Post your Sonnet and explanation of the quatrains and couplet.
Example:
In the first quatrain, Shakespeare is saying . . .
In the next quatrain . . .
By the third quatrain . . .
But in the couplet, Shakespeare . . .
Post your Sonnet and explanation of the quatrains and couplet.
Example:
In the first quatrain, Shakespeare is saying . . .
In the next quatrain . . .
By the third quatrain . . .
But in the couplet, Shakespeare . . .
April 7, 2007 at 8:45 am
When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held: ( I think he is saying he will love her always)
Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. (We all love her)
How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine!( You are so beautiful)
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.(I will keep you warm)
April 7, 2007 at 8:45 am
SONNET 10
For shame! deny that thou bear’st love to any,
Who for thyself art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lovest is most evident; (This quatret is about how this woman has a relationship with a man and she is loved by many and how she loves one)
For thou art so possess’d with murderous hate
That ‘gainst thyself thou stick’st not to conspire.
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire. (The man is asking her to repent her choice)
O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove: (She hates the guy but he asks her to love him)
Make thee another self, for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee. (Same thing as commented above)
April 7, 2007 at 9:34 am
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
(Shakespeare goes abab unti the last couplet)
April 7, 2007 at 11:09 am
Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, ‘fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:
So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,
Unlook’d on diest, unless thou get a son.
****
I think that in the first quatrain he is talking about the first look of this man. And that the second quatrain is talking about how bold he is and his looks. And that the third one is talking about about how is not really that strong. And that the rhyming couplet is saying something that that I have no idea what it is at all.
April 7, 2007 at 11:10 am
So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine and born of thee:
In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
But thou art all my art and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.
***
I think the first quatrain I think has to do with picking his mind for ideas to write about and how having a pen in his hand can help. The second quatrain has to do with how he could turn bad plays into good ones by adding the element of innocence and use what’s around hiim as inspiration. The last quatrain is about how he was influenced by his family or more so his parents and his parents should be proud of what he’s written. Lastly the couplet means that his parents are his inspiration and he learned from them how to live how he does when he started out innocent.
April 7, 2007 at 11:14 am
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy unused beauty must be tomb’d with thee,
Which, used, lives th’ executor to be.
***
The first quatrain of the poem means that she dosen’t do anything with the beauty she has. So he says she is frank.
Then in the second quatrain Shakespheare says why haven’t you given your beauty to make someone happy you selfish person. The third quatrain means that you are all alone with yourself and by the time you are ready you are dead.
You shall feel excuted from all those around you to your unsued beauty is what the last couplet tells me.
April 7, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
William Shakespeare
April 7, 2007 at 2:24 pm
”
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,–and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings’.
April 7, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know’st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;
To say they err I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it to myself alone.
And to be sure that is not false I swear,
A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,
One on another’s neck, do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgment’s place.
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.
In the first part of the sonnet I think he’s trying to say that the power in her looks that she holds over him is big and that she alone holds all of his love in a “tyranical” way.
In the secound part he trys to show that he loves her so much and that she holds all power over him.
In the third part he swears that he wil only love her.
In the couplet he says that she is perfect and that if anyone says otherwise its not true.
April 7, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know;
For if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be,
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
***
i know we were suppoused to do this before nine but i’m sorry i forgot and i know thats jst an excuse but i’m sorry
my guess at what the sonnet means its talking about how this guy is sick and needy and in close to dying and he loves a girl. he wants her to tell him that she loves him even if she doesnt mean it. and if she does that then it will be worth his while
April 7, 2007 at 4:33 pm
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
Okay, I think the first quatrain is saying that he’s getting older and he’s watching the days go by. In the second quatrain, I think he’s saying that it’s turning into winter and time is going by. The third quatrain he might be saying that when people die, there is always new life, and when plants die there is always new life. The new life grows too. At the end, he’s saying that nothing can stop time and you have to live with it(couplet). I might be horribly wrong, but that’s what I think.
April 7, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;
And yet methinks I have Astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert;
Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.
In the first quatrain he is saying that he doesn’t use the sky to predict the future.
In the second quatrain he is saying that he doesn’t try to tell the future quickly.
In the third quatrain he is saying that he uses his careful observations to make predictions.
In the couplet he saying that the truth is the end of things.I’m not sure about this.
April 8, 2007 at 11:37 am
[Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.]
[In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.]
[;I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:]
[But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is number #36.
The first quatrain tells of mutual love, yet with “blots”. Perhaps of doubt or lies?
The second quatrain is my favorite. There is only one love for all mankind yet these two are seperate from loving each other. However, this seperation does not change what love can do, it changes the people that are apart.
Now, the third quatrain is very blunt. He says that he never wants to see her again and he doesn’t want her to be kind to him publicly. It would make him feel low because the actions would be an act between them. This quatrain reminded me of a song by Blue October called “Hate me”, in particular, the line that follows:
“An ounce of peace is all I want for you. Will you never call again?
And will you never say that you love me just to put it in my face?
And will you never try to reach me?
It is I that wanted space.”
Both of these characters have had a blow to their hearts and would rather wait out the days of seperation without being reminded of what happened.
The couplet then completely escapes me, but I will do my best. I think he is saying that he will still love the woman because of what she does. But, that doesn’t seem to coincide with the rest of the sonnet.
April 8, 2007 at 2:21 pm
As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
(As a old dad is happy to see his child’s youth, I take comfort in your worth.)
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
(Whether for many qualities, one, etc. I love you for them.)
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis’d,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am suffic’d,
And by a part of all thy glory live.
(I think that It means That I’m not lame when in your greatness, next to you I’m small, but by YOUR greatness and loving you I live.)
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
(What is best I wish for you, when my wish comes true, that she’s the better/best, than I am very happy.)
So I THINK, not positive, that this is a poem about a guy talking about his love. That although he is old, lame, and a gimp, he takes pride and comfort in the fact she is the best, pretty, talented etc. He loves all these qualities about her, and when he does, although standing by her he would be “suffocated”, but by loving her “glory” he inherits a small part and lives. In the couplet he goes and says that although he’s almost jealous of her and loves her qualities, he wishes them on her and is happy when she is superior. Well I guess that’s it.
April 8, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advis’d respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
Against that time do I ensconce me here,
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this my hand, against my self uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:
To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
Since why to love I can allege no cause.
In the first quatrain, I believe Shakespear is talking about how he has no love, and that he is happy with himself right now, but when he finds a love, he will be frowning on what is wrong with him. In the next quatrain, he is talking how he is falling in love. Then he talks about how when he falls in love love will stay like gravity. In the next quatrain, he talks about how he is deserted. But in the couplet, the perspective changes dramatically. He claims he cant fall in love because of the lawa, and so therefore, he will remain alone forever. I found this sonnet very confusing, so I’m not sure if I got the correct message out of this work. Comments Please!!!!
April 9, 2007 at 3:27 pm
O! how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is’t but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this, let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give
That due to thee which thou deserv’st alone.
O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,
And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
By praising him here who doth hence remain.
The first quatrain is someone telling a person you are my better half and I’m complimenting you so I’m complimenting myself.
The second one is saying you and I should spend some time apart.
The third quatrain explains how he misses her, and he is always thinking about love and her. How her absence will make their love sweeter.
The couplet is telling how absense will make love sweeter, and that it was a good idea for the first speaker to decide they needed to be apart; he deserves praise.
April 10, 2007 at 9:43 am
SONNET 60
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith, being crowned,
Crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight
And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of natures truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow;
And yet, to times, in hope, my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
The first quatrain is saying that minutes with this other person are quickly coming to an end, and there is no way he can stop them.
The second is saying that time semmed so plentiful in the time of your birth, but now as you grow older it slips away.
The third is about how time iws the one who destroys your childhood,and takes away your beauty in time, and feeds on special moments, taking them away.
The couplet says that he hopes time will not take away his writing, because it praises his lover.
The interesting thing is that the sonnet did make it through time.
April 10, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The first quatrain is saying that the person shakespear is referring to is more lovely than a summer’s day
The second is saying that sometimes heaven shines too bright and sometimes it loses its lovliness
The third is saying that her summer is permanent and she will always be fair
In the couplet Shakespear is saying that as long as men can breathe and eyes can see (in other words forever) this will always be true.
April 10, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Over all the sonnet is about an old man who is reflecting on his youth and now his old age, but the first quatrain is talking about how people grow up and how life changes and as you advance in age, and how many things are different from what they once were. The second quatrain is about how the man knows that he has lived a long life and how death comes upon everyone, and everything. The third quatrain is a metaphor about how the fire has almost gone out and his time is near so he lives off of his happy memories of his youth. The last two lines of the sonnet is the most important part about how, people take things for granite and they don’t know how lucky they are and how much it means to them until it’s gone.
April 10, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’ersnowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer’s distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
Lease but their show; their substance still lives sweet.
In the first quatrain he is saying that she is so fine that every eye looks on her and likes what they see. And that they don’t like her fore her they like her because she looks good and that is unfair.
In the second quatrain he says that summer just started and the frost and lusty leaves are gone. The snow has melted and it makes it look like there is bareness everywhere.
In the 3rd quatrain he is saying when it’s not summer and every thing is beautiful you don’t remember what it did look like.
In the couplet he says though winter has come and the flowers are distant you can still remember what they where like.
April 10, 2007 at 2:43 pm
How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel’s end,
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
‘Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!’
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider lov’d not speed being made from thee.
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
For that same groan doth put this in my mind,
My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.
In the first quatrain, Shakespeare is lamenting the fact that he is going on a journey which is actually taking him away from his friend. The only thing he seeks is the “travel’s end”.
In second quatrain, even the horse that Shakespeare is riding on feels the weight of Shakespeare’s sadness at leaving. He says that the horse innately knows that he is unhappy about the distance that his rider is being taken from his love.
In the third quatrain Shakespeare writes that no matter how hard the rider sticks his spurs into the horse, it will not go. The horse lets out a groan of pain which the rider feels more in his heart than the horse feels physically.
In the final couplet says that with the groan of the horse comes the reminder of that his grief lies ahead and he is leaving his happiness behind.
I believe that the horse that Shakespeare is talking about is time. He is taking the journey of aging. He feels the pain of riding upon a vehicle that is taking him away from his youth.
April 10, 2007 at 7:20 pm
SONNET 104
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred;
Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.
First quatrain- To me, my friend, you can never be old. You were beautiful when we first met and you still have that beauty. Three cold winters have taken the joy of three summers.
Second quatrain- Three beautiful springs have turned yellow by Autumn. In the cycle of the four seasons I have seen. The delightful smells of Spring were burned by the heat of the summer. Since I frst saw you with your youth, you have not changed.
Third Quatrain-but beauty still moves forward like the hands of a clock. Your appearance, which seems unchanged to me is subject to time’s movement, and my eye may be wrong
Couplet-I fear you might loose your beauty, so hear this you future generations, Beauty was already dead before you were born.
April 10, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
A closet never pierc’d with crystal eyes,
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To ‘cide this title is impannelled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye’s moiety, and the dear heart’s part:
As thus: mine eye’s due is thine outward part,
And my heart’s right, thine inward love of heart.
April 10, 2007 at 7:35 pm
130
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
In the first quatrain, I think Shakespeare is saying his mistress’s eyes are not very bright, she has frizzy ugly hair, her breast are dull and her lips are not red and pretty.
In the second quatrain, her breath smells terrible and her cheeks are far from rosy.
By the third quatrain, he likes the sound of music more than her voice and she doesn’t walk anything like a goddess.
In the couplet, he is saying that he loves her and her looks don’t match her inside.
April 10, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Sonet 130
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
The general theme of the poem is Shakespeare compairing his misstress to things in nature and saying that she is the opposite of perfect.
In the first quatrain he compairs her physical features unfavorably to beautiful things in nature.
Shakespeare continues to compare his mistress to nature in the second quatrain.
In the third quatrain he compliments his mistress when he says that he enjoys hearing her voice. However, he admits that her voice is not as beutiful as music. He recognizes that she is not a goddess.
In the couplet he says that she is special because she is human and that he loves her for that. He also says that you can’t compare a woman to nature.
April 10, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain,
Beyond all date, even to eternity:
Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
Were to import forgetfulness in me.
so in the first quadrant he is talking about him remembering is love within his head, and how it is stained and will never leave. in the second quadrant he is saying that as long as your alive i will love you in the third he is saying that i dont need anyone to tell me whom i love, youre the one and in the couplet he is saying like how do i remeber you? will you always rememeber me?
April 10, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest
Thou dost beguile the world unbless some mother
(I think hes saying what you see is what you get)
For where is she so fair whose uneard womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry
Or who is he fond will be the tomb
Of his self love to stop posterity
(Hes talking about females)
Thou art thy mothers glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely april of her prime
So thou through windows of thine age shall see
despite of wrinkles this thy golden time
(Hes talking about a woming reaching her prime but still lies the wrinkles in her face)
But if thou live remember’d not to be
die single and thine image dies with thee
( Hes talking about if you live remembered, die single but just remember your image still lies with you)
April 10, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage,
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
Since spite of him I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes.
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.
***
i think the first quatrine is about how he is worried about his relationship an that it might end baddly.
the 2nd quatrine is about is about every thing the people had prodicted was wrong and now it is makeing a fool out of them. Because when it says augers mock their own presage i think it means that their fortellings were very wrong and now they mock them.
the 3rd quatrin is about how is irst love has died but now he has a new fresh love, and its just begining its life.
in the couplet it means that kings are dieing and their funeral are being paid for
April 10, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
In the first part he is saying that his love admits impediments hes not feeling love.
The second part is she has a mark and cannot get rid of it and shes forever scarred
Then hes talking about how beautifull she is
Then hes saying he cant love her or he will be doomed.
April 10, 2007 at 8:54 pm
FRom fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauties rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy lights flame with self substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe—to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that are now the world’s fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And tender chorle mak’st wast in niggarding:
Pity the world or else this glutton be,
To eat the worlds due–by the grave and thee.
in the first quatrain he is saying That the most beautiful things stay beautiful.
Then he is saying that beuty never dies and that he is cruel or his foe is cruel.
Later he is saying that he has made a waste of something.(sorry i gave it my best shot).
April 10, 2007 at 9:05 pm
1. From fairest creatures we desire increase,
2. That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
3. But as the riper should by time decease,
4. His tender heir might bear his memory:
5. But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
6. Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
7. Making a famine where abundance lies,
8. Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
9. Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament,
10. And only herald to the gaudy spring,
11. Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
12. And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding:
13. Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
14. To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
ok so they hope that more living things are born- so that the beauty of life never dies away-but as the older more mature die in time-that the offspring will be like a twin of the “parent”- -the youth ruins its own future-making emptiness in their rich qualities-you are making an enemy of yourself by not indulging in your future-you are a young importance to the world-you are the most important messenger to the world-within yourself is your own happiness-and being affectionate makes a wall in being stingy-feel bad for the world or else-the world will end
April 10, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Sonnet 64
When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz’d,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
In the first quatrain he is setting a sort of timeline that I instantly compared to life. He is talking about “Time’s hand” and how it changes throughout the years.
In the second quatrain he is using the earth as a metaphor. He explains the sea’s effect on the land and how it might decay.
In the third quatrain he uses these comparisons he has made above about “life’s deterioration” and he is thinking that that is exactly what will happen to his love.
In the couplet I believe Shakespeare shakes off all his worrying and says, “Hey whatever happens happens!” and that if he just sits scared all the time he won’t enjoy being in love.
April 10, 2007 at 9:17 pm
SONNET 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
So in this sonnet Shakespeare talks about how sad he is and how self pittying he is in the beggining. He wants what everyone else has and he strongly dislikes the things that he most enjoys. He pretty much wants to kill himself and is so depressed until he sees this woman. She makes all the birds sing and he feels so rich like a king just because of this gorgeous girl that he is so madly in love with.
April 10, 2007 at 10:10 pm
FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
i believe at first it is talking about how there is this girl who is beautiful. But even though she is beautiful she is selfish.because wit her beauty she doesnt want to create an heir to her beauty. and at the end it says have a child so your loveliness doesnt go to waste
April 11, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I dissagree with tom because i think he loves her but she does not love him it is hard to tell weather this is true or not but i belive it is.
HERE’S WHAT TOM SAID:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
In the first part he is saying that his love admits impediments hes not feeling love.
The second part is she has a mark and cannot get rid of it and shes forever scarred
Then hes talking about how beautifull she is
Then hes saying he cant love her or he will be doomed.
April 11, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I disagree with drew. In the fist quatrain I think Shakespeare is saying that the girl he is talking to can’t love anyone even though many people love her.
The second quatrain is saying that she has so much hate that she won’t change.
The third is saying that she should be kind and change her mind
The couplet is saying that even though she is mean she is still beautiful.
HERE’S WHAT DREW SAID
SONNET 10
For shame! deny that thou bear’st love to any,
Who for thyself art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lovest is most evident; (This quatret is about how this woman has a relationship with a man and she is loved by many and how she loves one)
For thou art so possess’d with murderous hate
That ‘gainst thyself thou stick’st not to conspire.
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire. (The man is asking her to repent her choice)
O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove: (She hates the guy but he asks her to love him)
Make thee another self, for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee. (Same thing as commented above)
April 11, 2007 at 5:16 pm
I disagree with Glenn. I think the first quatrain is about how the beauty she has now will be ruined over the course of the next 40 years. The second talks about how people will ask her where her beauty went and it will be all be a waste and she will be shamed. The last quatrain talks about how her beauty would be of more worth if she could reply that it was rekindled in the beauty of her child — that she actually made some use of her beauty. The couplet describes how her old blood could be warmed by her child and that she is essentially being reborn.
WHAT GLENN SAID:
When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held: ( I think he is saying he will love her always)
Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. (We all love her)
How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine!( You are so beautiful)
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.(I will keep you warm)
April 11, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I disagree with Reid because I think that he’s talking about everyone wants beautiful things and everyone wants beautiful things to live on forever. And then I THINK he says that even though somethings beautiful on the outside, it might not be that way on the inside. Lastly, I think he is saying that everyone who daydream’s about this kind of thing will waste their life away just dreaming about someone perfect. That’s what I think, and I know I’m probably horribly wrong, so I’m sorry!
WHAT REID SAID:
FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
i believe at first it is talking about how there is this girl who is beautiful. But even though she is beautiful she is selfish.because wit her beauty she doesn’t want to create an heir to her beauty. and at the end it says have a child so your loveliness doesnt go to waste
April 11, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Tom I disagree with you because this is what I think it means.
The first quatrain-He says let me not say of bad things in the marriage of true minds, as well as saying love is not love that changes when it finds a change. In other words, we’ll use this as an example. If he really loved this woman because she was kind and caring, but he discovers she’s really a naggy, terrible, beast and still loves her. Or if her favorite food was seafood but he hated it, but forced himself to like it and said he loved it to her, that’s changing his love. He’s saying that if he changes his love for her because she changed, that’s not love.
2nd-”it is an ever-fixed mark” Permanent I guess in the sense it does not falter or waver but stays true to its true love. (What the heart loves in the person, it won’t change for, but will always love no matter the issues that arise. “That looks on tempests and is never shaken” is a line once again saying that love is steadfast and although there might be problems, stays true to the mark unchanging.
3rd-This is a big message. He is saying that “Love’s not Time’s fool”, although looks and beauty are prey to time’s ravaging, Love does not change over time or through aging, but persists on till the eve of death.
The couplet goes to say that:
If I am wrong and you can prove it to me,
I never wrote and no man ever loved.
Pretty deep actually.
WHAT TOM SAID:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
In the first part he is saying that his love admits impediments hes not feeling love.
The second part is she has a mark and cannot get rid of it and shes forever scarred
Then hes talking about how beautifull she is
Then hes saying he cant love her or he will be doomed.
April 11, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Sorry It’s Late!!!
FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
April 11, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Danny I think that the Summer and winter parts dont refer to the seasons but to her looks and romance.
WHAT DANNY SAID:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’ersnowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer’s distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
Lease but their show; their substance still lives sweet.
In the first quatrain he is saying that she is so fine that every eye looks on her and likes what they see. And that they don’t like her fore her they like her because she looks good and that is unfair.
In the second quatrain he says that summer just started and the frost and lusty leaves are gone. The snow has melted and it makes it look like there is bareness everywhere.
In the 3rd quatrain he is saying when it’s not summer and every thing is beautiful you don’t remember what it did look like.
In the couplet he says though winter has come and the flowers are distant you can still remember what they where like.
April 11, 2007 at 6:37 pm
i disagree with reid i think that he does thionk a woman is very butieful and i think it is a shame that he only gets to admire her and not actually be with her
WHAT REID SAID:
WHAT REID SAID:
FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
i believe at first it is talking about how there is this girl who is beautiful. But even though she is beautiful she is selfish.because wit her beauty she doesn’t want to create an heir to her beauty. and at the end it says have a child so your loveliness doesnt go to waste
April 11, 2007 at 6:53 pm
I partly disagree with Sara. I think that the references to summer are a metaphor for discribing a true love. When Heaven shines too bright and his gold complexion dims, I think its refering to an eternal beauty that forshadows all the rest. I’m just guessing.
WHAT SARA SAID:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The first quatrain is saying that the person shakespear is referring to is more lovely than a summer’s day
The second is saying that sometimes heaven shines too bright and sometimes it loses its lovliness
The third is saying that her summer is permanent and she will always be fair
In the couplet Shakespear is saying that as long as men can breathe and eyes can see (in other words forever) this will always be true.
April 11, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Wendy I didn’t see your text on this poem so I will give my thoughts as to what is happenning. IN the first quatrain, he is talking about how his body feels different things. While his eyes love one person, his heart loves another. He wants freedom from both of them? In the next quatrain, Shakespear talks about his eyes, and how he needs to frre himself from these woes. IN the next quatrain, he talks about how dear his heart is and how his eyes have betrayed him. But in the last couplet, Shakespear takes an unexpected turn and he says that outward his eyes guide him but inward is where he can find true love!
Wendy’s Sonnet:
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
A closet never pierc’d with crystal eyes,
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To ‘cide this title is impannelled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye’s moiety, and the dear heart’s part:
As thus: mine eye’s due is thine outward part,
And my heart’s right, thine inward love of heart.
April 11, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Lizze, In the second quatrain I disagree with your interpretation that it is turning into winter. I thing that he is saying that things become bleaker as you get older. I also think that when he mentions,”Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard”, he is referring to his beard getting grayer.
WHAT LIZZIE SAID:
FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
i believe at first it is talking about how there is this girl who is beautiful. But even though she is beautiful she is selfish.because wit her beauty she doesn’t want to create an heir to her beauty. and at the end it says have a child so your loveliness doesnt go to waste
April 11, 2007 at 7:06 pm
I disagree with Mitch. I think the sonnet is more about a travel that brings out the youth in this person.
WHAT MITCH SAID:
Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, ‘fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:
So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,
Unlook’d on diest, unless thou get a son.
****
I think that in the first quatrain he is talking about the first look of this man. And that the second quatrain is talking about how bold he is and his looks. And that the third one is talking about about how is not really that strong. And that the rhyming couplet is saying something that that I have no idea what it is at all.
April 11, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Paola,
I think the sonnet you chose is difficult and can be interpreted different ways. When I first read it, what came to mind was the internal battle of emotions that is going on in this particular lover. Although once I read your thoughts I do see where you are coming from, I sort of got the impression that the person in this poem is on a “rollercoaster”(not literally though!!!) He fears the person he loves does not really love him, hence “pity-wanting pain”. He is also saying, “I can’t go on like this!” because it is driving him into a frenzy. The twist comes in the couplet when he realizes that even though she is pretending to love him(“bear thine eyes straight”) but her heart is proud and has gone astray.
However, that’s just what I thought when I read this sonnet. Paola, your guess is as good as mine on this one!
WHAT PAOLA SAID:
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know;
For if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be,
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
***
my guess at what the sonnet means its talking about how this guy is sick and needy and in close to dying and he loves a girl. he wants her to tell him that she loves him even if she doesnt mean it. and if she does that then it will be worth his while
April 11, 2007 at 7:17 pm
I disagree with reid because I think that the first quatrain is about a person who is dying. And the second one is talking about how the person is harsh one there self. And that the third one is talking about how she is the jewel of the world and how beautiful she is. And that the end is saying be nice to the world or be mean on your grave.
WHAT REID SAID:
FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
i believe at first it is talking about how there is this girl who is beautiful. But even though she is beautiful she is selfish.because wit her beauty she doesnt want to create an heir to her beauty. and at the end it says have a child so your loveliness doesnt go to waste
April 11, 2007 at 7:43 pm
This is paolas. I saw she didnt put what everthing meant. So I guess I’ll take a shot at what i think the quatrains and couplet mean..
Here is the sonnet:
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
[I sound stupid when I talk to you, and you are so smart. I cant explain how or why I cant talk normally]
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know;
[You do not love, yet you do love to say your cruel words. People who are dying know that they arent dying from sickness but from love?]
For if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be,
[I will grow depressed, and I might say bad stuff about you. This world has people who believe everything they hear, so they will hear me and believe me]
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
[I dont mean what I say, I did not lie. Just look to the future and open your heart to everyone]
April 11, 2007 at 8:19 pm
ok this is the 2nd half of mine… i’m not sure why it didn’t post but here it is. what i thought it meant but here it is.
i think that he is saying that his heart loves one girl but his heart loves another. he is confused and did not know what to do but he soon decides to follow his heart.
THE SONNET:
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
A closet never pierc’d with crystal eyes,
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To ‘cide this title is impannelled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye’s moiety, and the dear heart’s part:
As thus: mine eye’s due is thine outward part,
And my heart’s right, thine inward love of heart.
April 11, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Terrell, I think you are on the right track with the sonnet being about this person meeting thier prime, but to go into more detail, I think that Shakespeare is actually talking about a man who needs to start thinking about having children while he is still young. The first quatrain says he should look into his mirror and start recreating what he sees because if he does not, then he will be taking motherhood away from a woman. In the second quatrain, Shakespeare asks, “what is so pretty about a woman with an empty womb?” He suggests that the woman turns away from the “tillage of thy husbandry”. (tillage=cultivation, husbandry=breeding) If he doesn’t procreate, he will be cutting off all of his future generations. In the third quatrain, it is a cool image that the we are the glass and our parents are the substance inside. The rest of the quatrain says that when his mother looks at him she sees the prime of her life, and even through the window of his age and the wrinkles, he still can see that “golden time”. In the couplet, Shakespeare gets in the man’s face and states that if he wants to ignore all the advice Shakespeare has given him, then he can die single and his image will be forgotten.
WHAT TERRELL SAID:
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest
Thou dost beguile the world unbless some mother
(I think hes saying what you see is what you get)
For where is she so fair whose uneard womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry
Or who is he fond will be the tomb
Of his self love to stop posterity
(Hes talking about females)
Thou art thy mothers glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely april of her prime
So thou through windows of thine age shall see
despite of wrinkles this thy golden time
(Hes talking about a woming reaching her prime but still lies the wrinkles in her face)
But if thou live remember’d not to be
die single and thine image dies with thee
( Hes talking about if you live remembered, die single but just remember your image still lies with you)
April 11, 2007 at 8:27 pm
I disagree with matt because back in the first quatrain it is written that she doesnt make love groan. I do agree that this mysterious woman controls him but maybe he is not completely devoted to her.
WHAT MATT SAID:
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know’st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;
To say they err I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it to myself alone.
And to be sure that is not false I swear,
A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,
One on another’s neck, do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgment’s place.
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.
In the first part of the sonnet I think he’s trying to say that the power in her looks that she holds over him is big and that she alone holds all of his love in a “tyranical” way.
In the secound part he trys to show that he loves her so much and that she holds all power over him.
In the third part he swears that he wil only love her.
In the couplet he says that she is perfect and that if anyone says otherwise its not true.
April 11, 2007 at 8:28 pm
now here is tonight’s HW.
Jess i didn’t see what you thought on your sonnet so ill just say what i thought it meant. he is saying that true love can not be forced by marriage, and it will not bent or be removed( you can not break true love) and true love will be forever.
WHAT JESS SAID:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
April 11, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Erin, I disagree with you. For the most part I only disagree with your interpretation of the last quatrain. After reading to over a few times, I don’t see where it says he would want to commit suicide. Sure he pities himself but in the second and final quatrain I think it’s more based on his jealousy of another man and in the end the couplet states how love made him feel good and happy about his works and himself.
WHAT ERIN SAID:
SONNET 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
So in this sonnet Shakespeare talks about how sad he is and how self pittying he is in the beggining. He wants what everyone else has and he strongly dislikes the things that he most enjoys. He pretty much wants to kill himself and is so depressed until he sees this woman. She makes all the birds sing and he feels so rich like a king just because of this gorgeous girl that he is so madly in love with.
April 11, 2007 at 8:39 pm
I think that the sonnet that Reid chose is tough to decipher who is right and who is wrong but I partially agree with Lilly, and partially disagree with Reid. I think that he is admiring her from afar, and the fact that he knows that he can’t be with her. I don’t think that she is being selfish in anyway…
WHAT REID SAID:
WHAT REID SAID:
FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
i believe at first it is talking about how there is this girl who is beautiful. But even though she is beautiful she is selfish.because wit her beauty she doesnt want to create an heir to her beauty. and at the end it says have a child so your loveliness doesnt go to waste
AND LILLY:
i believe at first it is talking about how there is this girl who is beautiful. But even though she is beautiful she is selfish.because wit her beauty she doesn’t want to create an heir to her beauty. and at the end it says have a child so your loveliness doesnt go to waste
April 11, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I disagree with Kaitlyn. I’m not exactly sure, but I think he is talking about his child. About how he is so proud to be this child’s father and he doesn’t care if they are perfect, but he loves them anyway. He hopes that his child will do better than he did. He wishes that this child is the best person that they can be and happier and “better” than him. I get what she was saying so she might be right, but that is just what I got out of it.
WHAT KAITLYN SAID:
As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
(As a old dad is happy to see his child’s youth, I take comfort in your worth.)
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
(Whether for many qualities, one, etc. I love you for them.)
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis’d,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am suffic’d,
And by a part of all thy glory live.
(I think that It means That I’m not lame when in your greatness, next to you I’m small, but by YOUR greatness and loving you I live.)
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
(What is best I wish for you, when my wish comes true, that she’s the better/best, than I am very happy.)
So I THINK, not positive, that this is a poem about a guy talking about his love. That although he is old, lame, and a gimp, he takes pride and comfort in the fact she is the best, pretty, talented etc. He loves all these qualities about her, and when he does, although standing by her he would be “suffocated”, but by loving her “glory” he inherits a small part and lives. In the couplet he goes and says that although he’s almost jealous of her and loves her qualities, he wishes them on her and is happy when she is superior.
April 11, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Hey Dylan I think that you made the three quatrains good but it was hard to understand but I thought it meant that true loves can hurt or even more
WHAT DYLAN SAID:
Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;
And yet methinks I have Astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert;
Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.
In the first quatrain he is saying that he doesn’t use the sky to predict the future.
In the second quatrain he is saying that he doesn’t try to tell the future quickly.
In the third quatrain he is saying that he uses his careful observations to make predictions.
In the couplet he saying that the truth is the end of things.I’m not sure about this.
April 11, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I [with greatest respect towards her] disagree with Lilly’s sonnet interpretation. I believe this:
[Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.]
[The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage,
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.]
[Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
Since spite of him I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes.]
[And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.]
Shakespeare is perhaps insulting or contradicting fortune telling. He says in the first quatrain that no prophet can lease (have say) in his love. In the second quatrain, the says that the moon was endured and that the augurs (seers who watch bird flight patterns) are sad and wrong. Now the uncerntanties are taking over in the minds of concerned people.
In the third quatrain, he says that he has been told that he has new love coming and he is living longer. But, he will continue to live his life, while the seer mumbles insults to things that cannot talk.
WHAT LILLY SAID:
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage,
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
Since spite of him I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes.
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.
***
i think the first quatrine is about how he is worried about his relationship an that it might end baddly.
the 2nd quatrine is about is about every thing the people had prodicted was wrong and now it is makeing a fool out of them. Because when it says augers mock their own presage i think it means that their fortellings were very wrong and now they mock them.
the 3rd quatrin is about how is irst love has died but now he has a new fresh love, and its just begining its life.
in the couplet it means that kings are dieing and their funeral are being paid for
April 11, 2007 at 8:58 pm
I disagree with Alex i believe that in the first quatrain that beauty fades with age.
WHAT ALEX SAID:
FRom fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauties rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy lights flame with self substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe—to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that are now the world’s fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And tender chorle mak’st wast in niggarding:
Pity the world or else this glutton be,
To eat the worlds due–by the grave and thee.
in the first quatrain he is saying That the most beautiful things stay beautiful.
Then he is saying that beuty never dies and that he is cruel or his foe is cruel.
Later he is saying that he has made a waste of something.(sorry i gave it my best shot).
April 11, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Mitch. I agree with your explination for the most part, and I am not really sure if the one I will write is a close guess, but I will give it a try. I think it is talking about the gracious light of the sun and its “burning head” and the sun in the sky. Also how the sun is not highly honored and how it impacts people. in the couplet there is something about getting a son, but I don’t get it either. Your guess is as good as mine.
April 11, 2007 at 9:18 pm
I think there is something important that Sara left out in her comment because the couplet says that she will always live through his words as long as the poem lives on and as long as people read about her.
April 11, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Zack:
I think your review is basically just quotes from the sonnet. You fail to explain what the words actually mean, but instead write lines from the sonnet itself.
Your poem is about the realization of time and the toll it’s taken on one individual’s lifespan….at least thats what I think.
April 11, 2007 at 10:23 pm
mitch; i agree with some of the things you said but i also had some other thoughts
in the beggining i think it says he’s waking to a new sight that he has seen through painful eyes
is the 1st part
and though he is older but still beautiful he has made his climb on his horse
and now he has a new motto to go by
after his troublesome path
and the last part is something about having a son
and Eleanor;
thanx yeah it was hard to decipher but your guess makes sense too
so maybe its like companionship but i dont know its confusing
WHAT MITCH SAID:
Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, ‘fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:
So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,
Unlook’d on diest, unless thou get a son.
****
I think that in the first quatrain he is talking about the first look of this man. And that the second quatrain is talking about how bold he is and his looks. And that the third one is talking about about how is not really that strong. And that the rhyming couplet is saying something that that I have no idea what it is at all.
April 12, 2007 at 3:04 pm
i disagee with wiil
April 12, 2007 at 3:10 pm
i dissagre with mitch in that he said that the couplet made no sense. i thought that it did make sense or else why would it b written.
April 12, 2007 at 4:06 pm
I disagree with Matt interptation of the couplet because it seems to me that actually Shakespeare is dissing this women in his own subtle way.
April 13, 2007 at 2:20 pm
In this part of the book Mercutio tells Romeo that he is the plague to both families(that he is like a dog, rat, mouse, and a cat). Romeo thought he was helping everyone. Mercutio and Romeo were arguing for a while then Tybalt came in and he teases Romeo then Romeo gets told to leave and does.
April 13, 2007 at 8:51 pm
I agree with some of the things that Alex is saying but some of it seems confusing and I really don’t know why.