Shakespeare Sonnet 10, Notes

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

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[1] For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any,

[2] Who for thyself art so unprovident.

[3] Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,

[4] But that thou none lov’st is most evident.

[5] For thou art so possessed with murd’rous hate

[6] That ’gainst thyself thou stick’st not to conspire,

[7] Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

[8] Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

[9] O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind.

[10] Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?

[11] Be as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

[12] Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove.

[13] Make thee another self for love of me,

[14] That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

Introduction:

This sonnet continues with the theme of the prior sonnets: a direct encouragement to marry and have children. As Benedick will say at the end of Much Ado About Nothing, “Prince, thou art sad. Get thee a wife, get thee a wife.”

The effect of these many sonnets seems to be the sort of work done by a composer who produces many “variations on a theme”. While it could be that Shakespeare really had some profound personal concern which drove these poems, they are much too clever. A series of poems working over a similar theme with both variety and continuity would be a bit of showing off by a young poet. I know others have their elaborate theories, but this theory at least runs true to life: young man wants to make a name for himself. That does not mean that there was no an actual recipient of the poems, only this extended theme looks like artistry. Other sonnets seem far more personal and autobiographical. But that is a question which cannot be answered.

Here the sonnet makes the argument in terms of love: You are loved by many; but you love none in return. In fact, you are filled with hate, both toward yourself and to others – because you don’t care what happens to yourself.

This really is not as much of a stretch as it might seem. A man who commits suicide when faced with financial ruin who leaves behind his wife and children acts in a way that does not care for his family. His self-directed concerns overweigh his duty and love to family. The way the event is experienced by others is as a kind of hate toward them: you don’t care what happens to us.

And so, Shakespeare pleads with the object of the poem: put aside your hatred for yourself and others; rather show love – at least toward me: marry and have a child.

First Stanza

[1] For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any,

[2] Who for thyself art so unprovident.

[3] Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,

[4] But that thou none lov’st is most evident.

“For shame”: Because of shame. Example. The Geneva Bible notes for Psalm 44:15 (“All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face”) read, “I dare not lift up mine head for shame.” Or Titus Adronicus, “Ah, now thou turn’st away thy face for shame.” But here it seems the tone seems more defiant, “I dare you to deny.” Shame, because you should love others.

The thought of lines 1-2, “You plainly don’t love others, because you are wasting yourself.” You are unprovident.

You are loved my many – you must admit that. But you don’t love anyone in return.

Most evident: beyond question. It’s obvious.

Second Stanza

[5] For thou art so possessed with murd’rous hate

[6] That ’gainst thyself thou stick’st not to conspire,

[7] Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

[8] Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

This is an interesting image: Your refusal to have an heir is “murd’rous hate”. It hate so extraordinary that is directed against yourself.

Thou stick’st not: you don’t hestitate

To conspire: with yourself to kill yourself.

You should be desiring to repair – reproduce – but you are bent on destroying: because death will destroy you. It is a “roof” perhaps because a family line is a “house”.

Third Stanza

[9] O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind.

[10] Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?

[11] Be as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

[12] Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove.

Line 9 is a very Shakespearean dual use of a single word: change. It is a clever line, but it is perhaps out of place in this stanza. The rest of the stanza takes a related but different emphasis: Your conduct in this respect should be as loving and gracious as it is otherwise.

“Fairer lodged”: better cared for as guest. Why do you provide more care for hatred than love?

And if you don’t care for others, at least care for yourself.

Couplet

[13] Make thee another self for love of me,

[14] That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

The poem ends with a final plea: If you can’t be persuaded to action for others; and if you don’t care what happens to yourself; at least you should act for me.

The last line also contains a misstep: That beauty still may live in thine: That is, that your beauty will continue in your progeny: “thine”, thy children. This concludes the argument of the poem.

But the final phrase “or thee” – needed for the rhyme — is contradicted by the thrust of the poem. It is precisely because beauty will not live “in thee” that Shakespeare is pleading with him to marry.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 8 Notes

17 Tuesday Sep 2019

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Detail of “The Musicians” (about 1595) by Caravaggio

[1] Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?

[2] Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

[3] Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,

[4] Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?

[5] If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,

[6] By unions married, do offend thine ear,

[7] They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

[8] In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.

[9] Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

[10] Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,

[11] Resembling sire and child and happy mother

[12] Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing;

[13] Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

[14] Sings this to thee: “Thou single wilt prove none.”

This sonnet continues the refrain, that it would be wrong to refrain from marriage and a child. Here, the overarching metaphor is the harmony of music. The object of the poem is hearing music, which should bring him pleasure; but the beautiful music is also unsettling him. Why? Because the music is a harmony of parts, a “marriage”, where one sound stands relation to the other sounds, like a husband and wife, like a father, mother and child. But the object, being single, cannot enjoy the harmony.

First Stanza

[1] Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?

[2] Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

[3] Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,

[4] Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?

The first two lines begin with an accented syllable:

MUSic to HEAR

SWEETS with SWEETS

The effect is to quickly demand the attention. It poses a question: Why does music sound unhappy to you? That does not make sense

Sweets with sweets war not – there is no discord in two sweet sounds.

Joy delights in joy.

Why is this music troubling you? Shakespeare is here mixing the themes of music and love. There is a missing pleasure in your hearing of this music.

Shakespeare will pick up this idea and develop as the introductory lines to the Twelfth Night:

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.

There is the same receiving of music, and yet the troubled receiving. The Duke’s love both craves and is cannot bear the musick.

Second Stanza:

[5] If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,

[6] By unions married, do offend thine ear,

[7] They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

[8] In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.

If there is a trouble in hearing the music, then the fault is not in the music, but in you who hear the music. The music is “true concord” and “well-tuned sounds”. There is no fault described in the sound. But there is a fault somewhere, because sounds, “do offend thine ear”.

In the beginning of line 6, Shakespeare puns on the word “married” to introduce a new theme in this discussion of music and the pleasure in hearing music. The “true concord” of harmony is here said to be “unions married”.

The reason for the displeasure in the music is not in the music, but that the concord of the music “sweetly chide thee”. Why? Because being single, the harmony of parts, the marriage of the sounds beckons you to a similar marriage, but you are single.

There are endless speculations about the story behind these sonnets. But this particular sonnet seems to suggest a back story that Shakespeare is writing to someone who is hesitating at a marriage.

Third Stanza

[9] Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

[10] Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,

[11] Resembling sire and child and happy mother

[12] Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing;

In the third stanza, he speaks of the harmony brought about in the music by developing the sounds in terms of a family. One string is “sweet husband to another”. The musician strikes one string and then another, “by mutual ordering”. The concourse of the sounds creates a resemblance, as a sire and child and mother in order together bring about “one pleasing note”. The parts do all sing together to create beauty.

Couplet:

[13] Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

[14] Sings this to thee: “Thou single wilt prove none.”

The song is “speechless” because it is just music. The various notes are not many but “one”. And this harmony of notes without words is singing: If you will be single, you will be nothing.