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Post by Harry on Jun 16, 2002 23:32:37 GMT -5
THINE eyes I love, and they, as pitying me Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, Have put on black and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. And truly not the morning sun of heaven Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, Nor that full star that ushers in the even, Doth half that glory to the sober west, As those two mourning eyes become thy face: O! let it then as well beseem thy heart To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace, And suit thy pity like in every part. Then will I swear beauty herself is black, And all they foul that thy complexion lack.
In some ways, a more conventional sonnet. The Dark Lady is praised, and her eyes, despite the opening line of Sonnet 130, are compared favorably to the sun. The Dark Lady is seen as making black beautiful and fair as foul.
Although the rhyme scheme follows the standard English, or Shakespearean, form (abab cdcd efef gg), in terms of meaning the second "quatrain" is five lines long and the third is only three. That is, "As those two mourning eyes become thy face:" seems to go with what has come before and not what comes after.
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The_Turtle
Denizen
Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming
Posts: 52
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Post by The_Turtle on Jun 17, 2002 3:50:00 GMT -5
It strikes me that Shsp still finds himself able to use ruth while nowadays (to my best knowledge that is) only ruthless is available to the English speaker. The wordplay on 'morning/mourning' also leads me to believe that suit and pity in the last line of the third quatrain might well be playing on soot and pit/pitch?. I find 'pity like' hard to define and it does seem to make sense that Shsp intends 'black' or 'dark' rather than compassionate wouldn't you agree? 'Complexion' brings me back to what we discussed earlier: 'What is dark about the dark lady?' Just the hair? Or the skin too? 'Complexion' leads me to believe that it is the skin too. A little something on the meter: 'Beauty' goes against the iambic feet in the penultimate line. Does anyone know why this is (except for giving it additional stress)? There are two 'rising sequences' too in the sonnet. In the second line of the second quatrain 'the grey cheeks of the east' is composed of two anapests rather than three iambs. This baffles me even more than the inverted stress on beauty.
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Post by Harry on Jun 17, 2002 20:05:26 GMT -5
You certainly would confuse an English speaker if you tried to use "ruth" as the opposite of "ruthless." "Ruth" has almost entirely disappered (except for the name of a girl, a candy bar, and a famous baseball player). It's similar to the Shakespearean word "ravel" which has been replaced by "unravel."
Again, you are right about the meter. This poem doesn't stay in iambic pentameter--at least to a modern American ear. A friend once insisted that the number of beats is more important than their exact placement. He made the point that accent in a monosyllabic language like English doesn't mean the same thing as in polysyllabic Latin or Greek. Perhaps.
Thank you for calling my attention to the variation in meter. I haven't been paying enough attention to that.
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Post by shaxper on Jun 20, 2002 11:08:04 GMT -5
Interesting contradiction between lines 5/6 and 13/14.
First, the poet acknowledges that "The Morning Sun of Heaven" (a description even bolder than "The Sun" to which the Dark Lady's eyes did not compare in Sonnet 130) does not compare to her cheeks now, yet he is not willing to acknowledge that "beauty herself is black" unless the Dark Lady is kind to him.
What do we make of this? Does the poet know that The Dark Lady truly is beautiful beyond comparison but will not flatter her and tell her so unless she is kind? Perhaps this very "darkness" is a cruel but exciting love that seems to continually tease and frusterate the poet, yet tempts him to pursue it? Though the lady may, indeed, be dark, this darkness seems to serve as a metaphor for cruelty (perhaps in addition to sinful sexuality). But if this is true, isn't there a tragic paradox in his threat that he will not call beauty black unless the Dark Lady takes pity upon him (a very unblack thing to do)?
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Post by Harry on Jun 20, 2002 21:07:45 GMT -5
Dear Shaxper,
Later on, the Poet says that he perjured himself when he called her beautiful, so maybe he's just flattering her with all his protestations of her beauty. We only see the Dark Lady (and the Youth--though, if the Youth is Southampton, there is at least one portrait) through the Poet's eyes. The eyes of a lover are notoriously blind to the faults of a beloved, so I'm not sure we should trust the Poet's description (except his ironical description in Sonnet 130--that has a ring of truth).
I like your pointing out the basic contradictions in the sonnet. I think that is the point of this. Fair is foul and foul is fair.
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Post by shaxper on Jun 20, 2002 22:08:10 GMT -5
I think it's important to keep in mind who is being addressed in each sonnet. 130, for example, which seems to have a ring of truth to it, is addressed to no particular person (presumably the reader, then), while this contradictory sonnet is written directly to the Dark Lady and may be attempting to artistically portray the poet's actual or imagined discourses with her. Therefore, we are not necessarily supposed to take the poet at his word in a sonnet such as this. Rather, we are supposed to observe his struggle with the Lady. In a sense, the most fascinating part of these sonnets is the voice of the Dark Lady which, though never heard, is nevertheless made clear by the poet's responses.
Just a thought. As I've said before, I'm a relative stranger to the sonnets.
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Post by Harry on Jun 20, 2002 23:56:10 GMT -5
But you make good points. I'm not an expert, either. One reason why I'm doing this is to learn more. And your observations teach me. I hope you are beginning to see what I like about the sonnets. Such simple poems--only 14 lines long and a simple rhyming scheme--but oh what they can do. Shakespeare has the freedom here to layer meaning onto meaning. I don't think it's possible to completely fathom all that is here. He does it, to some extent in the plays, but in the sonnets he was writing for a literate audience that had the lesiure to pick the lines apart.
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Post by shaxper on Jun 21, 2002 6:17:39 GMT -5
I hope you are beginning to see what I like about the sonnets. Absolutely! I can't tell you how glad I am that you started these discussions. My only regret it that I haven't had more time to plunge into them lately, but I suspect that's been everyone's plight. It seems like everyone's getting a lot out of these discussions. Thanks again for starting them, Harry!
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