Monday, April 12, 2004

First is another Shakespeare Sonnet with commentary from Pablo.

One of the "Dark Lady" sonnets, which are about an infatuation with a woman who is alluring but not conventionally beautiful. A satire disavowing the conventional hyperboles of sonneteering (which the poet nonetheless indulges in elsewhere). See Sonnet 21 for another such satire.

To understand the last line, read "she" as a noun meaning "a female," so that "any she" is the object of "belied."

More commentary on this sonnet.

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.

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