directory
home contact

SONNET 113

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird of flower, or shape, which it doth latch:
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature:
   Incapable of more, replete with you,
   My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.

NOTES

CXIII. The poet asserts that, even during the period of absence, his heart had been thoroughly with his friend, whom he had seen in everything and everywhere.

1. Mine eye is in my mind. Cf. xlvii. 7, 8,
"Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part."
2, 3. My bodily eye is partly blind.

4. Is out. Is out of order.

6. Latch. Receive and hold. Q. has "lack," a reading apparently impracticable. Cf. Macbeth, Act iv. sc. 3, lines 193-195, "Words that would be howl'd out in the desert air, where hearing should not latch them."



7. His quick objects. Objects perceived as the eye quickly moves.

10. The most sweet favour. The sweetest outward appearance. Cf. cxxv. 5.

14. Mine untrue. A tempting emendation has been suggested "mind untrue." But the sense required would rather seem to be that the mind makes the eyes untrue. It is not easy to suppose that "mine" was originally "m' eyen," equivalent to "my eyes," and pronounced as one syllable. It is perhaps, on the whole, best, even if this view be not quite unobjectionable, to take "untrue" as a substantive, and to take as the meaning that the poet's mind, true to his friend, causes his untruthfulness; causes him to be untruthful to the actual objects around him. So Malone, who quotes Measure for Measure (Act ii. sc. 4, line 170),
"Say what you can, my false outweighs your true."



How to cite this article:
Shakespeare, William. Sonnets. Ed. Thomas Tyler. London: D. Nutt, 1890. Shakespeare Online. 12 Aug. 2013. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/113.html >.

Reference
Wordsworth, William. Poetical works, with a memoir. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1854.
______

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
 Shakespearean Sonnet Style
 How to Analyze a Shakespearean Sonnet
 The Rules of Shakespearean Sonnets
 The Contents of the Sonnets in Brief

 Shakespeare's Sonnets: Q & A
 Theories Regarding the Sonnets
 Are Shakespeare's Sonnets Autobiographical?
 Petrarch's Influence on Shakespeare
 Theme Organization in the 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

_____


A Look at Metaphors ... "Metaphors are of two kinds, viz. Radical, when a word or root of some general meaning is employed with reference to diverse objects on account of an idea of some similarity between them, just as the adjective 'dull' is used with reference to light, edged tools, polished surfaces, colours, sounds, pains, wits, and social functions; and Poetical, where a word of specialized use in a certain context is used in another context in which it is literally inappropriate, through some similarity in function or relation, as 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune', where 'slings' and 'arrows', words of specialized meaning in the context of ballistics, are transferred to a context of fortune." Percival Vivian. Read on...

_____


 Shakespeare's Greatest Metaphors
 Shakespeare's Metaphors and Similes
 Shakespeare on Jealousy
 Shakespeare on Lawyers
 Shakespeare on Lust
 Shakespeare on Marriage

_____


According to Wordsworth ... The famous poet William Wordsworth wrote that "The appropriate business of Poetry, (which, nevertheless, if genuine, is as permanent as pure science), her privilege and duty, is to treat of things not as they are, but as they appear; not as they exist in themselves, but as they seem to exist to the senses, and to the passions. According to Wordsworth, Sonnet 113, for its "merits of thought and language" is one of Shakespeare's greatest poems.

_____


 Portraits of Shakespeare
 Shakespeare's Contemporaries
 Shakespeare's Sexuality
 Worst Diseases in Shakespeare's London
 Shakespeare on the Seasons
 Shakespeare on Sleep