| SONNET 39 |
PARAPHRASE |
| O, how thy worth with manners may I sing, |
O, how can I praise your worth with modesty, |
| When thou art all the better part of me? |
When you are my better-half? |
| What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? |
What good is praise offered by myself to myself? |
| And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee? |
And what is it but praise for myself when I praise you? |
| Even for this let us divided live, |
Let us then live divided, |
| And our dear love lose name of single one, |
And let people no longer refer to us as being one in the same, |
| That by this separation I may give |
That this by separation I may give you |
| That due to thee which thou deservest alone. |
That due which you alone deserve. |
| O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove, |
O what a torment your absence would be, |
| Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave |
If you absence did not allow me |
| To entertain the time with thoughts of love, |
To turn my thoughts to love, |
| Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive, |
Those thoughts, which deceive time and my other sad thoughts, |
| And that thou teachest how to make one twain, |
Those thoughts that show me how to make us two again become one, |
| By praising him here who doth hence remain! |
By praising him here who is in fact absent. |
Shakespeare on Jealousy