The Sonnets – “ Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..."

The Sonnets –  “ Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..."

In February of 1608, Shakespeare was probably not in Stratford for the baptism of his granddaughter Elizabeth. By June the plague had hit London again and by August 1608, the theatres were closed again and Shakespeare had to think how to maintain himself and his family. Shakespeare and his fellow players had been 'elevated in 1603 to the status of the King's men and although this meant that they played private performances at Hampton Court, the big money maker The Globe stood idol during this period. As the epidemic spread, provincial tours were not the solution that they had been before. This plague would continue on and off until December 1610. Shakespeare probably didn't travel much in 1608. He probably did not return to Stratford for the burial of his mother Mary Shakespeare in September. The purchase by the King's Men of Blackfriars Theatre in late 1608, even if bought at a bargain basement price, would have been an extra expense William Shakespeare did not need. But Shakespeare was probably not idol during this period.

Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets were published in a 1609 quarto edition by publisher Thomas Thorpe. We do not know whether this edition was an authorized or unauthorized edition but the inclusion of the narrative poem ‘A Lover’s Complaint’ (which is dubiously attributed to Shakespeare) at the end in an appendix to ‘The Sonnets’ probably suggests that it was unauthorised. Although Thorpe’s edition says on the cover “SHAKE-SPEARE’S SONNETS: Never before imprinted” some had been printed before such as Sonnet 138 and Sonnet 144 which had appeared in the poetry collection entitled ‘The Passionate Pilgrim’.

The sonnets are assumed to have been written from 1592 until about 1607, although some place the writing of the earliest sonnet to as early as 1588 and some believe that the last sonnet was written in 1599. Shakespeare’s sonnets are based on the Italian Renaissance sonnet form invented by the poet Petrarch often known as the Petrarchan sonnet form. This form can normally be separated into two segments – the octave (normally with the rhyming pattern of ABBAABBA or even ABBACDDC) and the sestet (normally CDCDCD or even CDECDE). In Elizabethean England, the sonnet form was rejuvenated by lyric poets like Sir Philip Sydney. Shakespeare became the master of the new Elizabethean form sometimes even known to us now as the Shakespearean sonnet. Shakespeare’s sonnets are of the 14 line sonnet form comprising three four line (un-separated) stanzas and ending with a final rhyming couplet. The dominant poetic rhythm of his sonnets particularly in the final rhyming couplet is an iambic pentameter (a line comprising five feet or beats or stressed beats which alternate unstressed then stressed beats which some describe as the rhythm of a heartbeat). At least one of his sonnets breaks with this pattern and has an iambic tetrameter. The rhyming scheme of Shakespeare’s sonnets is normally ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The three quatrains often build the sequence to the volta (also known as the twist or turn) at the end of the third quatrain and then the final rhyming couplet gives us the crux, the twist or a revelation to end the sonnet.

If you don't have the patience or time to sit read and contemplate due to distractions then I would suggest the Top Ten of Shakespeare's sonnets to read would be:
10. Sonnet 104 - "To me, fair friend, you never can be old" 
9. Sonnet 30 - "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought"
8. Sonnet 33 - "Full many a glorious morning have I seen"
7. Sonnet 73 - "That time of year thou mayst in me behold"
6. Sonnet 129 - "The expense of spirit in a waste of shame"
5. Sonnet 130 - "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" 
4. Sonnet 1 - "From fairest creatures we desire increase"
3. Sonnet 29 - "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes"
2. Sonnet 116 - "Let me not to the marriage of true minds"
1. Sonnet 18 - "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day"

The central questions which surround Shakespeare's sonnets for many people are:

·      Are Shakespeare’s sonnets autobiographical?

·      Are they poetical exercises which deal with imagined people, circumstances and experiences?

·      Who is the Fair Youth in the sonnets?

·      Who is the Dark Lady in the sonnets?

·      Who is the Rival Poet in the sonnets?

Poets over the years have certainly thought that Shakespeare’s sonnets are autobiographical. Wordsworth said that the sonnets “…express Shakespeare’s own feelings in his own person…” and even in one of Wordsworth's own sonnets, he poetically claims that he like Shakespeare was revealing himself because “…with this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart…” People over the years have wanted so much to know more about Shakespeare that the sonnets have, for many, become an unofficial autobiography which seems to reveal Shakespeare's inner and outer life through an intimate love life that the sonnets could reveal to go something like this:

Shakespeare, under the commission of some rich figurehead urges a young man, “…the only begetter of these ensuring sonnets”, to marry and have children to pass on his good looks to another generation. Many believe the young man to be the Henry Wriothesley (Earl of Southhampton) or William Herbert (Earl of Pembroke). Then the autobiographical approach would see Shakespeare falling in love with the young man himself. This leads him onto revealing a host of emotions and contemplations on love, loneliness, mortality, immortality through writing, the transience of life and the fear of death. Then the sonnets reveal jealousy of another poet who the young man seems to prefer, at least as a poet. The rival poet could be seen to be Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, John Davies or even Francis Davison. Then Shakespeare seems to become sexually involved with the Dark Lady and he gets involved in a love triangle which involves him, the Young Man and the Dark Lady where he is forced to contemplate the difference between the spiritual love he feels for the “fair youth” and the sexual love he feels for the “dark lady”. The Dark Lady is suitably mysterious but speculation has identified her as everyone from the London prostitute of African descent known as Lucy Negro or Black Luce to Mary Fitton to Emilia Lanier to Queen Elizabeth II herself. Back to the love triangle. Shakespeare then, in this narrative, blames The Dark Lady’ for the love triangle and shifting of affections and forgives the Young Man.

I tend to see ‘The Sonnets’ as ultimately an amazing sequence of narrative fiction, an exercise in poetic gymnastics which also seeks to play with (and even at points mock) the sonnet form itself. I believe that the intimacy of the tone of the sonnets plays with the reader to make them think that the poems give them an insight into the inner would of the poet (or the speaker). Obviously, Shakespeare uses much as his own voice and his own experiences to infuse authenticity into ‘The Sonnets’ but I believe the ultimate beauty of ‘The Sonnets’ lies in their ability to paint a clear and focused landscape of the inner world of an emotional life, while letting the reader transport these emotions and feelings wherever they like from connections to their own life, to judgments about the universal nature of these feelings to even a imaginary biography of a great playwright and poet who died almost 400 years ago about whom very little is known. 

If you want to see short films based on the sonnets, try The Sonnet Project which has short films based around many of the sonnets from the USA and other countries. The link is here:

https://nysx.org/programs-2/sonnet-project/

During the COVID 19 virus outbreak, the British Actor Patrick Stewart posted a reading of Shakespearean sonnet every day during his isolation and lockdown. I have attached a link to to his readings for many of the early sonnets. 

‘Sonnets 1-17’

I wanted to give some indication about how to write about Shakespeare’s sonnets so some of this will seem like a commentary and some will focus on individual bits.  In Sonnets 1-17, the poet or speaker, addresses The Fair Youth and tries to persuade him to have children so that his beauty will live on long after he dies.

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.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=198993371551947
In the first sonnet, the poet seems to be addressing a young man (later identified as the Fair Youth) advocating that he should have children to preserve and pass on his beauty. The first quatrain states the poet’s assertion that ‘we’ as humans want the most beautiful people in the world to procreate and have children so that the bud of beauty “might never die” and so that when “the riper”, the parent (inferred that this is the father) eventually dies, the young child will be a living reminder of the beauty evident in the poet’s young ‘fair’ male friend. The use of “fairest” in line 1 gives a sense of both beauty and ‘fair’ in terms of judgment. The ironic use of the phrase “we desire increase” at the end of line 1 establishes early (and perhaps foreshadows) a relationship between “desire” (in the erotic sense) and ”increase” (with its sexual overtones). Increase also suggests immortality and here the poet is also suggesting the “increase” or immortality which his own words and verse might give to the youth. The poet’s use in line 2 of the phrase “beauty’s rose” give an image of beauty but also through the poet’s choice of a rose infers the metaphorical symbol of a rose as beauty while carrying with it the inference that a rose also has thorns. This reinforces the strength of the poet advocating that as the “ripeness” of the youth decreases that he should produce a young child or “tender heir”.

In the second quatrain, the tone changes slightly and the poet directly addresses the youth and accuses him of vanity and being “contracted” to his own “bright eyes”. The poet’s accusation of vanity towards his young male friend is further reinforced by the use in line 6 of the metaphor of a flame as the poet accuses the youth of feeding “thy light’s flame” with “self-substantial fuel” inferring that this narcissism will in fact allow the youth make his own beauty burn out. Line 7 takes this argument further when the poet accuses the youth of starving the world of his beauty instead of making his beauty abundant in the world. Line 8 tells the youth that he is his own worst enemy making himself into his own “cruel” “foe”.

In the third quatrain, the poet praises the youth as the “world’s fresh ornament” who is the only person as beautiful as the spring itself. The poet then moves back to an accusatory tone and he accuses the youth of burying his “content” (which is suggestive of both literal procreation and poetic creation) in his own “bud” (inferring both the youth’s potential and his sexuality) so that the youth “mak’st waste in niggarding”. The use of the word “niggardling” suggests that the youth is like an old selfish miserly man in keeping his beauty to himself.

The final rhyming couplet of Sonnet 1, sees the poet asking the youth to take pity on the world or else be prepared to be considered a “glutton” consuming himself and his own beauty through him consuming or eating what the poet believes the world deserves – the youth's beauty. The final line of the sonnet ironically uses the word “grave” to both warn the youth that if he continues on this course he will take his beauty to the grave while also using inferring the word "grave" to suggest the seriousness of the loss the world would suffer if the youth does not procreate and chooses to take his beauty to his death.

Sonnet 2 continues the same address to the young man and suggests that if the young man does grow old at least if he has a child he would “… be new when thou art old…”
https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1242205662194601985?lang=en

The poet’s assaults the young man in Sonnet 3 when he asks the youth to look in the mirror and admit that it is time for him to have a child and even warns him that if he does not have a child that he will “Die single and thine image dies with thee.” 
https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1242573244860948481?lang=en

Sonnet 4 continues in the same fashion but uses the metaphor of money to  suggest that the youth should invest in himself so that his beauty can be used and increase in its investment. Perhaps this is suggesting that the youth is rich or good with monetary investments. The youth’s beauty is then compared more to flowers and the allegory of making perfume from flowers as a way of preserving beauty is used to further encourage the youth to have children to preserve his beauty before old age (“winter”) comes. 
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1452793221777145


The poet’s threat of death to the youth furthers in Sonnet 6 when the poet threatens that without children “death’s conquest” will “make worms thine heir”. 
https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1243292618550915072?lang=en

The imagery of the sun starts to rise and come in with Sonnet 7 when the poet compares the beauty of the youth with the sun that “like feeble age” eventually “reeleth from the day” and suggests that unless he is able to “get a son” while the sun of the youth shines bright, he will die alone. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLJ1zPj1440

Sonnet 8 uses music as imagery for the happy bond between father, mother and child and suggests that if the youth does not have a child the only tune or song lyric he will hear will be “Thou single wilt prove none.” 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqiyIqPEkds

The poet in Sonnet 9 suggests that the youth is selfish and incapable of love and has “No love toward others in that bosom sits…” Sonnet 9 is heard read here by Sir John Gielgud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnlca_W6AwI

The poet’s tactics change in Sonnet 10 when he tries to suggests that if the youth will not have a child for himself that he should do it for love of the poet - “Make thee another self for love of me (the poet)…” 
https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1244356954283298816?lang=en

The poet then moves on in Sonnet 11 evoking Nature itself as imploring the youth by “carving thee for her seal” and nature herself is seen to be pleading that the youth should have children and make copies of himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTWeH2WFbvM

Sonnet 12 is less direct in its approach towards the young man and contemplates how time is ticking away and in nature “sweets and beauties do themselves forsake”. The sense in the end of this sonnet is that Time is a destructive force that can only be defended against by breeding. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t65ind8zJiw

Sonnet 13 uses Shakespeare’s favourite and most used word “sweet” (this is his most used word in the plays as well as the sonnets) three times and ends with a urged reminder “You had a father: let your son say so.” 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gduSt3LINU

Then in Sonnet 14, the poet says that he can’t predict what is in the stars but what he does predict is that the young man’s “…end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.” 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BI__UHGgMM

The suggestion in Sonnet 15 is that the poet out of love for the young man wages a war against time which steals from the youth but which the poet is able to in his poetry “engraft you new”. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPHM8RY91OI

Sonnet 16 says that the youth would preserve his own self and image and “live yourself in the eyes of men” if he had a child. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulm10jYKz8k

Sonnet 17 ends the sequence which directly deals with the young man and says that no-one in the future will believe the beauty of the young man as preserved in the poet’s verse and that people will think that the poet was lying or exaggerating but that if the youth himself had a child then the youth’s beauty “should live twice”:

Sonnet 17

“Who will believe my verse in time to come,


If it were filled with your most high deserts?
T

hough yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb


Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.


If I could write the beauty of your eyes,


And in fresh numbers number all your graces,


The age to come would say 'This poet lies;


Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.'


So should my papers, yellowed with their age,


Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,


And your true rights be termed a poet's rage


And stretched metre of an antique song:


But were some child of yours alive that time,


You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Z4YbynhuI

The Sonnets – Sonnets 18-33 – “ Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

Although Shakespeare’s Sonnets 18-126 still predominately deal with the Young Man, from Sonnet 78 to Sonnet 86, we see the appearance of the Rival Poet, so I will deal with these poems separately. Sonnets 18-77 deal with the power of poetry to give immortality and defeat death. I will deal initially with Sonnets 18-33. I will put Patrick Stewart's reading here first since he also reads a brief introduction to this new sequence of sonnets.
https://twitter.com/SirPatStew/status/1247312842321248257

I will start with a commentary on one of Shakespeare’s most well known and most loved sonnets, Sonnet 18 ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’

“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 poet/speaker starts Sonnet 18 with a question “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” addressed to the object of his devotion (who we assume from reading the previous sonnets to be the young man). The language of this sonnet is largely unadorned with poetic devices and effects. The absence of run-on lines and the presence of punctuation marks at the end of most lines forces the reader to pause and take in most lines as complete thoughts in themselves. Line 2 states that the poet praises the young beauty as even “more lovely and more temperate…” than a summer’s day. The poet then extends the comparison to summer through pointing out that summer has the extremes where “rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” and that summer (at least in England) can be very short “…summer’s lease hath all to short a date…”

The second quatrain moves almost entirely onto summer and the imagery of the sun which described metaphorically as “the eye of heaven”. The poet then uses the personification inferred in the metaphor of the sun as being the “eye of heaven” and then more fully personifies the sun when he describes the sun as having a “gold complexion”. The poet laments that summer is too short and the sun is “dimm’d” and declines into autumn.

The third quatrain of the sonnet then moves back to comparing the sun and nature to the youth’s beauty and suggests that the youth’s fairness or beauty is unlike summer because it will last forever as stated in the words “Thy eternal summer shall not fade…” This can also be seen as more than a comparison since the poet almost has morphed or metamorphosed the youth into summer itself or the embodiment of beauty itself. The poet then states that the youth will never “lose possession of that fair thou owest…” suggesting that the poet himself is making the beauty of the youth and thus making the youth himself immortal. The poet ends this quatrain when in line 12 “When in eternal lines to time thou growest…”, the poet uses a grafting metaphor (grafting the youth to time) whilst playing with the double meaning of the word lines to again suggest that his poem and its “eternal lines” will make the beauty and the reputation of the beauty of the youth grow.

The final rhyming couplet seems to have a great faith in the timelessness of his verse and ends with the affirmation that so long as humans can see and breath that his verse will live on too and give life to the muse that inspired this very sonnet. Ironically, the poem starts off praising the poet’s muse but ends up in self-gratification praising the poet and his love poem itself. It seems that although “death shall not brag”, in fact the poet will and does. 

Let’s move onto Sonnets 19-33. Sonnet 19 almost challenges Time to “bring it on” since the poet thinks that his verse and the youth can battle time at its own game and win. I have two readings by Patrick Stewart of this sonnet. One from 2012
https://vimeo.com/44720865
Another from isolation during the COVID epidemic in 2020
https://twitter.com/SirPatStew/status/1247663137006006278 

Sonnet 20 is definitely directly addressed to the young man and suggests that although his body was definitely made to love women that the poet thinks that women can have the body of the youth while the poet will have his love. Patrick Stewart did not do a reading of this sonnet because he found it too sexist and derogatory to women. Sonnets 21 and 22 almost play with and comment on the sonnet form itself while Sonnet 23 uses a simile common to Shakespeare, that of an actor. It ends with a beautiful rhyming couplet that suggests that meaning and love is revealed by reading between the lines:

“Oh learn to read what silent love hath writ!

To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.”
Here is Patrick Stewart reading Sonnet 21.
https://twitter.com/SirPatStew/status/1248059279405432832

Sonnet 23 with Patrick Stewart:
https://www.facebook.com/patrickstewart/videos/520585398624907/


Sonnet 24 uses the metaphor of painting to have the poet praise the youth by claiming that his poetry has painted a portrait of the youth which is only beautiful because the poet like the painter only draws what they see. 
Sonnet 24 with Patrick Stewart:
https://www.facebook.com/patrickstewart/videos/851940731987712/

In Sonnet 25, the poet is thankful that he loves and is beloved. Here is Patrick Stewart reading Sonnet 25.
https://www.facebook.com/patrickstewart/videos/635007697279829/

In Sonnet 26 the poet says that he is not boasting or using his writing skills but genuinely loves and is devoted to the youth. Patrick Stewart reading Sonnet 26:
https://www.facebook.com/patrickstewart/videos/685639052191058/

In Sonnet 27, the poet evokes strong description and imagery of a poet writing late at night and ends with the beautiful evocative couplet:

“Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,

For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.”

Sonnet 28 can be coupled with Sonnet 27 and continues the sense of a writer writing late at night but gives the sense of the struggle a writer feels when trying to describe the youth in his verse. In Sonnet 29, the poet initially bemoans his state and the torture which his short-comings and wishes bring but ends by saying that the poet feels rich and wealthy when he remembers the youth. Sonnet 30 continues to look at the poet’s contemplations and ends with concluding that while the poet thinks about his friend, “All losses are restored, and sorrows end.” 
Here is patrick Stewart readings Sonnet 29 & 30:
https://www.facebook.com/patrickstewart/videos/681915002583722/

While in Sonnet 31, the poet reflects on the fact that all his lovers he sees in the image of the youth he loves. Patrick Stewart reads it here:
https://www.facebook.com/patrickstewart/videos/1686728528136257/

In Sonnet 32, the poet says that his poems should not be read by the youth for their dubious quality but for the love in the poems the poet shows for his friend. 
Patrick Stewart again:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=218230876125373

Sonnet 33 is part of a set of three poems when the poet has been hurt by a friend. Sonnet 33 is a beautiful sonnet where the poet comes back to comparing his love to the sun, but unlike in Sonnet 18, there is the suggestion that the poet has lost or is losing the love of his youthful friend.

“Full many a glorious morning have I seen 


Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,


Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 


Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; 


Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 


With ugly rack on his celestial face, 


And from the forlorn world his visage hide,


Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:


Even so my sun one early morn did shine 


With all triumphant splendor on my brow; 


But out, alack! he was but one hour mine, 


The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now. 


Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; 


Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.”
Patrick Stewart reads it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs9zPHMd4Xg

The Sonnets – Sonnets 34-77 “ Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day…”

Sonnets 33, 34 and 35 should be read together since they are all about a fracture in the poet's friendship with a friend. If we take the perspective that one of the reasons behind Shakespeare writing sonnets is to play with the sonnet form itself then we can see that it is ironic that he addressing many of the sonnets to a young man since the sonnet form originally would have a man addressing love sentiments to a woman. This playful irony is central to the sonnets as we see throughout the sonnets that Shakespeare plays with metaphors, imagery and the intimacy of the tone of the sonnet form itself:

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,

And make me travel forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,

Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?

'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak

That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;

Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:

The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence's cross.

Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,

And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

Sonnet 34 starts innocuously enough when the poet infers that he is talking to the sun asking why he seemed to promise “such a beauteous day” that when the poet ventured out bad weather emerged. Of course, since in earlier sonnets, the poet refers to his youthful love as the sun, we can guess that the sun represents the youth. This means that when line 4 completes the quatrain and the question with the words “… Hiding thy brav’ry in their rotten smoke?”, the poet is commenting on the way that mist or something clouds the “bravery”, as in forthright or striking appearance, of the youth. This seems to refer to a cloud which also hangs of the relationship between the poet and youth.
Patrick Stewart reads Sonnet 34 here:
https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1252651594962939904

Sonnet 35 uses many metaphors to explore the battle of love and hate inside the poet, presumably for the youth. Patrick Stewart reads it here:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=528953114656523

Sonnet 36 deals with the fact that the poet and the youth cannot be open about their love and relationship. Patrick Stewart again:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=900537193744717

Sonnet 37 shows the pride and good feeling the poet gets from seeing the youth. Patrick Stewart reads:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1363369333848721

Sonnet 38 looks at how a poet tries to capture the nature of his/her subject in verse. In Sonnet 38, the poet talks of the youth as his muse and reveals the nature of inspiration and suggests that the although the pain of creation belongs to the poet, the praise belongs to the muse. 

Patrick Stewart reads Sonnet 38.

https://www.facebook.com/patrickstewart/videos/264578364676370/?v=264578364676370

This contemplation on the relationship between the muse and the poet continues in Sonnet 39.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=530030744361320

Sonnet 40 examines what the nature of giving and taking love is. Sonnet 40 should be read on its own and speak for itself. It is plays with the various meanings of the word “love”:

“Take all my loves, my love; yea, take them all.

What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call.

All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.

Then if for my love thou my love receivest,

I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest.

But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest

By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.

I do forgive thy robb'ry, gentle thief,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

And yet love knows it is a greater grief

To bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.

Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.”

Sonnet 40 with Patrick Stewart

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=188710275456296

In Sonnet 41 we find out that both the poet and the youth have mistresses and the infidelity of the youth seems to disturb the poet.
https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1255319559818657794?lang=en

This becomes more complicated in Sonnet 42 when it is obvious that the poet and the youth are both sleeping with the poet’s mistress. The suggestion is that the youth only wants the poet’s mistress because she is the poet’s. The irony comes in the final couplet when the poet points out his joyful realization that “… my friend and I are one; sweet flat’ry, Then she loves but me alone.” 
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2590860651172906

Sonnets 43, 44 and 45 deal with the more physical elements of the poet, youth’s love and separation. Sonnet 43 is about the powers of sleep, the night and shadows.
https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1256026428396630018?lang=en

Sonnet 44 is about separation using the elements of Earth and Water.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=711810462960768

Sonnet 45 - This examines the elements of Air and Fire and the theme of desire. Sonnet 45 also deals with the emotional shifts and changes in the actual poet himself. 
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=235421754347417

Sonnets 46, 47 and 48 deal with the poet’s contemplation on the way that an eye captures and possesses the subject. 

Sonnet 46

The second quatrain continues the allusion to the sun breaking through the clouds but parallels can also be made to the sense of the youth breaking through the clouds in the relationship to the poet and this allows a reading where “… the rain on my storm-beaten face…” can be taken to also refer to the tears left from the poet crying and the breaking through to dry the tears can be seen as the youth stopping the poet from crying.  This drying of the tears is not accepted well by the poet since it “…heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace.”

 The third quatrain gives the sense that the poet does not accept the shame and repentance of the youth but rather blames the youth. The poet succinctly reveals this in lines 11 and 12 where he states:

The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence's cross.

The final rhyming couplet at the end of the sonnet seems to suggest that the poet, who up to this point has not forgiven his young companion, sees the “tears” shed by the youth as valuable “pearls” which he takes as a rich (which could mean valuable or even obvious) sign of the youth’s love. The poem ends with the poet forgiving the youth and seeing them as just payment or “ransom” for the “ill deeds” which the poet believes the youth has committed. This suggests that either the youth has paid the debt of punishment in tears, or that the poet was trying to exact the “ransom” of tears all along from the youth.

Patrick Stewart reads Sonnet 46:

https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1257486724822859776

Sonnet 47
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=787479605110712

Sonnet 48
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=171297410867563

Sonnet 49 looks at the way that love defies reason.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=230667968263421

In Sonnets 50 and 51, love is explored through the analogy of a journey. Desire and the ebb and flow od love is explored.

Sonnet 50 read by Patrick Stewart still in isolation in the UK on May 9th 2020.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=272718783899332

Sonnet 51

https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1259598488528019456

Sonnet 52 relates love to feasts and special occasions. 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=266636044721003

Sonnet 53 contemplates, comments on and almost mocks the universal nature of beauty.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1111326462566657

Sonnet 54 points to the ability of the poems to immortalize the beauty of the subject and like roses that become more potent in their smell after their death, “… my verse distills your truth.” 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=193548815008652

This theme of verse immortalizing the subject continues in Sonnet 55 and ends with stating that the youth will live on both in the verse and in the eyes of the poet who loves him:

“You live in this and dwell in lover’s eyes.”

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=242845180365135

Sonnet 56 sees the poet trying to console his friend pointing out that if we do enter into melancholy then we should call those times winter in anticipation of “summer’s welcome”. 
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=859035561286187

In Sonnets 57 and 58, we can see the lover’s lot, where the poet compares himself to a slave to his love, watching the clock and waiting on the will of his love. The suggestion here is that the poet also bears or allows his lover to give into his desire with others. 
Here is Sonnet 57 with Patrick Stewart and friend Jonathon Frakes:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=246843406402219

Sonnet 58 examines being a slave to love and Shakespeare's internal battle with having a lover who is flawed. Kevin Dunning does this reading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76EgGXPqsq0

This cycle of contemplation and thought ends with the poet in Sonnet 59 contemplating on the nature of the writing of ages past and the subjects they immortalized in their words and then he thinks on his own love ending with the contemplation that:

“Oh sure I am the wits of former days

To subjects worse have giv’n admiring praise.”

Author Ian Lahey reads it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4aHzhEeHo0

Sonnet 60 explores the way that time passes as it acts upon our lives. The first quatrain, looks at the way that minutes follow one another,

“Like , as the waves make toward the pebbled shore…”

The poet then reflects on how each wave, like each moment in time, takes the place of what came before. The poet or speaker in the second quatrain, compares human life to nature in its relationships, the sun at dawn or birth is “Nativity” and rises over the ocean, “the main of light” and “crawls to maturity” or noon and then ”being crowned” is thwarted by obstacles and by time itself. The poet then moves on in the third quatrain, to transform time into a monster, who “…feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth…” stopping youth forming wrinkles on human’s brows and “…nothing stands but for his scythe to mow…” This sonnet ends with a rhyming couplet where the poet almost stands his own verse in opposition to the ravishes of time itself and says that his verse’s praise of his friend will remain, outlasting time: couplet, the speaker opposes his verse to the ravages of time:

“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 crown'd,

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 nature's 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.”

Patrick Stewart reads it here:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=554581372154633

Sonnet 61, the poet writes about how he stays up late at night waiting and thinking about his friend while his friend is with someone else.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=585657675389883

Sonnet 62 eludes to the narcissistic undertones in writing poetry:

“’Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,

Painting my age with beauty of thy days.”
https://twitter.com/SirPatStew/status/1263301577638633483

Then in Sonnet 63, we see the poet move back to contemplations on what will happen to the youth when he grows old but ending once again with the belief that he will immortalize the youth and his beauty in his poetry. 
Patrick Stewart reads:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdHrfsb7hzg

Here is Sir John Gielgud's 1961 recording of Sonnet 63:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARwhlio9gaY

Shakespeare moves onto his sense that time will eventually take his love from him in Sonnet 64 and in Sonnet 65 to further thoughtful lingering on mortality and time which leads the poet once again to find solace in the thought that:

“That in black ink my love may still shine bright.”
Here from 2014, the actress Victoria Hamilton reads Sonnet 64:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj06hxuJtJs

Here Patrick Stewart reads Sonnet 64 during COVID 19 lockdown on June 30th 2020:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFmW1XhCydM

Sonnet 65 is here read by Sir John Gielgud from 1961:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfq5ZzxEuJw

Here Patrick Stewart reads Sonnet 65 during COVID 19 lockdown on July 2nd 2020:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_gg_gNf0Ss

Sonnet 66 contemplates the injustices of the world and the fact that “simple truth” can be often mistaken for “simplicity”. It is a sonnet that should be read in its entirety:

“Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, 


As, to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, 


And purest faith unhappily forsworn, 


And guilded honour shamefully misplaced,


And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, 


And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,


And strength by limping sway disabled, 


And art made tongue-tied by authority, 


And folly doctor-like controlling skill, 


And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, 


And captive good attending captain ill: 


Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,


Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.”

Here is an interesting version of Sonnet 66 read by the blogger and Vlogger ReadMyLips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzlquQD4X6I

In Sonnet 67, the poet/speaker turns his musings back to the youth and the corruption of the world and beauty. The sense at the end of the poem that Nature herself is storing beauty in the youth is undercut by the sadness in the lament of loss at the end. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmRjgJHtSxs

These contemplations on the youth are continued in Sonnet 68 where the metaphor of a map is used and the poet proclaims that in the youth nature has stored its beauty as a map. 
Here is a video from the Sonnet Project NYC for Sonnet 68:
https://ashortspell.com/in-nspel-thus-is-his-cheek-the-map-of-days-outworn-william-shakespeares-sonnet-68/

The sense that the poet is once more enamored with the youth comes out through the praises he heaps upon his friend in Sonnet 69 but the final couplet suggests that the poet worries that the youth is hanging out with people who are below his station. 
Here Sir John Gielgud reads Sonnet 69:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT2JDotZbgA

This sense continues in Sonnet 70 when the poet reveals that people seem to be slandering the youth but as the poet suggests “…slander’s mark was ever yet the fair…” and the poet suggests that this slander and envy will in fact enrich the reputation of the youth.
Here ReadMyLips reads Sonnet 70:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeVsDxahBIQ

Sonnet 71, although directed towards the youth, sees the poet muse upon how he thinks that when he dies he wants his verse and the youth to be remembered, not “…the hand that writ it…” 
Here is a commentary with some analysis on Sonnet 71.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/shakespeares-sonnet-71-theme-analysis.html

This is taken further when in Sonnet 72, the poet seems to belittle himself and even the worth of what he has produced. Jemma Redgrave reads Sonnet 72 here:

https://vimeo.com/44724253

When we move onto Sonnet 73, we see the poet/speaker use a number of metaphors to reflect on his years and growing age. In the first quatrain, he tells his love that he. The poet is like late autumn, when the leaves have almost fallen from the trees, and the weather has grown cold. Then in the second quatrain, he characterizes his age more as the time after a sunset “As after sunset fadeth in the west…” and “Death’s second self...” The poet compares himself to glowing embers in a fire in the third quatrain – “…the ashes of his youth…” and suggests that he will soon be extinguished and sink into the ashes. The final rhyming couplet, speaks directly to the youth and urges the youth “To love that well which thou must leave ere long.”

Here is Sonnet 73 read by Sir John Gielgud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g1IpAmujwo

Sonnet 74 continues in this morbid and melancholic tone and even asks the youth to see that the greatest worth in the poet lies in the poems he writes. Here is a reading by Octavia Selena Alexandru:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOd8A7TRsfQ

The poet then uses in Sonnet 75 the analogy of food and suggests that the food and lifeblood of his life is the youth. Sonnet 75 is read here by David Tennant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZaYO2pSXxY

In Sonnet 76, the poet/speaker starts with questioning the worth and ornament of his own poetry,

“So is my verse barren of new pride,

So far from variation or quick change…”

The poet then questions why he doesn’t look to new innovative forms and styles and laments the fact that “…every word doth almost tell my name…” and that the youth and “love” seem to dominate his subject matter. The poet ends this sonnet with a beautiful comparison of the daily sun to the poet’s retelling of the youth and love:

“For as the sun is daily new and old,

So is my love still telling what is told.”

Here is a version of Sonnet 76 sung by David Bryan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zET15rvEmfM

I like to think that if Shakespeare’s sonnets are autobiographical, then somewhere around Sonnet 77, he gives his friend an empty notebook for him to write in. Sonnet 77 begins in the first quatrain in a melancholic vein with the speaker/poet telling his youthful friend that a mirror will show the youth how his beauty is holding up, a sundial or watch will tell him how time and the minutes are slipping away. The beautiful imagery of the vacant leaves or pages of an empty notebook will record or carry the imprint of the thoughts of the youth. The poet then reveals in the second quatrain that what will be seen by the youth in a mirror are wrinkles “of mouthed graves” and that the sundial will reveal that time is passing and stealing away to eternity. The third quatrain asks the youth to commit to the pages of the notebook “…what thy memory cannot contain…” and that these thoughts or the children of the youth’s brain will be like a new acquaintance to the youth’s brain. And so, in the final rhyming couplet, Shakespeare advocates that looking in the mirror and looking at time (as represented by the sundial) shall enrich both the life of the youth and what he write in the empty notebook.

“Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,


Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;


The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,


And of this book this learning mayst thou taste.


The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show


Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;


Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know


Time's thievish progress to eternity.


Look, what thy memory can not contain


Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find


Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,


To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.


These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.”

Here is a reading of Sonnet 77 by The Outcast State:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb0Cxs29Ql0

The Sonnets – Sonnets 78-86 “So oft have I invoked thee for my muse…”

Sonnet 78 introduces into Shakespeare’s Sonnets, the ‘character’ or ‘figure’ of the Rival Poet. The Rival Poet could be a fictional ‘character’ or could be a real poet or based on a real poet. The Rival Poet is evident and the central subject of most of Sonnets 78-86. Within the world of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, the Rival Poet is the antagonist, Shakespeare’s nemesis who is his rival for fame, wealth, patronage and the artistic affections of the Fair Youth. In Sonnet 78, he refers to the Rival Poet in very general terms as one of what is assumed to be many alien pens.

Sonnet 78

“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 learnèd’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 gracèd be;

But thou art all my art, and dost advance

As high as learning my rude ignorance.”

In this sonnet, the poet is addressing the ‘fair youth’ who is the subject of most of the previous sonnets. In the first quatrain, the poet begins by reflecting on the fact that the youth has so often been the “muse” or inspiration for his poetry but that now that has meant that many other poets or “every alien pen” is trying to “…under thee their poesy disperse.” In this line the poet suggests that the other poets are both dedicating their poetry to the young man and trying to present or put their poetry to the Fair Youth. The poet is slightly derogatory towards the poetry of the ‘alien pens’ because he refers to their verse as “poesy”. The second quatrain moves on to praise the poet’s subject in hyperbolic terms claiming that the youth’s eyes have taught the dumb to sing high musical notes and lifted “heavy ignorance aloft to fly” and even helped learned people to achieve more through adding “feathers to the learned’s wing” and made the graceful, well, more graceful. In the third quatrain, the poet urges the youth to be most proud of the verse which the poet himself compiles since the youth himself is the influence and inspiration for this poet’s verse whereas other poet’s have their ordinary verse’s style and art made better or “mended” by the youth’s “sweet graces”. The sonnet ends with a rhyming couplet with the poet putting himself down claiming he is ignorant and has no skill at all but is lifted up “As high as learning my rude ignorance” by the inspiration of the youth himself.

Here is a reading of Sonnet 78 done for Sonnet Project NYC in 2018. This one was done in Newark, NJ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgn7PYkNfqI

In Sonnet 79, the poet gets more specific and refers to one other poet who has obviously caught the eye and the fancy of the Fair Youth who has been his own muse for so long. But the poet questions the merits of his rivals poetry or puts down his Rival Poet stating that the Rival Poet “robs” the youth of his own beauty which he puts into his verse to give back to the youth himself. The poet ends by asking the youth to:

“Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
   

Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.”

Here is Sonnet 79 done as part of the Sonnet Project NYC.

https://youtu.be/RfteGcTe2FI

Sonnet 80 continues the poet’s “putting down” of his rival by portraying himself as a small boat sailing in the shallows while portraying his rival as a large galleon sailing on the open sea. Sexual innuendo in the sonnet suggests mockery of the Rival Poet.

Here is Sonnet 80 done by patrick Stewart on his 80th birthday done on July 13th 2020. https://twitter.com/SirPatStew/status/1282494876752531458

Here is Sonnet 80 read by Elizabeth Klett with a cello accompanied by Bach's Cello Suite No. 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbnbjAnk7DI&vl=en 

In Sonnet 81, the poet momentarily forgets about his rival and returns to the tactic used in Sonnets 49, 63 and 77 of contemplating how his verse will immortalize the ‘fair youth’:

“Or I shall live your epitaph to make,


Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,


From hence your memory death cannot take,


Although in me each part will be forgotten.


Your name from hence immortal life shall have,


Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:


The earth can yield me but a common grave,


When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.


Your monument shall be my gentle verse,


Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;


And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,


When all the breathers of this world are dead;
   

You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen,
   

Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.”

Here is Sonnet 81 performed by Andrew Joshi of the Jermyn Street Theatre. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5hT9WgW01s 

Here is Sir Ian McKellan reading Sonnet 81 in COVID 19 isolation in 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws7MDDhF_3Y&list=PLLLiEya-Q4RQdTJb97i8gU6MXHZs_HUlB&index=62&t=0s

Sonnet 82 returns to address the Rival Poet or even rival poets and the poet tells the youth that he is being misled by them and allowing himself to give into mere flattery. The comparison is drawn to painting. The poet suggests that the youth is so fair that he is better rendered by the poet’s own “true plain words”. 

Here is Lori Nicholson reading Sonnet 82 as part of the the Jermyn Street Theatre Sonnet Project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptiz07olQrg

The allegory of painting is again used by the poet in Sonnet 83 when he suggests that the youth does not need “painting” or flattery since:

“There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
   

Than both your poets can in praise devise.”

Here is Sonnet 83 filmed for the Sonnet Project NYC. This one is done in Texas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAl0to9btZQ

Then in Sonnet 84, we see the ground of the argument against the Rival Poet shift slightly in what is a rich and sometimes obscure poem. This sonnet ultimately expresses the sentiment that all poetry is just an empty shell in trying to represent reality but that the Rival Poet’s poetry is particularly worthless and empty because it seeks to deceive and flatter.

Here is Sonnet 84 performed by Chirag Benedict Lobo as part of the Jermyn Street Theatre Sonnet Project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuSXZ9iVZn0

Sonnet 85 is almost an existential poem which would not be out of place in a Samuel Beckitt play since the poet states, “I can say nothing…” yet continues to write and claiming his higher thoughts cannot be expressed in words and what he can express is that the words of other poets are superficial and without meaning. Here is a video of Sonnet 85 performed by Alice Bailey Johnson as part of the Jermyn Street Theatre Project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BPmryggQIU

Sonnet 86 is the last sonnet that directly deals with the Rival Poet. The poet uses questions directly addressed to his subject the Fair Youth to question why the Rival Poet has attracted the attention and affection of the youth. The imagery of sailing is again employed and the Rival Poet is compared to a fleet or armada of galleons in full sail. The poet then derides the Rival Poet suggesting that he uses supernatural forces (this and the other descriptions seem to suggest that the Rival Poet is George Chapman) and while the poet himself suggests the Rival Poet’s verse is superior to his, the magnificence of the imagery, sentiment and poetic devices in this sonnet along with the self-depreciating tone of this sonnet serves to make the poet/speaker ultimately shine bright and immortalize Shakespeare above the obscure pitch of his poetic rival:

“Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,


Bound for the prize of all too precious you,


That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,


Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?


Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write


Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

No, neither he, nor his compeers by night


Giving him aid, my verse astonished.


He, nor that affable familiar ghost


Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,


As victors of my silence cannot boast;


I was not sick of any fear from thence:
  

But when your countenance filled up his line,
   

Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.”

Here is an analysis and reading of Sonnet 86 from Linda Sue Grimes on Owlocation:

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Shakespeare-Sonnet-86-Was-it-the-proud-full-sail-of-his-great-verse

The Sonnets – Sonnets 87-103 “In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.”

Sonnet 87

“Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou know’st my estimate.

The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thyself, thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me, to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking;

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgement making.

Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:

In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.”

Here we see what seems to be the poet accepting that the Fair Youth has rejected him perhaps in favour of the Rival Poet. The finality of the first word of the poem “Farewell”, is striking and perhaps ironic. The framing of the end of the relationship in vaguely legal and financial terms give a sense of the contract between the poet and the Fair Youth to whom he had addressed nearly all of the previous sonnets. Interestingly, the poet does not find shortcomings or deficiencies in the Fair Youth (who is both the subject and the receiver of the sonnets) but sees that rejection lies in his deficiencies in his “gift” as a poet. Yet, this self-deprecation seems to almost flip the blame since we see the poet as “gifted” in verse, we assume that the Fair Youth does not appreciate the “gift” and sentiment of the poet and has misjudged or underestimated the poet’s “gift”. We see that the poet is betrayed and thus irony lurks beneath the final rhyming couplet:  

“Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:

In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.”

Here is a great video from the website OurDailySonnet:

https://shakespeare-navigators.com/sonnets/Shakespeare_Sonnet_87.html

Sonnet 88 is like an afterthought or a P.S. if this was a letter. This sonnet looks toward the future and the poet says that even when the Fair Youth puts the “merit” of the poet in the “eye of scorn” that the poet will defend the youth and “prove thee virtuous”. The poet even suggests in the end that he will help the Youth to get all that he deserves even if it involves the poet taking all scorn, blame and wrongs upon himself. Here is a video of Sonnet 88 done by Louise Crawford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC1UCVx8Xpg

This self-blame and self-accusation continues in Sonnet 89 with the poet giving in to any accusation that may be put on him. The poet acknowledges that love will probably turn to hate and ends by claiming that he will eventually hate himself and battle against himself since the poet “… must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.” Here is a video of Sonnet 89 from Shakespeare Shorts 2012 Festival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORstLQFYoPc

The self-blame continues in Sonnet 90 but the sonnet has a vague sense that the breakup or separation between the Fair Youth and the Poet has not happened yet. Here is Sonnet 90 performed by Joey Richards in 2018 as part of the Shakespeare by the Lakes 'Sounds of Shakespeare' project in 2018. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1761044614199902

Sonnet 91, the poet returns to love and muses how as a poet, he is more blessed by having love than having high birth or glory or riches. Here is a video from The Sonnet project NYC. It is sub-titled Literary Walk and is performed by Tim Ruddy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu1vDqhTn8s

In Sonnet 92, the poet reflects on his predicament with the youth that he is, “Happy to have thy love, happy to die!” Here Annette Badland reads Sonnet 92. https://vimeo.com/44729429

Sonnet 93 addresses a question that is central to many of Shakespeare’s plays and characters “How can a person be different from what their outward appearance shows?” Hamlet, Lady Macbeth. Macbeth, Othello and Iago all state or face this question. The sonnet ends by suggesting that the youth may, like the apple of Eve, not be as sweet and virtuous as he seems. Here is a lovely reading of Sonnet 93. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJbcOD1mqyA

Sonnet 94 seems to build on the themes and ideas explored in Sonnets 90-93 of the Fair Youth forsaking the Poet. The Poet seems to have some hopes but suggests that his optimism may not be well-placed. Here is actor Leon Russom talking about what Shakespeare means to him and then he recites Sonnet 94: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vm5qsdjQ3Y

Sonnet 95 builds on this and even criticizes the youth and ends with a warning for the youth wrapped up in the final line, “The hardest knife ill used doth lose its edge.”  Here is Sonnet 95 performed by Paula Brett. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndPhubXWs1M

This sense of betrayal and blame continues in Sonnet 96 (which exists in Sonnets 91 through to Sonnet 96) where the poet criticizes the youth warning him not to abuse his beauty as his reputation would be tarnished. The criticism is gentler in this poem. The final line suggests that the link between the Poet and the Fair Youth and their reputations. Here is Sonnet 96 performed by Sam Alexandar. https://vimeo.com/44730179

Sonnets 97 and 98 deal with a time of separation between the Poet and the Fair Youth. Nature and the seasons are used as a metaphor for both the relationship and the emotional state of the poet. The rich imagery reinforces the emotional changes in Sonnet 97 which then hark back to the power of the youth as the poet’s muse in Sonnet 98. Guy Paul reads Sonnet 97 here as part of the 2014 South Bank Festival of Love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUc70Z7mZ-E

Here ReadMyLips does Sonnet 98: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoLorWJeNwQ

Sonnet 99 is the only one of Shakespeare’s 154 Sonnets which has 15 lines. One theory is that this is a draft of Sonnet 99 and that any final 14 line version is lost in time. Another theory is that Shakespeare has put a few simple codes in this poem to give a hint of the date. This sonnet has 15 lines and is numbered Sonnet 99 so some people contend that this sonnet was written in 1599. In Sonnet 99, the poet starts by accusing the “forward violet” of stealing its sweet scent from the breath of the poet’s Fair Youth. In fact, the poem centres on the theme of theft and accuses the violet, the purple pride, the lily, the marjoram and even the rose of stealing scent, colour, beauty and even essence from the poet’s love. A sense of forboding comes near the end of the poem when the poet mentions a worm or “vengeful canker” that eats up a rose. The following website has a reading of Sonnet 99, information and a slam poetry response by English woman Kate Tempest entitled 'My Shakespeare: https://poetryace.com/sonnet-99

Sonnets 100, 101, 102 and 103, the Poet offers excuses for being absent or silent in writing about and praising the Fair Youth. He asks that his pen be given both “skill and argument” so that his verse may give his love “… fame faster than time wastes life…” Here is Sian Phillips reading Sonnet 100: https://vimeo.com/44730889

In Sonnet 101, The Poet directly addresses his muse and eventually asks his muse to do its job or “office”. Here is Ammar Duffus doing Sonnet 101. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liGKGcm2Hus

While in Sonnet 102, the Poet says that even though he has not “sung” or written more about the Fair Youth, it doesn’t mean that his love has diminished. Christine Williamson does Sonnet 102 here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5DWftR9uHU

In Sonnet 103, the Poet again demeans himself and his skills as a poet to praise his love. The final rhyming couplet is ironic its suggests that the youth’s mirror will show him more than the poet’s verse will:

“And more, much more than in my verse can sit

Your own glass shows you , when you look in it.”

Kim Cattrall reads Sonnet 103 here:

https://vimeo.com/44730891

The Sonnets – Sonnets 104-126 “To me, fair friend, you never can be old...”

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 turned

In process of the seasons have I seen;

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,

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.”

In Sonnet 104, the poet addresses his “beautiful friend” claiming that his friend’s beauty has not changed for him since he first met him three years before. But in the final lines of the sonnet, the poet forewarns his friend that, beauty, like the “dial hand” of a clock, easily creeps forward and that the poet may “be deceived” but that future generations should know that before they were born, the most bright beauty (the Fair Youth) was already dead. Here is Sonnet 104 read by David Shaw-Parker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebVI-vHCado

The poet seems, in Sonnet 105, to be defending himself against an accusation of his love being merely idol worship and claims his love is holy – a trinity of beauty, goodness and truth. Here is Sonnet 105 performed by Sebastian Arcelus in isolation in March 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ9ALGsy4ak

This moves on in Sonnet 106 to the poet realizing that the same sought of beauty he sees and describes in the Fair Youth is like the beauty described by “antique” pens. Here is Sonnet 106 recited by a brother and sister. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLi4fBSuoCI

Sonnet 107 suggests that the Poet’s love was in either a real or a metaphoric prison. Here is Diana Quick performing Sonnet 107. https://vimeo.com/44731375

In Sonnet 108, the Poet asks what else there is for him to write about, “What’s in the brain, that ink may character…?” and eventually decides to write about the original source of his love for the Fair Youth that he still sees in his love. 108 should sometimes seen to be aligned with Sonnet 126 and be group with the 'marriage sonnets' (Sonnets 1-17). Read in sequence but also read after Sonnet 17 and then read with Sonnet 126 and you will see what I mean. Here is a video a jazz version of Sonnet 108 sung and put to music by Caroll Vanwelden. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lw4F37Tp78

Sonnet 109 sees the Poet mentioning being false to his friend and probably sleeping with another. He ends with telling his friend that despite this, his love means everything to him. Here Sonnet 109 is performed by Michael Gaston. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn5Ahz7uGdE

In Sonnet 110, the poet regrets that he has demeaned himself and looked elsewhere for affection and treated true love with such disdain but in the end of the sonnet asks to be welcomed back by his true love. Here Michael Pennington recites Sonnet 110. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMHLPlwVc7M

Sonnets 111 and 112, see the poet asking for forgiveness from his friend for the way that he conducts himself and his trade in public and says that receiving the pity of his love is enough to cure him and make him neglect what others and the rest of the world thinks. Sonnet 111 is performed here by Leah Balmforth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRFQgmGz1tw

Sonnet 112 is performed here in French. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4EZTIWvCGw

In Sonnet 113, the Poet states that since he left his love, he has become self-absorbed and distracted such that he sees his lover's form in everything. Here is a reading and animation by Rocknthasuburbs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxLbJIgzXRk

Here Sonnet 114 continues this reflection and wonders whether he, flattered by his love, has been seeing things for what they really are. Ruth Neggar reads Sonnet 114 here: https://vimeo.com/44793683

Then in Sonnet 115, the Poet realizes that his love for his fair friend is still growing. Let's go back to John Gielgud reading Sonnet 115 since he does it so well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyNrwSUmSPY

Sonnet 116 is a magnificent sonnet that is often considered the one of the most beautiful love poems. It portrays love as immovable, unshakable and unalterable:

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.

Here is a BBC version of Sonnet 116. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNGdrPPeIDM

Sonnet 117 questions the nature and constancy of love. Here Pop Hadyn reads Sonnet 117. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6UGaj59hGs

Sonnet 118 looks at love as a sickness. Here is Sonnet 118 done as part of the NY Sonnet Project. This version is filmed in Bartow-Pell Mansion Gardens, The Bronx and is directed by Zhenjie Dong and it performed by Josh Jeffers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=56&v=HeoYJZQdOqI&feature=emb_title

Here Janet Suzman reads Sonnet 118. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5ywKUhTHEY

This imagery continues in Sonnet 119 but claims that “ruined love” when it is rebuilt is even stronger than love that has never been questioned. Here is Sonnet 119 read by Don Paterson. https://vimeo.com/44793689

In Sonnet 120, the Poet seems to blame the Fair Youth for his indiscretions and ends with expressing the viewpoint that one lovers indiscretions cancel out the infidelities of the other lover. Here is a Sonnet Project NY Shakespeare version filmed at the Tortoise and Hare Bench in The Bronx. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=165&v=vR_IGHanP6E&feature=emb_logo

Sonnet 121 looks at not judging people by their actions no matter how vile they be. Here is a video from the 'This Week in Shakespeare' series of Sonnet 121. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A_AZNUdDdY

In Sonnet 122, the Poet says that he would rather trust his memories of his love. Kate Fleetwood does a reading here of Sonnet 122. https://vimeo.com/44734505

In Sonnet 123, the Poet blames Time for much but the Poet still claims that he will remain true despite time. Here is Sonnet 123 read by Dana Andreea Nigrim. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyrOO_oCXr4

In Sonnet 124 the Poet contemplates that even if circumstances have what have made him love the youth, that his love has and will grow. Here is Sonnet 124 done as video with The Sonnet Project NYC on Ellis Island NY. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z94zENCB0bo&feature=emb_logo

Sonnet 125 extends the reflection on the relationship explored in Sonnet 124 and other poems. The poet claims that he is faithful to his friend. Here is Sonnet 125 done as video with The Sonnet Project NYC filmed on Pomander Walk in Manhattan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9EN__jZlnE&feature=emb_logo

Sonnet 126 sees the Poet contemplating again about the youth growing older and how the youth seems to grow more beautiful with age and that Time seems to hold the youth back decay. But ends with the sense that even Time will ask her debts to be repayed.

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power


Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;


Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st


Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow'st;


If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,


As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,


She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill


May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.


Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!


She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
   

Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be,
   

And her quietus is to render thee.

Here is David Tennant reading Sonnet 126: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YAZy1Y8Hxw

The Sonnets – Sonnets 127-154 “In the old age black was not counted fair...”

Sonnet 127

“In the old age black was not counted fair,


Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;


But now is black beauty's successive heir,


And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:


For since each hand hath put on Nature's power, 


Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face,


Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,


But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.


Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,


Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem


At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,


Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:


Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,


That every tongue says beauty should look so.

In Sonnet 127, we are introduced to the Dark Lady. The tone of many of the sonnets changes from the light reflective love poems to an exploration of the nature of passion. The poet starts revealing that his new‘beauty’ is fair and she is black. He then derides the ‘borrowed face’ of those women who paint their faces. Women who wore makeup is consistently criticized by Shakespeare. The central idea of this sonnet seems to be that because his mistress is black and black is the beautiful colour of mourning and mourning has become fashionable then dark beauties like his mistress are now the most beautiful and “…every tongue says beauty should look so.”

Here is Sonnet 127 Read by Dan Hakimi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFo0arFna-4

There are parallels in Sonnet 128 to Romeo's sonnet in 'Romeo and Juliet' where, at a ball, he pleads for a first kiss from Juliet. This poem takes place in public at a musical celebration. The lady seems to be playing an instrument and poet longs to kiss her and he envies the keys that she is playing on her instrument. Here is a musical version of Sonnet 128, performed in 2012 on the Andrew Marr television show for the BBC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDd8FGCSfIU

Sonnet 129

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action; and till action, lust

Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,

Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight,

Past reason hunted, and no sooner had

Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait

On purpose laid to make the taker mad;

Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;

A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

This is an amazingly complex sonnet which, because it appears straight after the appearance of the Dark Mistress, we assume to be about the Poet’s relationship with the dark mistress. Dealing with sexual desire, this poem begins with the speaker contending that: “The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action...” yet lust is describe as existing before the act of sex as shown in “till action”. The first quatrain slanders lust further as“…perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame / Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust.”

The second quatrain is more reflective stating that no sooner is lust “enjoyed” than it is “despised.” The desire of lust is framed as being “past reason hunted”; but the act of lustful sex is then considered ‘past reason hated” as it is compared to a poisoned bait in the simile “as swallowed bait”. The third quatrain moves onto contending that lust is mad in all of its three forms or stages: its pursuit, its possession or consummation and in its memory. The poet states that although the act of lust is “a bliss in proof”, lust being had or “proved” then becomes for the lustful “a very woe”. In memory, lustful once acted upon becomes merely “a dream”. In he final rhyming couplet, the speaker/poet states that while what he has spoken about is well known, people will still give into lust and no-one knows all this well enough “To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.”

Here is Maureen Beattie reading Sonnet 129:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Nvz-p4cm_g

Sonnet 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 damask’d, 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.

It is possible that most of the sonnets of Shakespeare are not autobiographical but primarily poetic explorations of the sonnet form or Shakspeare playing with the Petrachian sonnet form. Sonnet 130 plays so much with the notions and conventions of love poetry that in fact this sonnet can be seen as an argument for the fact that perhaps all of Shakespeare’s sonnets are mocking the sonnet form and playing notions of love poetry in general.

The structure and rhetoric of Sonnet 130 is crucial to its mockery of love poetry with the first quatrain seeing the poet comparing his mistress with one line comparisons of his mistress to the sun, coral, snow and wires but undermining all these comparisons. This picks up pace in the third and fourth quatrains where comparisons continue to use conditionals but take two lines pairings expanding the irony of the comparison of the mistress’ features. The poet conditionally compares his mistress’ cheeks to roses but states that  but starting that she has no roses in her cheeks, his mistress’ breath is unlike perfume because it reeks, her voice is not musical or pleasing in its tone, and his mistress does not walk like a s but definitely “treads on the ground”. This unflattering portrait builds in argument until the rhyming couplet which neatly renders the rest of the sonnet void when the poet states that he thinks his love “…as rare as any she belied with false compare.”

Here is Sonnet 130 read by Alan Rickman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Ja0Paz04s

Sonnet 131 "Thou art as tyrannous..." continues to state that the poet’s mistress does not have the traditional attributes we associate with beauty but that she has other virtues and suggests that there is nothing dark or non-virtuous about his mistress except her deeds. Then Sonnet 132 takes up again the parallels between black and mourning and beauty. The sonnet ends with a lover’s pledge that if the mistress takes pity upon the poet, that he will “…swear beauty itself black...". Here is Sonnet 131 read with a backing of the H. Villa-Lobos' guitar piece Study No.1 for Classical Guitar. The narrated reading is done by Harry Verey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzDULD0w1Z8

Sonnet 132 takes up again the parallels between black and mourning and beauty. The sonnet ends with a lover’s pledge that if the mistress takes pity upon the poet, that he will “…swear beauty itself black...". here is Dominic West reading Sonnet 132. https://vimeo.com/44736432

Sonnet 133 addresses both the poet's relationship with his young male friend and with his mistress. The sonnet suggests that the poet's heart belongs to his friend but everything he is and has belongs to the dark lady. Here is Sonnet 133 read by GDanae. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo1W6iTd4B0

Sonnet 134 is a continuation of Sonnet 133 and muses on the situation that the poet and his friend themselves in when entangled in a relationship with the Dark Lady. Here is a video as part of the NYC Shakespeare Project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGvGPo8CZ3w

In Sonnet 135, the poet makes appeals to the dark mistress after having rejected her. The poem is one of two counted as 'Will' sonnets since the word "will" is mentioned and played with. The poet pledges himself to the dark mistress and asks her through the graciousness of her will to accept him back. He compares her to an ocean and accepts that he cannot be her exclusive lover. The last line, while ambiguous, is a plea to have the Dark Lady "Let no unkind kill no fair beseechers." Here is Simon Russell Beale reading Sonnet 135: https://vimeo.com/4473643

Sonnet 136 is another "Will" poem and between Sonnet 135 and 136, the word "will" is used in three ways. First as a name. refering mostly to the poet himself but it can also be seen to allude to another Will (possibly William Lanier whose wife Emilia lanier might be the Dark Lady). Secondly, "will" is meant to be ones's wishes. The third meaning is "will" as sexual desire. Here is actor Kenny Scott with the Shotgun Players reading Sonnet 136: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYf-GbJHiaI

Sonnet 137 looks at the nature of love and how sight as a sense both enriches love and distorts it. Here is it read by Sir John Gielgud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSdJcXpQB1E

 

Sonnet 138 is both a reflection and psychological examination of the poet's  mistress. It is a bit misogynistic and the poet muses on the lying nature of his mistress. The word 'lie' is used with multiple meanings that give irony. The poet does coceed that he also is deceptive. It is a beautiful sonnet. David Shaw Parker reads it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MmyVMFHk88

Sonnet 139 has the poet blaming his lover for infidelities and the beauty that initially drew him into love. Here is a video with Bu Kunene reading Sonnet 139: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbCjLiTUC9E

Sonnet 140 has the poet threaten to reveal the lover as not chaste or fair. There is an element of revenge in the poem yet the poem succeeds in capturing the emotions and experience of love where real pain and despair exist in heightened emotional states. Here it is done in Shakespeare by the Lakes collection as performed by Lexi Sukuless. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1744759425828421

Sonnet 141 shows that the poet's relationship with the dark lady is more about infatuation and sensual desire than deep understanding. Here is a video of Sonnet 141 performed as a song in jazz style by Zhang Lee and Burnett Thompson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ognO0KMbgco

In Sonnet 142, we see the poet accept the dark lady's rejection of his love for her because it is sinful and unworthy. The poet however believes that he deserves her pity since she also has been lustful and sinful in her love for others. Here is a video of Sonnet 142 performed by Rory Grant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uhv5OHPIrY

What a strange sonnet Sonnet 143 is. The poet uses a simile of a housewife chasing chickens and leaving her baby to address the errant ways of his mistress. The poet compares himself to the neglected baby. This is a 'Will' poem since the poet uses his own name when he urges the mistress: 

"But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,

And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;
   So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'
   If thou turn back and my loud crying still."

Here is a video of Sonnet 143 done by Bruce Alexander. https://vimeo.com/44738730

Sonnet 144 is unusual since it is the only sonnet where the poet refers to both the Dark Lady and the young man - the poet's "two loves". The poem is written with an air of detachment. Here is a video with Niamh McGrady reading Sonnet 144:  https://vimeo.com/44738731

Sonnet 145 is a sequel to Sonnet 144. It trivialises love ans sees the Dark Lady pitying the poet and the poet :languishes for her sake" as her hatred turns to mercy. Here the sonnet is done once again as part of The Sonnet Project NYC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwLrpmf7-z

Sonnet 146

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

these rebel powers that thee array;

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?

Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end?

Then soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,

And let that pine to aggravate thy store;

Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more:

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.

One of the most interesting of the later sonnets is Sonnet 146. The poet does not address the poem to the Fair Youth nor to the Dark Lady but to his own soul and starts by the poet asking his “Poor soul” why it puts up with his body or “sinful earth” and why his soul tolerates the vanity of his body. He asks why at such a large cost to the soul, the soul allows the body “spend” and “cost” the soul. The poet asks “Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge?” The third quatrain sees the poet asks the soul (and himself) to:

“Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more…”

The final rhyming couplet sees the poet tell his soul that once it has feed on death, it will live eternally. 

“So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.”

Here is a video of Sonnet 146 done in the New Shakespeare Songbook done as pop music videoclip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2mH9ycO6K8

Sonnet 147 

Sonnet 147 explores the Poet's internal battle between his heart and head. He sees his love for his mistress as a fever. He ultimately blames his mistress for his internal battle at the end of the poem. Here John Hurt reads Sonnet 147. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOsNQ--0xV8

Sonnet 148 continues on from Sonnet 147 and the poet admits that his his eyes deceive him, his judgement is blind and reason has left him. The poem ends with the poet claiming that tears have prevented him from seeing either the "foul faults" of love or of the one he loves. Here is an interesting interpretation of the sonnet done with the character of Titania from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL7uCKidpjM

Sonnet 149 is another Dark Lady sonnet yet what is slightly unusual about this sonnet is that the poet echoes the sentiment in his earlier sonnets where he contrasts pure love with the tainted love he has found with his mistress. The poem ends with his framing his love in terms of blindness and thus accepting his mistress' rejection of him. Nonso Anozie reads it here: https://vimeo.com/44739705

In Sonnet 150, the poet adopts a more rational tone and attempts to figure out why he can't break himself from the grasp of the Dark Lady. He thinks about the power she has over him and asks himself what flaws in his own disposition make him susceptible. In the end he realises that the sexual freedom and promiscuity of the lady is what he loves the most. Here is a video with Henry Woudhuysen reading the sonnet. https://vimeo.com/44740073

Sonnet 151 sees the poet give into lust even though the poet believes that this is degrading. Sexual suggestiveness is evident in this sonnet. Here The Sonnet Project NYC shows the sonnet performed at Coney Island. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ7HjFC8zS8&feature=emb_logo

Sonnet 152 shows the end of the relationship between the poet and the dark lady. The is filled with self-pity and claims his mistress has forsaken her oaths of love. Of particular interest is the use of the imagery and double meaning of the word 'I'.  Here The Sonnet Project NYC shows the sonnet in The Bronx.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=LiWy6N3tlI4&feature=emb_logo

Sonnet 153 is paired with Sonnet 154 Shakespeare’s final sonnet . Both are based on the 5^th century poetry of the Greek poetry of Marcianus Scholasticus. It shows Cupid, the bringer of love being caught napping by a nymph and she attempts to drown his fire of love in a fountain. The poet tries to cure his own love sickness but discovers that the only cure is in his mistress' eye. Here is The Sonnet Project NYC version of it filmed at the WTC site. https://vimeo.com/296029892

Sonnet 154 is the final sonnet. The sonnet uses the image of the sleeping Cupid and tells the story of the sleeping Cupid who puts down his love torch and one of Diana’s nymphs who had taken a vow of chastity picks up the love torch and comes under the power of the torch and tries to put out the love torch in a cool pring but the heat of the love torch makes the spring itself turn into a hot bath. This then becomes a healing bath to diseased men. The poet then says that when he visited the water to be cured of the love of his mistress, he found that, “Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.”

The little Love-god lying once asleep,


Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,


Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep

Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand

The fairest votary took up that fire

Which many legions of true hearts had warmed

And so the General of hot desire

Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed.

This brand she quenched in a cool well by

Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,

Growing a bath and healthful remedy

For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,  

Came there for cure and this by that I prove,

Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

Fiona Shaw reads it here: https://vimeo.com/44740083