Weekly Sonnet: No. 47
bookburn
Sonnet XLVII.
BETWIXT mine eye and heart a league is took
And each doth good turns now unto the other:
When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, 5
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thyself away art present still with me; 10
For thou not further than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them and they with thee;
Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.
47 (1609 Quarto, old-fashioned spelling)
BEtwixt mine eye and heart a league is tooke,
And each doth good turnes now vnto the other,
When that mine eye is famisht for a looke,
Or heart in loue with sighes himselfe doth smother;
With my loues picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart:
An other time mine eye is my hearts guest,
And in his thoughts of loue doth share a part.
So either by thy picture or my loue,
Thy seife away,are present still with me,
For thou nor farther then my thoughts canst moue,
And I am still with them,and they with thee.
Or if they sleepe, thy picture in my sight
Awakes my heart,to hearts and eyes delight.
bookburn
http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonn01.htm
1. "Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took," [Betwixt =
between.
a league is took = a pact, or agreement, is made. Compare:
.....I'll kiss thy hand,/ In sign of League and amity with thee.
R3. I.3.281.
took is equivalent to taken, made, effected.]
2. "And each doth good turns now unto the other:" [Sonnet 24
has Now
see what good turns eyes for eyes have done. Here it is the heart
and eyes
which mutually favour each other.]
3. "When that mine eye is famish'd for a look," [Whenever my
eye is starved
and eager to look on you]
4. "Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother," [The
most probable
reading here is to take sighs with himself doth smother. Thus
When my heart,
being in love, smothers itself with sighs. There is however a
residual meaning
of When my heart, being in love with sighs, smothers itself.
smother can mean
a.) to suffocate; b.) to smoulder inwardly. OED.9.b.]
5. "With my love's picture then my eye doth feast," [Either an
image retained
in memory, or, most probably, a portrait which he looks at. (See
the following line).
The idea of a banquet or feast of love is not uncommon in the
sonnet tradition.
Shakespeare uses it here, also in 75 "Sometime all full with
feasting on your sight/
And by and by clean starved for a look;" and also in connection
with the dark lady,
"'Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited/To any sensual feast
with thee alone:" 141.
See the notes to Sonnet 141].
6. "And to the painted banquet bids my heart;" [painted
banquet - referring to the
image of the loved one, seen by the eye, from a portrait, rather
than from the real
thing. The adjective 'painted' is also used to suggest
sumptuousness, richness and
colour, perhaps with a hint that the richness could be unreal and
only cosmetic.]
7. "Another time mine eye is my heart's guest," [When no images
are available the
eye relies on the heart. The imagery of entertainment and
feasting is continued.]
8. "And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:" [his = the
heart's. I.e. the eye
share's in the heart's thoughts of love.]
9. "So, either by thy picture or my love," [or my love = my
love for you which is
held in my heart, as distinct from your picture, which is held by
my eyes.]
10. "Thy self away, art present still with me;" [art is emended
from Q's are in
deference to grammar. Thou thyself art present would be the
normal form in
Shakespeare's time. However the construction is fluid and
retaining are it could
be taken to include thy picture or my love as subject of are,
along with thou thyself.
still = always, constantly. As in line 12 and elsewhere in the
sonnets.]
11. "For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move," [Q has
nor which is
generally emended to no or not.]
12. "And I am still with them, and they with thee;" [still -
see above, line 10.
them, they = my thoughts.]
13. "Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight " [if they
sleep - if my thoughts sleep]
14. "Awakes my heart, to heart's and eyes' delight." [to
heart's and eyes' delight =
so that heart and eyes are equally delighted.]
Robert Stonehouse
>The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.
>
>Sonnet XLVII.
>
>BETWIXT mine eye and heart a league is took
>And each doth good turns now unto the other:
>When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
>Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
>With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, 5
In the second case, my eye enjoys itself looking
at my friend's portrait /
>And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
and invites my heart to share its pleasure,
like a dinner-party /
>Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
In the other case, my heart plays host to my eye /
>And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
and offers a share of its loving thoughts. /
>So, either by thy picture or my love,
So between your portrait and my thoughts /
>Thyself away art present still with me; 10
you, although absent, are still here with me /
>For thou not further than my thoughts canst move,
because you can't be farther away than my own
thoughts are /
>And I am still with them and they with thee;
and I am always close to my thoughts, and my
thoughts are close to you /
> Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
and when my thoughts take time off, your portrait,
which my eye sees, /
> Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.
reminds my heart of the pleasure of heart and eye. /
By quatrains:
(1) Now my heart and eye have made friends and they help each other
out when one is in need. (2) My eye shares the pleasure of seeing
your portrait and my heart shares its thoughts of you. (3) So
between them, I am never deprived of you: my thoughts are with you
(c) or my eye sees your portrait.
In this sonnet, the quatrain structure is broken up, and yet not
broken up. (I have stuck to it, to show that it can be done.)
Lines 5-6 expand on line 4, and can't be understood without it, but
then lines 7-8 expand on line 3. So there I punctuate with the
Quarto (at the end of 4) and against the editors (who punctuate at
the end of 2).
Very similarly, lines 11-12 are parallel to the couplet, two
examples expanding on "thy picture or my love" in line 9 - here the
editors stay closer to the Quarto punctuation. (Both these pairs of
expansions are chiastic, AB-BA, the letter-X shaped structure.)
The poem is linked to sonnet 46, partly in the obvious way by the
'heart-eye' metaphor, but also by the explicit word 'now' in line 2.
'Then' they were at war, 'now' they are allies. So this is a
sonnet-pair.
But that is not the end of it. The couplet can be read as a
reference to sonnet 43. The travelling thoughts in lines 11-12 send
us back to sonnets 44-45. So this sonnet ties up together everything
that has happened since the last of the 'triangle' sonnets (41-42,
and 40, their deceptive introduction). This is the kind of reason
why I want to read these poems one by one, _in order_.
Line 5: A 'painter' worked in full scale; a miniaturist was a
'limner'. But I cannot tell whether this picture is a miniature in
the personal possession of the poet, or a full-size portrait (which
would imply that the poet has stayed at home with it and the other
is the one who is travelling).
I do not see a suggestion of coldness or inadequacy in 'painted' -
it would be out of place - this poem is saying something different.
True, it is about making the best of a bad job; but it is the best,
not the badness, that the poem is about. The starvation of the eye,
the drowning of the heart, are there to be seen (picked up) by the
addressee, but they are incidental to what the poem says, its overt
subject.
Line 10: 'art' - the Quarto has 'Thyself away, are', where the first
two words look like a parenthesis. Clearly 'are' means 'you are',
but this is a 'thou' poem. 'Before consonants for the sake of
euphony' says Blakemore Evans - maybe so. Or should it be 'art'?
If we change the Quarto punctuation and read:
"Thyself, away, art present still with me"
'You, although absent, are still here with me'
I am happier with the result.
Line 11: 'nor'. A poet can use 'nor ... nor' for 'neither ... nor'
without problems. Here, he has two legs (lines 11and 12) and he uses
'nor' to warn us to be ready for the second and treat it as
parallel. But then the second leg turns out to be positive, so that
he can't use another 'nor'. He has to use 'and' at the beginning of
line 12. I see this as a deceptive twist quite typical of
Shakespeare - no need to emend.
13-14. These lines could also mean "When I am asleep I dream about
you", especially because we have just had that idea in sonnet 43.
That does not fit into this poem, because here the picture is
expressly a painted one (line 6). But the deceptive suggestion is
part of the linkage of this poem with the ones before it.
>
> 47 (1609 Quarto, old-fashioned spelling)
>
> BEtwixt mine eye and heart a league is tooke,
> And each doth good turnes now vnto the other,
> When that mine eye is famisht for a looke,
> Or heart in loue with sighes himselfe doth smother;
> With my loues picture then my eye doth feast,
> And to the painted banquet bids my heart:
> An other time mine eye is my hearts guest,
> And in his thoughts of loue doth share a part.
> So either by thy picture or my loue,
> Thy seife away,are present still with me,
> For thou nor farther then my thoughts canst moue,
> And I am still with them,and they with thee.
> Or if they sleepe, thy picture in my sight
> Awakes my heart,to hearts and eyes delight.
bookburn
http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonn01.htm
1. "Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took," [Betwixt =between. a
league is took = a pact, or agreement, is made. Compare:.....I'll kiss
thy hand,/ In sign of League and amity with thee. R3. I.3.281.took is
equivalent to taken, made, effected.]
2. "And each doth good turns now unto the other:" [Sonnet 24 has Now
see what good turns eyes for eyes have done. Here it is the heart and
eyes which mutually favour each other.]
3. "When that mine eye is famish'd for a look," [Whenever my eye is
starved and eager to look on you]
4. "Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother," [The most
probable reading here is to take sighs with himself doth smother. Thus
When my heart, being in love, smothers itself with sighs. There is
however a residual meaning of When my heart, being in love with sighs,
smothers itself. smother can mean a.) to suffocate; b.) to smoulder
inwardly. OED.9.b.]
5. "With my love's picture then my eye doth feast," [Either an image
retained in memory, or, most probably, a portrait which he looks at.
(See the following line. The idea of a banquet or feast of love is not
uncommon in the sonnet tradition. Shakespeare uses it here, also in 75
"Sometime all full with feasting on your sight/And by and by clean
starved for a look;" and also in
connection with the dark lady,"Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be
invited/To any sensual feast with thee alone:" 141.See the notes to
Sonnet 141.
6. "And to the painted banquet bids my heart;" [painted banquet -
referring to the image of the loved one, seen by the eye, from a
portrait, rather than from the real thing. The adjective 'painted'is
also used to suggest sumptuousness, richness and colour, perhaps with
a hint that the richness could be unreal and only cosmetic.]
7. "Another time mine eye is my heart's guest," [When no images are
available the eye relies on the heart. The imagery of entertainment
and feasting is continued.]
8. "And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:" [his = the
heart's. I.e. the eye share's in the heart's thoughts of love.]
9. "So, either by thy picture or my love," [or my love = my love for
you which isheld in my heart, as distinct from your picture, which is
held by my eyes.]
10. "Thy self away, art present still with me;" [art is emended from
Q's are in deference to grammar. Thou thyself art present would be the
normal form in Shakespeare's time. However the construction is fluid
and retaining are it could be taken to include thy picture or my love
as subject of are, along with thou thyself. still = always,
constantly. As in line 12 and elsewhere in
the sonnets.]
11. "For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move," [Q has nor
which is generally emended to no or not.]
12. "And I am still with them, and they with thee;" [still -see above,
line 10.them, they = my thoughts.]
13. "Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight " [if they sleep - if
my thoughts sleep]
14. "Awakes my heart, to heart's and eyes' delight." [to heart's and
eyes' delight =so that heart and eyes are equally delighted.]
Greg Reynolds
and 47?) and now his heart and his eyes work together to gather, store,
and retrieve imagery of the beloved. Then at night there's a slide show.
We see famine become feast. The heart invited to a banquet by the eyes,
and then the heart's reciprocation. He is having a big party,
entertaining himself, and leaving this entertaining account of it all
for us.
He couldn't love the beloved any more than he loves his poetry.
XLVII Heart-Eye Coordination
> BETWIXT mine eye and heart a league is took
> And each doth good turns now unto the other:
A simple compromise enables my heart and eyes to cooperate now.
> When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
> Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
Whenever my eyes crave to see you, or whenever my heart gets that
longing,
> With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,
> And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
my eyes simply bring you into view and invites my heart to enjoy the
view, too,
> Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
> And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
or, when my heart feels your love, my eyes get to partake.
> So, either by thy picture or my love,
> Thyself away art present still with me;
> For thou not further than my thoughts canst move,
> And I am still with them and they with thee;
So you are always with me, whether seen or felt, because my senses and
my memories of you stay with me.
> Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
> Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.
Even at night when I dream of you, I can see and feel your love.
Greg Reynolds
bookburn doth share:
bookburn
object of his fancy using alchemy or black magic; or you could say he
plays with the convention of love humors.
Sonnet XLVII.
"BETWIXT mine eye and heart a league is took"
"league" can mean both contract and distance, so the "remote" part of
viewing is established so long as you understand that his heart is
figuratively "carried away" by this other person.
"And each doth good turns now unto the other:
When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, 5
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;"
I think Shakespeare's use of the image of heart in love with its own
sighing and in danger of smothering is a burlesque of the convention,
but he makes it plausible by linking the eye's feast to it in
"league," so both are satisfied. (He does this so often and well that
I wonder how much of the whole sonnet series is a tongue-in-cheek
"send-up," whatever else it may be.)
"Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:"
This might refer to simply reverie and fantacy.
"So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thyself away art present still with me; 10
For thou not further than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them and they with thee;"
In previous sonnets reference is also made to what some think is a
version of Plato's idea of thought travel.
"Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight."
This seems to indicate conclusion to goal-seeking activity involving
his carried-away heart, mind's eye, and appetite for a feast of love.
Having acquired capture of the "picture," his heart somehow "awakes"
and is transported there to be "heart to heart"--a neat feat for a
sonnet, compared to Dante, who took 100 cantos in "The Divine Comedy"
to be guided to Beatrice by her eyes.
bookburn
Greg Reynolds
Robert Stonehouse wrote:
> "bookburn" <book...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.
> >
> >Sonnet XLVII.
> >
> >BETWIXT mine eye and heart a league is took
> My heart and my eye have arrived at an alliance /
> >And each doth good turns now unto the other:
> and now they are helping one another out, /
> >When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
> when my eye is starved of the sight of you /
> >Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
> or my heart is drowning in depression. /
>
> >With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, 5
> In the second case, my eye enjoys itself looking
> at my friend's portrait /
> >And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
> and invites my heart to share its pleasure,
> like a dinner-party /
> >Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
> In the other case, my heart plays host to my eye /
> >And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
> and offers a share of its loving thoughts. /
>
> >So, either by thy picture or my love,
> So between your portrait and my thoughts /
I know your technique calls for substituting the tightest
fitting simile, but picture/portrait needs more explanation,
I think.
> >Thyself away art present still with me; 10
> you, although absent, are still here with me /
> >For thou not further than my thoughts canst move,
> because you can't be farther away than my own
> thoughts are /
> >And I am still with them and they with thee;
> and I am always close to my thoughts, and my
> thoughts are close to you /
>
> > Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
> and when my thoughts take time off, your portrait,
> which my eye sees, /
Robert, "thy picture in my sight" seems to need only be
the mental vision. Not a tangible object.
> > Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.
> reminds my heart of the pleasure of heart and eye. /
>
> {snipped}
>
> Line 5: A 'painter' worked in full scale; a miniaturist was a
> 'limner'. But I cannot tell whether this picture is a miniature in
> the personal possession of the poet, or a full-size portrait (which
> would imply that the poet has stayed at home with it and the other
> is the one who is travelling).
Do you rule out the strictly abstract mental image?
> I do not see a suggestion of coldness or inadequacy in 'painted' -
> it would be out of place - this poem is saying something different.
> True, it is about making the best of a bad job; but it is the best,
> not the badness, that the poem is about. The starvation of the eye,
> the drowning of the heart, are there to be seen (picked up) by the
> addressee, but they are incidental to what the poem says, its overt
> subject.
>
> {snip}
>
> 13-14. These lines could also mean "When I am asleep I dream about
> you", especially because we have just had that idea in sonnet 43.
> That does not fit into this poem, because here the picture is
> expressly a painted one (line 6). But the deceptive suggestion is
> part of the linkage of this poem with the ones before it.
Painted often means phony or excessive, which leads me
to "imagined," or "conjured" as in bringing to mind the
mental picture of the beloved. CT Onions pegs "painted"
as "specious, feigned, unreal."
I don't believe the poet is speaking of an actual portrait.
It is a weaker poem to think that his heart relies on the
feeling of love but that his eye relies on artwork, a physical
rendering of the beloved. The internal dynamics of the poem
indicate the poet's squabble is entirely mental.
Are you saying Vendler and/or you consider the poet to
be in possession of some tangible picture? I don't think
the poem needs that at all.
Greg Reynolds
(Robert, I address the use of heart in another thread and I
include your constructive comments, fyi.)
Greg Reynolds
had many we don't. Looking at Sonnets 46 and 47, there is
a double use of the word "heart," rendering distinct meanings
that the poet fearlessly presents without regard to the clarity
within the poems.
"Heart" is a central image to both poems. He is positioning
"heart" against "eye" as a means of establishing his means
of enjoying his lover. Eye is used for the loving vision of
the beloved, and heart is used for the loving care/concern/
endearment of the beloved. Fair enough.
But liberally sprinkled throughout both poems is another
use of heart, not as the body part in juxtaposition to the
other body part eye, but as love itself, or the core/soul
of the abstract emotion, love.
I'll run down both poems now to show heart as it is used
in both poems with both definitions.
> Sonnet XLVI
> MINE eye and heart are at a mortal war
Clearly the body part, in comparison to the heart
> How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
> Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
Again the body part
> My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
Again the body part
> My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,- 5
Again the body part
> A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes,-
> But the defendant doth that plea deny,
> And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
> To 'cide this title is impannelled
> A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart; 10
Here I don't see it as the body part.
He just let the body part become a closet with a
mysterious unseen interior, so he is more at soul--the
very core of a person's loving capacity.
> And by their verdict is determined
> The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part:
Again, the body part
> As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,
> And my heart's
The body part
> right thine inward love of heart.
Clearly the metaphor.
+
So, when compared to eye, heart has to be the organ.
But the poem's premise of loving the subject is all in
the heart, that center of that lovingness itself.
Is it so clear that he can use heart both as a "character"
who opposes the eye AND as that word that means love.
Robert Stonehouse wrote:
>By quatrains (and taking out the metaphor):
>(1) Do you belong to my affection, or my sight?
>(2) You are deep in my heart, but only my eyes
>can see you. (3) I think it out and decide (c) your
>appearance belongs to my sight, but my heart is
>entitled to your affection.
(So, Robert, when you say "taking out the metaphor"
do you mean the use of heart as a metaphor for love?
If so, you at least see my dilemma with mixing the
definitions of heart in one poem.)
> Sonnet XLVII
> BETWIXT mine eye and heart a league is took
The body part
> And each doth good turns now unto the other:
> When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
> Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
The body part
> With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, 5
> And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
The body part
> Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
The body part
> And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
> So, either by thy picture or my love,
> Thyself away art present still with me; 10
> For thou not further than my thoughts canst move,
> And I am still with them and they with thee;
> Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
> Awakes my heart
The metaphor for love
> to heart's and eye's delight.
The body part
+
My point is that it is peculiar from my view to overtly
feature heart as a "character" in the poem AND then to
use the same word in its other context, and have no
worry of being misconstrued.
I've seen Robert's read on this; he writes
>Line 10. This is a dispute over property within the
>heart's manor, which is properly heard by the manorial
>court. The jury is composed of people from the manor,
>who are inevitably the heart's tenants. That is proper
>procedure, not packing the jury, as is shown by their
>even-handed judgment.
Okay, then, Robert, I am guilty of thinking toward
stacking the jury, and your explanation helps, so I
can accept it somewhat, BUT the eyes are not some
villain or trangressor who would be a defendant in the
court proceeding (as there would be in a manor trial).
The tenants are of the abstract "love," not of the body part.
My point is that if Shakespeare had a better word than
heart to mean the metaphorical value of love itself, I
feel he would have used it in the instances above that
I took heart to be a metaphor. I could think "soul" or
even just "love" would fit in these instances--but my
thinking has no bearing, of course.
Greg Reynolds
Symposium1
<eve...@core.com> writes:
>My point is that if Shakespeare had a better word than
>heart to mean the metaphorical value of love itself, I
>feel he would have used it in the instances above that
>I took heart to be a metaphor. I could think "soul" or
>even just "love" would fit in these instances--but my
>thinking has no bearing, of course.
Interesting post. Of course, Shakespeare was also known to use "heart" to mean
core or center.
"Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.--"
Merriam-Webster is not clear on whether "heart" as "that which is central" has
been in existence as long as the body part.
--Ann
Robert Stonehouse
>Robert Stonehouse wrote:
>> "bookburn" <book...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, 5
>> In the second case, my eye enjoys itself looking
>> at my friend's portrait /
>> >And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
>> and invites my heart to share its pleasure,
>> like a dinner-party /
>> >Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
>> In the other case, my heart plays host to my eye /
>> >And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
>> and offers a share of its loving thoughts. /
>>
>> >So, either by thy picture or my love,
>> So between your portrait and my thoughts /
>
>I know your technique calls for substituting the tightest
>fitting simile, but picture/portrait needs more explanation,
>I think.
at the beginning means it follows from lines 5-6. The word 'picture'
in line 5 is explained in line 6, 'painted banquet', which looks as
if it was put in deliberately to resolve any doubts about this - he
means a painted portrait.
('My love' at the end of line 9 follows from 'thoughts of love' in
lines 7-8. So this phrase 'thy picture or my love' picks up the
whole of the second quatrain, two lines at a time.)
...
>> > Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
>> and when my thoughts take time off, your portrait,
>> which my eye sees, /
>
>Robert, "thy picture in my sight" seems to need only be
>the mental vision. Not a tangible object.
Here I claim that 'thy picture or my love', which encapsulates the
second quatrain, carries through. The 'thoughts of love' from line 6
are the subject of lines 11-12, while the picture is the subject of
lines 13-14. So far as the sense goes, this breaches the normal
quatrain structure and lines 11-14 become parallel to the second
quatrain.
...
>> Line 5: A 'painter' worked in full scale; a miniaturist was a
>> 'limner'. But I cannot tell whether this picture is a miniature in
>> the personal possession of the poet, or a full-size portrait (which
>> would imply that the poet has stayed at home with it and the other
>> is the one who is travelling).
>
>Do you rule out the strictly abstract mental image?
Yes, I think I do. Now you have forced me to go into the structure
better, I am convinced we are looking at the same picture all
through. That being so, the poet needed to make it plain what kind
of picture he meant - it is clear that he needed to, even if we had
not seen him doing it. So the word 'painted' must be meant to
exclude mental pictures; he has plenty of them elsewhere, and so
this is all the more necessary here.
...
>> 13-14. These lines could also mean "When I am asleep I dream about
>> you", especially because we have just had that idea in sonnet 43.
>> That does not fit into this poem, because here the picture is
>> expressly a painted one (line 6). But the deceptive suggestion is
>> part of the linkage of this poem with the ones before it.
>
>Painted often means phony or excessive, which leads me
>to "imagined," or "conjured" as in bringing to mind the
>mental picture of the beloved. CT Onions pegs "painted"
>as "specious, feigned, unreal."
In the right context, yes. Face-painting, for example: I recall
Twelfth Night (without guaranteeing accuracy!)
VIOLA: Excellently done, if God did all.
OLIVIA: 'Tis in grain; 'twill endure wind and weather.
VIOLA: 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on ...
where first, actual paint is excluded, but then Nature who did the
work can be described as a painter metaphorically, without harm
because Nature is the right artist for the job.
>
>I don't believe the poet is speaking of an actual portrait.
>It is a weaker poem to think that his heart relies on the
>feeling of love but that his eye relies on artwork, a physical
>rendering of the beloved. The internal dynamics of the poem
>indicate the poet's squabble is entirely mental.
>
>Are you saying Vendler and/or you consider the poet to
>be in possession of some tangible picture? I don't think
>the poem needs that at all.
That's what I'm saying - just a minute while I look up Vendler
again.
I think she takes that view, but am not perfectly certain. Try this:
"The enamelled Midas-replica of true possession offered by the
_painted banquet_, repeated in the couplet's _picture_, haunts the
pretended double delight of the close."
I think she means a miniature.
Katherine Duncan-Jones (Arden) says:
"5. 'My love's picture' appears to refer to a concrete depiction,
not just a mental image."
G. Blakemore Evans (New Cambridge) regards 'painted' as pejorative.
I would think that implied he thought of a material picture. It
seems far-fetched to treat a mental picture with contempt on the
ground that it is painted. It isn't! Metaphorically, you could say
it was, but you can't blame it for your own metaphors.
Stephen Booth says much the same:
"6. _painted banquet_ The phrase suggests the coldness, artifice and
inadequacy of the substitute". He quotes from Spenser's Fairy Queen,
which I have not got, 'a painted show of false bliss' (6.10.3) and
'feed on shadows, whiles I die for food' (3.2.44). The first of
these may refer to an actual painted picture. The second suggests
Booth might accept a mental picture in this sonnet.
Here is my line. The poet contrasts thought and sight, one belonging
to the heart, the other to the eye, one mental, one material. Mental
pictures would be thought, not belonging to the eye. He is quite
capable of talking about mental pictures seen by a metaphorical
eye, but doing that here would destroy the contrast on which the
poem is built.
It has just occurred to me that this must apply to the previous poem
too. Thinking back, we have to look on 'thy picture' in sonnet 46
line 3 as a painted picture, not the visual image of the real thing
('sense-datum'?). Typically, he did not warn us about that at the
time. He let us fall into the trap.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
Robert Stonehouse
(I am picking up particular points and so leave out lots of good
stuff)
>Shakespeare had less words than we do, of course, he also
>had many we don't. Looking at Sonnets 46 and 47, there is
>a double use of the word "heart," rendering distinct meanings
>that the poet fearlessly presents without regard to the clarity
>within the poems.
>
>"Heart" is a central image to both poems. He is positioning
>"heart" against "eye" as a means of establishing his means
>of enjoying his lover. Eye is used for the loving vision of
>the beloved, and heart is used for the loving care/concern/
>endearment of the beloved. Fair enough.
>
>But liberally sprinkled throughout both poems is another
>use of heart, not as the body part in juxtaposition to the
>other body part eye, but as love itself, or the core/soul
>of the abstract emotion, love.
>Robert Stonehouse wrote:
>>By quatrains (and taking out the metaphor):
>>(1) Do you belong to my affection, or my sight?
>>(2) You are deep in my heart, but only my eyes
>>can see you. (3) I think it out and decide (c) your
>>appearance belongs to my sight, but my heart is
>>entitled to your affection.
>
>(So, Robert, when you say "taking out the metaphor"
>do you mean the use of heart as a metaphor for love?
>If so, you at least see my dilemma with mixing the
>definitions of heart in one poem.)
I meant the legal metaphor. I had a bash at the 'heart-eye' metaphor
and found it imposible to take out. There was nothing to do except
re-use the words 'heart' and 'eye'. I find it even more difficult to
disentangle than you do.
The poet uses language that fits the two different senses of 'heart'
(especially) so close together that substituting another word for
'heart' can't succeed. I find it possible to tease out the different
senses in words, but much harder actually to feel the force of this
mixture.
>
>> Sonnet XLVII
...
>I've seen Robert's read on this; he writes
>
>>Line 10. This is a dispute over property within the
>>heart's manor, which is properly heard by the manorial
>>court. The jury is composed of people from the manor,
>>who are inevitably the heart's tenants. That is proper
>>procedure, not packing the jury, as is shown by their
>>even-handed judgment.
>
>Okay, then, Robert, I am guilty of thinking toward
>stacking the jury, and your explanation helps, so I
>can accept it somewhat, BUT the eyes are not some
>villain or trangressor who would be a defendant in the
>court proceeding (as there would be in a manor trial).
>The tenants are of the abstract "love," not of the body part.
I can't make this decision. It seems to be because of its position
and function in the body that the heart is lord of the manor. So I
am left uncomfortably suspended, having trouble feeling the effect
of the poem - unless of course that is the effect intended.
>
>My point is that if Shakespeare had a better word than
>heart to mean the metaphorical value of love itself, I
>feel he would have used it in the instances above that
>I took heart to be a metaphor. I could think "soul" or
>even just "love" would fit in these instances--but my
>thinking has no bearing, of course.
Oh yes it has - the same as any other reader's! These poems were
written for us to read, after all - or perhaps to hear.
I think Shakespeare does it this way in order to confuse us,
surprise us, keep us guessing. It's a favourite trick he has, part
of his effect. I don't think he would have used another word. If
he's short of a word, he makes one up (though not much in the
sonnets, I think).
Thinking of the awkward passages in 'All's Well that Ends Well', I
wonder if sonnet-writing has affected Shakespeare's verse and caused
him to put some of these knots into a play. They are not natural
stage stuff.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
Greg Reynolds
Robert Stonehouse wrote:
> Greg Reynolds wrote:
>
>
> >snipped much, then...
>
> >Robert, "thy picture in my sight" seems to need only be
> >the mental vision. Not a tangible object.
> >
> >I don't believe the poet is speaking of an actual portrait.
> >It is a weaker poem to think that his heart relies on the
> >feeling of love but that his eye relies on artwork, a physical
> >rendering of the beloved. The internal dynamics of the poem
> >indicate the poet's squabble is entirely mental.
> >
> >Are you saying Vendler and/or you consider the poet to
> >be in possession of some tangible picture? I don't think
> >the poem needs that at all.
>
> That's what I'm saying - just a minute while I look up Vendler
> again.
>
> I think she takes that view, but am not perfectly certain. Try this:
> "The enamelled Midas-replica of true possession offered by the
> _painted banquet_, repeated in the couplet's _picture_, haunts the
> pretended double delight of the close."
> I think she means a miniature.
>
> Katherine Duncan-Jones (Arden) says:
> "5. 'My love's picture' appears to refer to a concrete depiction,
> not just a mental image."
>
> G. Blakemore Evans (New Cambridge) regards 'painted' as pejorative.
> I would think that implied he thought of a material picture. It
> seems far-fetched to treat a mental picture with contempt on the
> ground that it is painted. It isn't! Metaphorically, you could say
> it was, but you can't blame it for your own metaphors.
Thanks a lot, Robert.
This is all surprising to me, that this many dedicated
students/teachers of the sonnets can believe there is
a picture. I feel the couplet explicitly limits it to a
mental picture because it all ends with a dream when
he falls asleep, where there would be nothing concrete:
> Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
> Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.
This for me allows no doubt that it is imagined.
I guess I'll need to find context from all these critics
to understand their findings. I've only read Vendler so far.
> Stephen Booth says much the same:
> "6. _painted banquet_ The phrase suggests the coldness, artifice and
> inadequacy of the substitute". He quotes from Spenser's Fairy Queen,
> which I have not got, 'a painted show of false bliss' (6.10.3) and
> 'feed on shadows, whiles I die for food' (3.2.44). The first of
> these may refer to an actual painted picture. The second suggests
> Booth might accept a mental picture in this sonnet.
>
> Here is my line. The poet contrasts thought and sight, one belonging
> to the heart, the other to the eye, one mental, one material. Mental
> pictures would be thought, not belonging to the eye. He is quite
> capable of talking about mental pictures seen by a metaphorical
> eye, but doing that here would destroy the contrast on which the
> poem is built.
Here is mine.
He gets all warm by either
1. remembering the beloved (picturing her, admiring her)
or
2. appreciating love itself (feeling good/secure/etc.)
If he pictures her, that triggers his heart because he is so in love.
If he just feels happy in love, that triggers his eyes to bring
the image to mind, because it is his beloved who provides the feeling.
> It has just occurred to me that this must apply to the previous poem
> too. Thinking back, we have to look on 'thy picture' in sonnet 46
> line 3 as a painted picture, not the visual image of the real thing
> ('sense-datum'?). Typically, he did not warn us about that at the
> time. He let us fall into the trap.
> ew...@bcs.org.uk
It is the banquet that is painted.
Greg Reynolds
Robert Stonehouse
>This is all surprising to me, that this many dedicated
>students/teachers of the sonnets can believe there is
>a picture. I feel the couplet explicitly limits it to a
>mental picture because it all ends with a dream when
>he falls asleep, where there would be nothing concrete:
>
>> Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
>> Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.
I take this to mean "If my thoughts don't work properly, I refresh
them by looking at your picture". It isn't obvious how someone's
thoughts can be asleep while he is still awake to look at a picture,
but I rely on a story about Queen Mary in the 1930s. Talking to an
old countryman sitting outside his cottage door on a sunny day, she
asked what he did all the time. Did he sit and think? "Sometimes I
sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits."
...
>It is the banquet that is painted.
Do you mean that "my love's picture" (line 5) and "the painted
banquet" (line 6) are different things? The second looks to me like
a plain reference back to the first, a re-expression of the same
idea in metaphor.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
Rita
> Greg Reynolds <eve...@core.com> wrote:
> >Robert Stonehouse wrote:
> >> Greg Reynolds wrote:
> ...
> >This is all surprising to me, that this many dedicated
> >students/teachers of the sonnets can believe there is
> >a picture. I feel the couplet explicitly limits it to a
> >mental picture because it all ends with a dream when
> >he falls asleep, where there would be nothing concrete:
> >
> >> Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
> >> Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.
>
> I take this to mean "If my thoughts don't work properly, I refresh
> them by looking at your picture".
Yes, I think there's a real picture. When Shakespeare catches sight of
it it refreshes the feelings he has for his friend, they revive more
strongly in his heart. But I suppose in the course of a busy day he
would forget him occasionally, and that's when his thoughts 'sleep'-
perhaps not literally sleep but become negligent, distracted by
mundane business? Sleeping-on-the-job type of 'sleep'.
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
I think these are the occasions when the mental image of the absent
lover is summoned. Again, Shakespeare's a busy man and can't be
spending his life looking at this picture. When it isn't actually
before his eyes but he remembers his friend, with the sudden rush of
emotion a mental image of him forms.
Rita
Robert Stonehouse
>ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert Stonehouse) wrote in message news:<3b15d828...@news.cityscape.co.uk>...
>> Greg Reynolds <eve...@core.com> wrote:
>> >Robert Stonehouse wrote:
>> >> Greg Reynolds wrote:
>> ...
>> >This is all surprising to me, that this many dedicated
>> >students/teachers of the sonnets can believe there is
>> >a picture. I feel the couplet explicitly limits it to a
>> >mental picture because it all ends with a dream when
>> >he falls asleep, where there would be nothing concrete:
>> >
>> >> Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
>> >> Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.
>>
>> I take this to mean "If my thoughts don't work properly, I refresh
>> them by looking at your picture".
>
>Yes, I think there's a real picture. When Shakespeare catches sight of
>it it refreshes the feelings he has for his friend, they revive more
>strongly in his heart. But I suppose in the course of a busy day he
>would forget him occasionally, and that's when his thoughts 'sleep'-
>perhaps not literally sleep but become negligent, distracted by
>mundane business? Sleeping-on-the-job type of 'sleep'.
Yes, I agree; not literal sleep. My anecdote about sleep was not
really to the point.
...
ew...@bcs.org.uk
Paul Crowley
> Yes, I think there's a real picture. When Shakespeare catches sight of
> it it refreshes the feelings he has for his friend, they revive more
> strongly in his heart. But I suppose in the course of a busy day he
> would forget him occasionally, and that's when his thoughts 'sleep'-
> perhaps not literally sleep but become negligent, distracted by
> mundane business? Sleeping-on-the-job type of 'sleep'.
>
> Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
> And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
>
> I think these are the occasions when the mental image of the absent
> lover is summoned. Again, Shakespeare's a busy man and can't be
> spending his life looking at this picture. When it isn't actually
> before his eyes but he remembers his friend, with the sudden rush of
> emotion a mental image of him forms.
Given that this is Elizabethan England, and cameras had
not yet been invented, how come the Stratman happens
to have a real picture of his 'friend' --- the 'Fair Youth'?
Portraits were not cheap to produce. If you had one done,
you couldn't run off copies to give to your admirers. IF there
was a 'Fair Youth' and IF he had a portrait done, it would
have been paid for by the family, and they would have hung
it in a prominent place on the walls of one of their own
great houses.
However, I agree with you that the poet did indeed have a
picture of the addressee of this sonnet. Given who she
was, there was no difficulty about obtaining them -- quite
uniquely for that person. It was, I think , the first time that
a picture of any living person had gone into wide circulation.
And given who the poet was, I suspect that he may have
had a fine and highly expensive miniature portrait of his
love. Such items were donated as personal gifts.
Paul.
--
Email: pebj...@ubgznvy.pbz (apply ROT13)