the poet's characterization of the fair lord as "too dear for my possessing," he describes the fair lord's preciousness as such that it grants him certain privileges, as a charter would a corporation, including the privilege to declare himself free of all obligations. The narrator's bonds, or financial obligations, with the fair lord are thereby becoming null and void; the fair lord is free of commitment by mere virtue of his dearness, being more worthy than the narrator. Shakespeare may have chosen this imagery simply for the sake of metaphor, or perhaps there is in fact some deeper meaning to it: perhaps the fair lord was indeed the poet's financial benefactor, but is now freed from that obligation having chosen to take his business elsewhere.

What's he saying?

"They that have power to hurt and will do none / That do not do the thing they most do show,"

Those who have the ability to hurt but choose not to, who do not use that power even though they look most certain of having it,

"Who, moving others, are themselves as stone / Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,"

Who, when moving others, are themselves still, unmoved, emotionally cold, and slow to temptation,

"They rightly do inherit heaven's graces / And husband nature's riches from expense;"

It is they who rightly inherit heaven's graces and spare nature's riches from ruin;

"They are the lords and owners of their faces / Others but stewards of their excellence."

They can control their facial expressions (thoughts and emotions), while others merely serve their emotions.

"The summer's flower is to the summer sweet / Though to itself it only live and die,"

The summer flower is sweet to the summer, though the flower lives and dies only for itself;

"But if that flower with base infection meet / The basest weed outbraves his dignity:"

But if that flower should develop an awful infection, the worst weed would outshine the flower in dignity:

"For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; / Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."

For it is those things that are sweetest that can become sourest by their deeds; lilies that rot smell far worse than weeds.

Why is he saying it?

Sonnet 94 is often considered the most puzzling of the sonnets for its numerous metaphors and constructions that continue to elude scholarly consensus. To understand the sonnet properly, it is first necessary to understand its structure. Lines 1-8 comprise one long sentence, with "They that have power to hurt and will do none" the main subject. Line 9 presents the reader with an abrupt shift of scenery into a new metaphor - "The summer's flower" - that is the subject of the entire third quatrain. Finally, the couplet unites the two segments with a proverbial dictum reminiscent of a classical epigram that is highly relevant to the fair lord's precarious virtue.

The first line of the sonnet introduces the subject of the first and second quatrains as those who have power but do not use it. In the first quatrain, the poet describes this class of people as "Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow," like stone. However, he then argues in quatrain two that it is namely this privileged class of people, the self-controlled, who "rightly do inherit heaven's graces" and who are the guardians of "nature's riches," while all others are "but stewards of their excellence." The third quatrain drops the subject of the previous two and adopts that of "The summer's flower," an enigmatic metaphor that is later tied in with the preceding lines. The poet remarks that the summer finds the flower sweet even though the flower could not care less either way, for "to itself it only live and die." The poet also warns that should the flower become corrupted, the most lowly weed would have more dignity.

This sentiment is twice ingeminated in the lines of the closing couplet, Elizabethan remakes of the Latin optima corrupta pessima, or "the best become the worst when corrupted." The couplet weaves together the two segments of the sonnet, associating the privileged class of the first and second quatrains with the sweet, indifferent flower of quatrain three. Finally, note the sonnet's thoroughly impersonal language: the poet does not use "I" or "thou" anywhere in the sonnet, as though in some deliberate attempt to distance himself from these feelings to which he is emotionally vulnerable. Perhaps he is unable to bear the thought of his fair lord as baser than "the basest weed."

The metaphors in sonnet 94 are complex, intertwined, and deeply ambiguous, and perhaps this was the poet's intent. Lines 1-4 paint a mixed impression of the privileged class they describe: it is difficult to ascertain whether being "unmoved" and "cold" are good things or bad. Meanwhile lines 5-8 exalt the members of this class to a level of unparalleled superiority, although some have argued that there are hints of disdain or irony in the poet's words. In line 7, for instance, being "lords and owners of their faces" could be construed as a subtle accusation of duplicity or falsehood, a mismatch between the faces they put on and that which lies within. Likewise, how strong is the poet's criticism of the flower (perhaps a figure of his beloved) that "only live and die" with concern only for itself? Is it possible for the flower to be compassionate, or is it instead helplessly doomed to selfishness, or is it like those with self-controlled coldness of expression?

Finally, the structure of the couplet is another point of intrigue. The quatrains are clearly divided into two major thematic segments (lines 1-8 and lines 9-12). Is it thus unreasonable to imagine that this same division is fused into the couplet as well? Line 14 speaks of flowers ("Lilies"), taking up the same subject as the second segment of the quatrains. It might be argued, then, that line 13 refers back to the first segment - that the "sweetest things" are in fact the activities of the beloved who, "by their deeds," have turned the "sourest." Is the poet making a general statement here, or is he instead hinting at something specific, a cold breakup? Why is the subject of quatrains one and two plural while the subject of quatrain three is singular? This entire sonnet may be a riddle of sorts, the answer being a charge against the fair lord for having committed such deeds as have made him the sourest of all.

What's he saying?

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments. Love is not love"

I will not allow myself to admit that true love has any restrictions. Love is not real love

"Which alters when it alteration finds / Or bends with the remover to remove:"

If it changes in response to change, or if it allows itself to be changed by the one who is changing:

"O no! it is an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken;"

Not at all! Love is a permanent mark that persists unshaken despite the harsh winds of change;

"It is the star to every wandering bark / Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken."

Love is the guiding, constant star for every wandering ship, a fixed point whose nature is unknown, although its height can be measured.

"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks / Within his bending sickle's compass come:"

True love is not subject to the changes of Time, although beautiful faces do fall victim to the sweep of Time's curved scythe:

"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks / But bears it out even to the edge of doom."

Love does not change with Time's hours and weeks, but endures through Time right up until the day of reckoning.

"If this be error and upon me proved / I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

If the above is false and proved against me, it would be as impossible as if I had never written anything, or if nobody had ever loved.

Why is he saying it?

Sonnet 116 is one of the most famous of the sonnets for its stalwart defense of true love. The sonnet has a relatively simple structure, with each quatrain attempting to describe what love is (or is not) and the final couplet reaffirming the poet's words by placing his own merit on the line. Note that this is one of the few sonnets in the fair lord sequence that is not addressed directly to the fair lord; the context of the sonnet, however, gives it away as an exposition of the poet's deep and enduring love for him.

The opening lines of the sonnet dive the reader into the theme at a rapid pace, accomplished in part by the use of enjambment - the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line of poetry to the next without any form of pause, e.g., "Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments ..." This first quatrain asserts that true love is immortal and unchanging: it neither changes on its own nor allows itself to be changed, even when it encounters changes in the loved one. Quatrain two embarks on a series of seafaring metaphors to further establish the permanence of true love: in line 5 it is an "ever-fixed mark," a sea mark that navigators could use to guide their course; in line 7 it is a steadfast star (the North Star, perhaps), whose height we are able to measure (as with a quadrant) although we may know nothing of its nature (the science of stars had hardly progressed by Shakespeare's time). Both of these metaphors emphasize the constancy and dependability of true love.

Finally, quatrain three nails home the theme, with love's undying essence prevailing against the "bending sickle" of Time. Time's "hours and weeks" are "brief" compared to love's longevity, and only some great and final destruction of apocalyptic proportions could spell its doom. Note here the reference back to the nautical imagery of quatrain two with the use of the word "compass" in line 10.

Sonnet 116 closes with a rather hefty wager against the validity of the poet's words: he writes that if what he claims above is proven untrue, then he "never writ, nor no man ever loved."

In comparison with most other sonnets, sonnet 116 strikes readers as relatively simple. The metaphors are reasonably transparent, and the theme is quickly and plainly apparent. The overarching sentiment of true love's timeless and immutable nature is presented and developed in the first eight lines, but there is no twist at the third quatrain - rather a continuation of the theme. Even the couplet is but a simple statement like "there you have it." The simplicity is noteworthy, and perhaps it was deliberate: Shakespeare's goal may have been unaffected candor, sincerity of conviction. It should come as no wonder that the lines of sonnet 116 often are quoted as Shakespeare's authentic definition of love.

Another interesting fact is that this sonnet is found misnumbered (as 119) in all extant copies of the Quarto (early editions were printed in small books called quartos) but one. Even this fact has produced speculation about additional encoded meanings.

What's he saying?

"O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power / Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;"

Oh you, my lovely boy, who hold in your power Time's fickle hourglass (or mirror), his sickle, and his very hours;

"Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st / Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow'st;"

You who have grown as your youth has declined; meanwhile, your lovers have withered as your sweet self grows;

"If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack / As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,"

If Nature, the controller of destruction, will continue to keep you back in the sweetness of youth even as you age,

"She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill / May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill."

She is keeping you for a reason, so that her power may disgrace time and cancel the wretched effects of time.

"Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure! / She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:"

But fear her, oh you servant of her pleasure! She may delay the decline of aging, but she cannot keep your youthful beauty forever:

"Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be / And her quietus is to render thee."

Time's reckoning, though delayed, must still be settled, and her reconciliation will be to give you up.

Why is he saying it?

Unique in the sequence, sonnet 126 is actually not a sonnet at all, but rather a verse of six rhyming couplets adding up to twelve lines. Nevertheless it is still possible to analyze this "sonnet" quatrain by quatrain, since each four-line block constitutes its own thematic unit within the overall theme of the fair lord's preternatural resilience to the ravages of time. The attitude of the sonnet is not jealousy, as we might expect, but rather admonition: the fair lord's resistance to time's destructive force is ironically (or sadly) just a temporary blessing.

In the first quatrain, the narrator admires his "lovely boy" for the superhuman power he seems to possess over Time's various instruments of destruction. "Time's fickle glass" in line 2 may be an hourglass, but it could also be a mirror - for a mirror shows the present, unlike a picture that shows the past, and thereby a mirror shows the changes that have taken place with time. For the fair lord, however, these changes have yet to detract from his beauty, as lines 3-4 show: "Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st / Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow'st."

The second quatrain identifies Nature as the fair lord's generous accomplice, for it is Nature that has granted him his resilience against time by continually rescuing him from time's destruction. This comes as little surprise, if we have read in sonnet 20 that Nature has been in love with the fair lord all along. She therefore saves him presumably for her own gratification, as we see in the opening of quatrain three: "O thou minion of her pleasure!"

The final quatrain delimits the fair lord's specious immortality, as line 10 warns that Nature "may detain, but not still keep, her treasure." His fate is forever sealed in lines 11-12, one last example of financial imagery in the fair lord sonnets, where Nature's "audit" of life and death must be reconciled by the eventual termination of the fair lord's earthly figure: "Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be / And her quietus is to render thee." (The words "quietus est" were written atop acknowledgments of settled debts.) The power of Nature may be great, but it is unable to withstand the ravages of time indefinitely.

One of the most heated debates surrounding the collection of Shakespeare's sonnets is the question of what deeper significance, if any, is to be found in their ordering and internal structure. How deliberate is the ordering of the sequence, and to what extent are we able to divide the sonnets into groupings and subgroupings? As mentioned elsewhere in this ClassicNote, the primary division most scholars make comes between the fair lord sonnets (1-126) and the dark lady sonnets (127-154). Sonnet 126 is often viewed as the definitive breaking point, for its aberrant "non-sonnet" structure seems to be evidence of the poet's insertion of these lines as an explicit "curtains close," or at least as some sort of meaningful interlude. Sonnet 126 is the narrator's final farewell to the fair lord and also his final admonition, reminiscent of the prophetic epigram of sonnet 60, that Time "Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth / And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow."

What's he saying?

"The expense of spirit in a waste of shame / Is lust in action; and till action, lust"

The wasteful, shameful expenditure of energy - that is what lust in action is. And until the real action, lust

"Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame / Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,"

Is dishonest, murderous, bloody, full of blame, savage, extreme, crude, cruel, and not to be trusted;

"Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight / Past reason hunted, and no sooner had"

Lust is hated as soon as (or sooner than) it has been enjoyed, and pursued beyond reason; and as soon as it is had,

"Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait / On purpose laid to make the taker mad;"

It is hated beyond reason, like the bait swallowed by a fish, offered with the intent of making him who takes it insane;

"Mad in pursuit and in possession so; / Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;"

The taker is insane in pursuing one's lust and mad in possessing the object of lust: going to extremes in having had it, in the having of it, and in seeking to have it;

"A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; / Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream."

A heavenly sensation when being had, yet a total woe after all; before having it, an expected joy; after having it, it seems like a dream, a lost ideal.

"All this the world well knows; yet none knows well / To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell."

Everyone certainly knows all this about lust, but still no one quite knows how to shun the hope of satisfaction that leads men to this hellish madness.

Why is he saying it?

This is another of the most famous sonnets, for in it the poet seems to engage the topic of sex explicitly and without reservation in a way that was not at all typical for Shakespeare's time. (Lust, however, could be applied to other objects of deep desire, such as money.) The overarching theme of the sonnet is the poet's contention that sexual fulfillment, or at least fulfillment out of lust, is something that is longed for desperately and ravenously right up until that blissful moment of climax - orgasm - after which it is immediately regretted. Yet despite the fact that "the world well knows" its consequences, the poet claims, no one is quite able to avoid the sinful temptations of lustful desire.

The poet wastes no time in getting this point across. He abandons his characteristic use of ambiguity in favor of unequivocal words of condemnation, as we see in his description of lust before action in lines 2-4: "till action, lust / Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame / Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust." His frankness continues throughout the sonnet as he repeatedly bemoans the regret one experiences after succumbing to lustful temptation.

It is unclear from the sonnet whether the poet is describing sexual intercourse in general or only that which occurs out of lust but not love. But due to the sonnet's place within the dark lady sequence and the assumption that the narrator's regret comes from his inability to control his lustful urges, we are led to presume that it is the latter. The focus here is on the contrast between lust before action and regret after action, with action being the act of sex, the consummation of desire. Lustful sex is thus described, "A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe" (here "to prove" means "to try" or "to accomplish"), and he who succumbs to lust is thus likened to the fish that has swallowed bait: "Mad in pursuit and in possession so."

Note that sonnet 129 is full of contrasts: "before" vs. "behind" (after), "heaven" vs. "hell," and so on. The "heaven" of line 14 is the "bliss in proof" of line 11, while "hell" is the "very woe." Also note the possible pun in line 1: "waste of shame" sounds like "waist of shame," which some critics have interpreted as the waist of a prostitute. Finally, we can compare this sonnet with sonnet 94 for the absence of "I" and "thou"; the impersonal perspective found here, otherwise rare in the sonnets, is perhaps a sign of the poet's malaise with regard to his own role in the situation. He has engaged in lustful sex and regrets it, and now wishes to condemn the act without explicitly admitting his own experience.

The fact that sonnet 129 is so full of contrasts is a good segue into a brief discussion of platonic love versus carnal lust as explored in Shakespeare's sonnets. Sonnet 129 contrasts heavily with, for example, sonnet 20 in that the present sonnet deals with lust while sonnet 20 deals with love. The contrast becomes obvious when we compare the "savage, extreme, rude" of sonnet 129 with sonnet 20's "master-mistress of my passion." While the narrator here regrets his lustful urges immediately after he has acted upon them, there is no such regret to be had in the case of his love for the fair lord; for even if the narrator may have longed for the fair lord sexually, the act of consummation never took place, nor would it ever, as many scholars agree. The contrast thus created diametrically opposes the fair lord and the dark lady, with the narrator betwixt them and torn from both sides in different ways.

What's he saying?

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her lips' red;"

My mistress's eyes look nothing like the sun; coral is far more red than her lips are.

"If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; / If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head."

If snow is white, then her breasts are a dull brown (in comparison); if hairs are wires, then black wires grow on her head.

"I have seen roses damask'd, red and white / But no such roses see I in her cheeks;"

I have seen roses of pink, red, and white, but her cheeks are none of these colors;

"And in some perfumes is there more delight / Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks."

And some perfumes smell more delightful than the malodorous breath of my mistress.

"I love to hear her speak, yet well I know / That music hath a far more pleasing sound;"

I love to hear her speak, even though I know well that music has a far more pleasing sound;

"I grant I never saw a goddess go; / My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:"

I admit I have never seen a goddess walk, but my mistress, when she walks, steps (humanly) on the ground:

"And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare."

And yet, I swear before heaven, I think she is just as extraordinary as any woman that may be described with false comparisons.

Why is he saying it?

Sonnet 130 is a pleasure to read for its simplicity and frankness of expression. It is also one of the few of Shakespeare's sonnets with a distinctly humorous tone. Its message is simple: the dark lady's beauty cannot be compared to the beauty of a goddess or to that found in nature, for she is but a mortal human being.

The sonnet is generally considered a humorous parody of the typical love sonnet. Petrarch, for example, addressed many of his most famous sonnets to an idealized woman named Laura, whose beauty he often likened to that of a goddess. In stark contrast Shakespeare makes no attempt at deification of the dark lady; in fact he shuns it outright, as we see in lines 11-12: "I grant I never saw a goddess go; / My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground." Here the poet explicitly states that his mistress is not a goddess.

She is also not as beautiful as things found in nature, another typical source of inspiration for the average sonneteer: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her lips' red." Yet the narrator loves her nonetheless, and in the closing couplet says that in fact she is just as extraordinary ("rare") as any woman described with such exaggerated or false comparisons. It is indeed this blunt but charming sincerity that has made sonnet 130 one of the most famous in the sequence.

However, while the narrator's honesty in sonnet 130 may seem commendable, we must not forget that Shakespeare himself was a master of the compliment and frequently made use of the very same sorts of exaggerated comparisons satirized here. We even find them elsewhere in the sonnets, and in great abundance, too; note that while his "mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," his fair lord's indeed are, as in sonnet 49: "And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye."

This may lead one to wonder, is it really pure honesty that the poet is showing in sonnet 130, or is there also some ulterior sentiment, perhaps that the dark lady is not deserving of the narrator's fine words? Or perhaps she is deserving but such words are not necessary, as though the narrator feels comfortable enough with the dark lady that he is able to show such honesty (which his insecurity regarding the fair lord prevents him from doing)? There are many ways to interpret how the poet's psychological state may have influenced stylistic choices in his writing, but these sonnets do not provide definitive proof.

What's he saying?

"Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth / [ ] these rebel powers that thee array;"

My poor soul, the center of my sinful body, ??? these rebellious powers that surround you;

"Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth / Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?"

Why do you waste away within my body and suffer from lack of nourishment, yet decorate your outward appearance with such costly and cheerful adornment?

"Why so large cost, having so short a lease / Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?"

Why do you spend so much on something so short-lived as your fading body?

"Shall worms, inheritors of this excess / Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?"

Will the worms, who will take ownership of your decorated body after you die, eat up your bounty? Is this the purpose of beautifying your body?

"Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss / And let that pine to aggravate thy store;"

If that is so, then, my soul, let my body's loss be your gain, and let my body suffer for your enrichment;

"Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; / Within be fed, without be rich no more:"

Sell your hours of earthly waste in exchange for time in heaven; spend resources on yourself, within the body, and no longer concern yourself with outward beauty.

"So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men / And Death once dead, there's no more dying then."

Thereby will you consume Death, which merely feeds on the bodies of men - and once Death is dead, you (the soul) cannot die.

What's he saying?

Sonnet 146 is best known for its deeply introspective, quasi-religious, philosophizing style hardly found elsewhere in the sequence. Here the narrator addresses not the dark lady but rather his own endangered soul, grappling to understand why it has squandered so much of its precious time and resources on transient earthly indulgences. He relies heavily on the imagery of financial bondage to characterize the pointless materialism he is trying to overcome in his search for salvation from the sinfulness of greed.

The poet begins the sonnet with a metaphor: "Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth." Here "earth" stands for the body, the instrument and bearer of sin, within which the soul is kept captive. The poet asks his soul why it allows itself to suffer for the sake of its "sinful earth" in lines 3-4: "Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth / Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?" In the second quatrain we find another metaphor for the body in the "fading mansion" of line 6 - the mortal home of the poet's suffering soul. Again the poet questions his soul's expenditure on bodily "excess," knowing that it will all go to the worms in the end anyway.

The imagery of financial bondage dominates this sonnet; almost every line of the sonnet contains at least one word that is somehow related to money. The purposes of the imagery appear to be, first, to characterize the bondage of body and soul to the claims of beautification, and second, to highlight the sinfulness of earthly greed. Both earth and body are bound to sin, while soul is bound to body; only by enriching the soul itself can the soul be freed of its bonds and achieve immortality. It is as though the soul has a debt to pay off before it may escape Death's eternal doom, and as such the narrator compels his soul to "Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross" in order to set itself free.

Sonnet 146 is therefore also an example of the narrator's constant battle against the inevitable fate of death. This sonnet, however, posits a light of victory for the narrator, for in it he claims to have intuited the secret of eternal life. In lines 9-10 we read, "Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss / And let that pine to aggravate thy store." In other words, rather than concern itself with material waste, his soul is instead advised to devote itself to its own self-cultivation; for the soul can outlive the body, and even conquer Death, as we see in line 13: "So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men / And Death once dead, there's no more dying then."

Note that line 2 in the original Quarto begins with the words "My sinful earth." This is taken to be a printer's error, since it repeats the end of the preceding line and is syntactically inappropriate. Needless to say, many scholars have attempted to fill the gap with educated guesses.

What's he saying?

"Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep: / A maid of Dian's this advantage found,"

Cupid set his torch aside and fell asleep. A maid of Diana's found this to her advantage,

"And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep / In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;"

And quickly plunged his love-kindling fire into a nearby cold fountain from the valley,

"Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love / A dateless lively heat, still to endure,"

Which acquired from that holy fire of Love an eternal, active heat that still endures,

"And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove / Against strange maladies a sovereign cure."

And which grew into a bubbling bath, which men still try out as an almighty cure against unusual illnesses.

"But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired / The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;"

But Love's torch regained its fire from my mistress's eyes, and Cupid, to test it out, touched my chest with it.

"I, sick withal, the help of bath desired / And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,"

I, ill as a result, desired the help of that bath, and hurried there as an unfortunate, upset guest,

"But found no cure: the bath for my help lies / Where Cupid got new fire-my mistress' eyes."

But it did not cure me; the real cure for my disease lies where Cupid got his new fire: my mistress's eyes.

What's he saying?

This sonnet and the one that follows tell a similar tale - that of Cupid, the bringer of love, whose instrument of passion once was stolen by one of Diana's nymphs. Diana, the goddess of the hunt, was said to be a chaste goddess whose female attendants (nymphs, or votaries in sonnet 154) were likewise expected to be devoutly abstinent.

In keeping with this calling, in sonnet 153 a nymph catches Cupid fast asleep and decides to extinguish his "holy fire of Love." She attempts to do so by drowning it in a nearby cool fountain, but the fire burns so strongly that the water of the fountain absorbs its heat and becomes a bubbling bath, which is from then on believed to have special healing powers.

In the third quatrain, Cupid relights his torch with the eyes of the dark lady and tests it out on the narrator, who as a result falls victim to the burning disease of love; cf. "My love is as a fever" (sonnet 147). (Note that in sonnet 154 the narrator similarly does not appear until line 12.) The narrator tries to cure himself by visiting the bubbling bath but fails, and instead discovers that the only cure for his disease is to be found directly at the source - his mistress's eyes - for it is only there that he can quench his fiery passion.

It is often said that sonnets 153 and 154 do not fit well with the overall sequence. Whereas the rest of the sonnets deal primarily with the emotions, endeavors, and experiences of the narrator (real or not), these sonnets are instead built around mythical events that are tied in with the situation of the narrator only as the sonnets come to a close. Both of them do, however, make mention of the narrator's mistress - if only peripherally - and for this reason they are generally included as part of the dark lady sequence.

Furthermore, some scholars have suggested that these two sonnets are in fact duplicates, two versions of a single sonnet that the poet had intended to choose between but perhaps never got the chance to due to their unauthorized publishing. The similarities in content and form between the two sonnets are indeed suspicious: we can read 154 almost as a direct paraphrasing of 153 (or vice versa). It is interesting to ponder over which of these sonnets may have been written first and why the poet tried again.

• Biography of William Shakespeare
• About Shakespeare's Sonnets
• Character List
• Major Themes
• Glossary of Terms
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 1 - "From fairest creatures we desire increase"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 18 - "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 20 - "A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 30 - "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 52 - "So am I as the rich, whose blessed key"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 60 - "Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 73 - "That time of year thou mayst in me behold"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 87 - "Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 94 - "They that have power to hurt and will do none"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 116 - "Let me not to the marriage of true minds"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 126 - "O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 129 - "The expense of spirit in a waste of shame"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 130 - "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 146 - "Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth"
• Summary and Analysis of Sonnet 153 - "Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep"
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