SONNET 95
How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise;
Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
O, what a mansion have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turn to fair that eyes can see!
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.
NOTES
XCV. The scandal in relation to his friend, which the poet had previously mentioned and treated as slander, seems (if it be the same) now to have become too obviously true to admit of being rebutted or extenuated. But Mr. W. H.'s grace and beauty adorn and transfigure even his vices. Still there is danger, lest the consequence of vicious indulgence should be felt at last.
2. Canker. A worm preying upon and defacing the blossom.
3. Thy budding name. An expression which seems to agree very well
with the youth of William Herbert, now about nineteen.
8. Naming thy name, &c. In consequence of Mr. W. H.'s well-known
grace and attractiveness.
12. Turns. So Q. "turnes." "Beauty's veil turns all things to
fair," &c.
14. The hardest knife, &c. Alluding to the result of excessive indulgence.
How to cite this article:
Shakespeare, William. Sonnets. Ed. Thomas Tyler. London: D. Nutt, 1890. Shakespeare Online. 28 Dec. 2013. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/95.html >.
______
Even More...
Stratford School Days: What Did Shakespeare Read?
Games in Shakespeare's England [A-L]
Games in Shakespeare's England [M-Z]
An Elizabethan Christmas
Clothing in Elizabethan England
Queen Elizabeth: Shakespeare's Patron
King James I of England: Shakespeare's Patron
The Earl of Southampton: Shakespeare's Patron
Going to a Play in Elizabethan London
Ben Jonson and the Decline of the Drama
Religion in Shakespeare's England
Alchemy and Astrology in Shakespeare's Day
Entertainment in Elizabethan England
London's First Public Playhouse
Shakespeare Hits the Big Time
|
More to Explore
Introduction to
Shakespeare's Sonnets
Sonnet 80: Sailing Metaphor
Shakespearean Sonnet
Style
How to Analyze a Shakespearean Sonnet
The Rules of Shakespearean Sonnets
Shakespeare's Sonnets: Q & A
Are Shakespeare's Sonnets Autobiographical?
Petrarch's Influence on Shakespeare
Themes in Shakespeare's Sonnets
Shakespeare's Greatest Love Poem
Shakespeare and the Earl of Southampton
The Order of the Sonnets
The Date of the Sonnets
Who was Mr. W. H.?
Are all the Sonnets addressed to two Persons?
Who was The Rival Poet?
Publishing in Elizabethan England
Shakespeare's Audience
_____
Did You Know? ... For over 400 years The Reign of King Edward III has been classified as an anonymous play by everyone but a handful of renegade critics.
First printed in 1596 by the London bookseller and publisher, Cuthbert Burby, the play's title page told Elizabethan readers that "it hath bin sundrie times plaied about the Citie of London", but Burby credited no author. The play likely was very successful at the time, for Burby published another edition in 1599, again without naming an author.
Read on...
|
_____
Shakespeare's Greatest Metaphors
Shakespeare's Metaphors and Similes
Shakespeare on Jealousy
Shakespeare on Lawyers
Shakespeare on Lust
Shakespeare on Marriage
_____
Sonnet Theories ... "All now agree that the Sonnets are a collection of almost matchless interest, a legacy from Shakespeare at once strange and precious, -- nothing less, in fact, than a preserved series of metrical condensations, weighty and compact as so many gold nuggets, of thoughts and feelings that were once in his mind. The interpretations of them collectively, however, the theories of their nature and purport collectively, differ widely." David Masson. Read on...
|
_____
Portraits of Shakespeare
Shakespeare's Contemporaries
Shakespeare's Sexuality
Worst Diseases in Shakespeare's London
Shakespeare on the Seasons
Shakespeare on Sleep
|