Weekly Sonnet No. 39
bookburn
Sonnet XXXIX.
O! HOW thy worth with manners may I sing
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this let us divided live, 5
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give
That due to thee, which thou deserv'st alone.
O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave 10
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,
And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
By praising him here who doth hence remain.
39 (1609 Quarto, old-fashioned spelling)
OH how thy worth with manners may I singe,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine owne praise to mine owne selfe bring;
And what is't but mine owne when I praise thee,
Euen for this,let vs deuided liue,
And our deare loue loose name of single one,
That by this seperation I may giue:
That due to thee which thou deseru'st alone:
Oh absence what a torment wouldst thou proue,
Were it not thy soure leisure gaue sweet leaue,
To entertaine the time with thoughts of loue,
VVhich time and thoughts so sweetly dost deceiue.
And that thou teachest how to make one twaine,
By praising him here who doth hence remaine.
bookburn
appropriately, without offending propriety, in accordance with social
conventions. sing = praise (through my poems). A poet was a singer of
verse, according to the classical
tradition.]
2. When thou art all the better part of me? [ the better part - this
calls to mind the phrase 'my better half', meaning 'my spouse,
partner', a phrase which was current at the time. Shakespeare uses it
in a manner appropriate to the interchange of
souls in CE: It is thyself, mine own self's better part; Mine eye's
clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart CE.III.2.61-2. It could also
mean 'soul, spiritual part' as opposed to 'body' which was the meaner
part. Cf. Sonn 74: The earth can have but earth, which is his due; My
spirit is thine, the better part of me.]
3. What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? [What advantage
is there in praising myself? With the added suggestions: a.) from the
line above, that praise of myself is praise of my better part, i.e.
you, and my praise of you is of
little worth; b.) self praise is always empty.]
4. And what is't but mine own when I praise thee? [what is't but
mine own = is it any different from what was mine already? Since you
are my better part, any praise of you is praise of myself]
.5. Even for this, let us divided live,Portrait of the Earl of
Southampton, Shakespeare's early patron. [Even for this =
for these reasons that I have just enumerated. let us divided live =
let us live separate lives, without openly
acknowledging our love for each other.{snip of long aside}]
6. And our dear love lose name of single one,[dear = precious,
highly valued. single one = a love that is united in two hearts which
have become one.]
7. That by this separation I may give [As a result of this voluntary
separation I may give.]
8. That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone. [That due to thee =
that which is your due i.e. praise of your worth. thou deserv'st alone
= you alone (and no one else) deserve to receive; or, you deserve to
receive when not chained (figuratively)
to me.]
9. O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,[The speaker now
considers the consequences of the proposed separation. absence - sc.
of you from me and of me from you. Separation]
10. Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,[sour leisure =
bitter time (to me) in which you entertain yourself with me absent.
leave = permission. The roughness of the metre perhaps suggests the
pain and bitterness of separation.]
11. To entertain the time with thoughts of love,[To entertain the
time = to fill up the time, to provide entertainment for myself in
order to kill time.]
12. Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,[doth - the Q
reading is dost which several editors retain. 'dost' is the second
person singular of the verb 'do', so it requires that the subject
'which' refers back to 'O absence' in line 9, giving
effectively 'O absence, thou which (who) time and thoughts so
sweetly dost deceive'. [snip lengthy aside}]
13. And that thou teachest how to make one twain,[And that thou -
i.e. absence of line 9. This reverts back to the distant antecedent
absence, which did not fit the sense in the previous line. Despite the
'and', which half implies that the same
subject which sweetly deceives time and thoughts also teaches how to
make one twain, it is easier on the understanding to accept a
different referent for each line. It is also entirely consonant with
standard Shakespearian practice to weave different meanings and
references into the same sentence. to make one twain = to make a
single person into a pair, or partners. Although twain also has the
meaning of 'separate', so a slightly jarring note is also added as an
undertone.]
14. By praising him here who doth hence remain.[here = in this place
where I am; in this poem. (him)... who doth hence remain = the
beloved, who remains far off.]
Robert Stonehouse
>The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.
>
>Sonnet XXXIX.
>
>O! HOW thy worth with manners may I sing
being guilty of bad form /
>When thou art all the better part of me?
>What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
uttered by me myself /
>Even for this let us divided live, 5
For this very reason, we should live apart, /
>And our dear love lose name of single one,
our love should not cause us to be regarded as a unit, /
>That by this separation I may give
so that, being separate, I can pay /
>That due to thee, which thou deserv'st alone.
what I owe you, which is all your own entitlement
and not mine. /
>O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,
O Absence! you would be a terrible torture /
>Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave 10
except that the unwelcome inactivity, enforced by
you, kindly provides time off /
>To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
to pass the time thinking about love /
>Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,
which so agreeably beguiles the time and its cares. /
> And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
and except that you show how one person can be
as good as two /
> By praising him here who doth hence remain.
by writing poems here in praise of him who lives
elsewhere. /
By quatrains:
(1) How can I praise you without praising myself? (2) I can only do
it if we are separate. (3) Separation would be terrible, except that
I can spend the time thinking of love (c) and become two people by
writing about you.
Blakemore Evans points out the similarity to sonnet 36, also
justifying separation. Helen Vendler points out that all the rhyming
words from the first quatrain of 36 appear in 39: 'twain - remain'
in the couplet, 'one - alone' in the second quatrain (a misprint in
Vendler's book disguises this slightly). 'Thee - me' from the third
quatrain of 36 appears as 'me - thee' in the first quatrain of this
sonnet, significant because of the other repetitions though it might
not be on its own.
On the other hand, I don't see these as a double sonnet like 5-6,
15-16, 30-31, 34-35. They have totally different approaches: 'we
must be separate or I shall contaminate you', 'we must be separate
or I cannot praise you without praising myself'. Nothing is done to
smoothe a transition from one to the other; we are not expected to
read them in succession, as one story. Having 37-38 in between, with
the rhyming words to point out the distant connection between 36 and
39, seems intentional and appropriate.
Lines 1-8 are addressed to the other, lines 9-14 to the personified
Absence which is also 'thou'. The difficulty is in line 12, which in
the Quarto is:
> VVhich time and thoughts so sweetly dost deceiue.
That is, it reads 'dost', not 'doth', which is Malone's conjecture.
(Incidentally, the printer has run out of capital Ws again and has
to use V V.)
The Arden paraphrases 'you, absence, who give such pleasurable
distractions to solitary time and meditations'. Blakemore Evans
paraphrases 'the which time and thoughts thou (absence) dost so very
pleasantly beguile'.
Surely it is very strained if we have to refer 'which' all the way
back to 'absence', when 'love' is so easily available as the
previous word. This does not apply to 'thou' in line 13, because
'thou' comes at the beginning of the couplet, after a significant
break which decouples it from any noun that might appear as a rival
to Absence.
I do not see the force of the Arden argument that 'doth' 'breaks the
consistency of the address to absence throughout the sestet'.
Absence is the subject of 'prove' (line 9) but not of 'gave' (10) or
'entertain' (11). Why need it be the subject of 'doth', so long as
we read 'doth' and not 'dost'?
Helen Vendler points out the metrical difficulty of lines 9-10: "the
change from them to the perfectly regular lines 11-12 marks the
'mending' of the poet's style into one which, with perfect
'manners', entertains the time". The awkwardness of carrying 'which'
so far back, or of importing an understood 'thou' with Blakemore
Evans, seems quite out of place in this simplicity.
I would suggest that a scribe or printer has been misled by the
number of 'thou's into putting a second person form instead of a
third. Incidentally, the Quarto punctuation seems unusually wild in
this sonnet.
'Him' in line 14 is the first pronoun indicating sex since sonnet
33. All the sonnets between have been 'thou' poems.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
KQKnave
Stonehouse) writes:
>Blakemore Evans points out the similarity to sonnet 36, also
>justifying separation. Helen Vendler points out that all the rhyming
>words from the first quatrain of 36 appear in 39: 'twain - remain'
>in the couplet, 'one - alone' in the second quatrain (a misprint in
>Vendler's book disguises this slightly).
What misprint? I don't see one in my copy.
> 'Thee - me' from the third
>quatrain of 36 appears as 'me - thee' in the first quatrain of this
>sonnet, significant because of the other repetitions though it might
>not be on its own.
>
>On the other hand, I don't see these as a double sonnet like 5-6,
>15-16, 30-31, 34-35. They have totally different approaches: 'we
>must be separate or I shall contaminate you', 'we must be separate
>or I cannot praise you without praising myself'. Nothing is done to
>smoothe a transition from one to the other; we are not expected to
>read them in succession, as one story. Having 37-38 in between, with
>the rhyming words to point out the distant connection between 36 and
>39, seems intentional and appropriate.
I don't think anything definite can be said one way or the other. Clearly,
since both poems are about the same subject, whether or not they
should be divided, then putting them together would make perfect sense.
Vendler points out the mirror images of the rhymes:
36:
twain
remain
one
alone
thee
me
39:
me
thee
one
alone
twain
remain
so it hardly seems likely that the poems were not at least
conceived together. But 37 and 38 do fit the sequence, and
I think that here Shakespeare put together a quartet of
poems that belong together. In sonnet 36, the poet says
that they must be divided because his own blots will be
born by he alone. Then in sonnet 37 the poet specifies
his "blots"; he calls himself a 'decrepit father', 'made lame
by' fortune, and that he can live by his beloved's reflected
glory. In 38, the poet details the virtues of his beloved, and
then in 39 says that they must be separate so that the
beloved can have the glory that belongs to him alone.
I think that Shakespeare conceived of 36 and 39 together,
either before or after writing 37 and 38, and intentionally
created this quartet of poems for variety in the sequence.
>
>Lines 1-8 are addressed to the other, lines 9-14 to the personified
>Absence which is also 'thou'. The difficulty is in line 12, which in
>the Quarto is:
>> VVhich time and thoughts so sweetly dost deceiue.
>That is, it reads 'dost', not 'doth', which is Malone's conjecture.
"Doth" is most editors conjecture. Booth says:
"...the emendation is standard. It allows two different readings
of the line: If 'Which' is read as a pronoun, then its antecedent
is 'love', and the line says "which deceives time and thoughts."
In the syntactically less probable event that 'Which' is understood
as a demonstrative adjective, then 'time and thoughts' are the
grammatical subjects of 'doth', and the line is a parenthetical
comment that says "The aforementioned time and thoughts
was sweet deceivers" (the second reading is possible because
singular verbs were commonly used with plural subjects as
well as singular - compare 112.1 and 123.11)."
How so? And what do you mean by a second person form versus
a third person? Aren't we talking singular vs. plural? And if the
printer made a mistake, I doubt it was by interpretation. Maybe
a misreading of 'st' for 'th'.
>
>'Him' in line 14 is the first pronoun indicating sex since sonnet
>33. All the sonnets between have been 'thou' poems.
>ew...@bcs.org.uk
>
>
>
>
Jim
Robert Stonehouse
>In article <3abc6668...@news.cityscape.co.uk>, ew...@bcs.org.uk (Robert
>Stonehouse) writes:
>>Blakemore Evans points out the similarity to sonnet 36, also
>>justifying separation. Helen Vendler points out that all the rhyming
>>words from the first quatrain of 36 appear in 39: 'twain - remain'
>>in the couplet, 'one - alone' in the second quatrain (a misprint in
>>Vendler's book disguises this slightly).
>
>What misprint? I don't see one in my copy.
attributed to the second quatrain, not the first.
>> 'Thee - me' from the third
>>quatrain of 36 appears as 'me - thee' in the first quatrain of this
>>sonnet, significant because of the other repetitions though it might
>>not be on its own.
>>
>>On the other hand, I don't see these as a double sonnet like 5-6,
>>15-16, 30-31, 34-35. They have totally different approaches: 'we
>>must be separate or I shall contaminate you', 'we must be separate
>>or I cannot praise you without praising myself'. Nothing is done to
>>smoothe a transition from one to the other; we are not expected to
>>read them in succession, as one story. Having 37-38 in between, with
>>the rhyming words to point out the distant connection between 36 and
>>39, seems intentional and appropriate.
>
>I don't think anything definite can be said one way or the other. Clearly,
>since both poems are about the same subject, whether or not they
>should be divided, then putting them together would make perfect sense.
Putting them together, yes, but reading them as one, no.
>Vendler points out the mirror images of the rhymes:
>
>36:
>twain
>remain
>one
>alone
>thee
>me
>39:
>me
>thee
>one
>alone
>twain
>remain
>
>so it hardly seems likely that the poems were not at least
>conceived together.
Yes. But they were not written to be read continuously, as if they
were one poem, as is the case with some others. The elaborate
connecting apparatus could be due to the need to make us connect
them at a distance.
>But 37 and 38 do fit the sequence, and
>I think that here Shakespeare put together a quartet of
>poems that belong together. In sonnet 36, the poet says
>that they must be divided because his own blots will be
>born by he alone. Then in sonnet 37 the poet specifies
>his "blots"; he calls himself a 'decrepit father', 'made lame
>by' fortune, and that he can live by his beloved's reflected
>glory. In 38, the poet details the virtues of his beloved, and
>then in 39 says that they must be separate so that the
>beloved can have the glory that belongs to him alone.
>I think that Shakespeare conceived of 36 and 39 together,
>either before or after writing 37 and 38, and intentionally
>created this quartet of poems for variety in the sequence.
>
>>Lines 1-8 are addressed to the other, lines 9-14 to the personified
>>Absence which is also 'thou'. The difficulty is in line 12, which in
>>the Quarto is:
>>> VVhich time and thoughts so sweetly dost deceiue.
>>That is, it reads 'dost', not 'doth', which is Malone's conjecture.
>
>"Doth" is most editors conjecture.
Most editors adopt it, but the intellectual property belongs to
Malone. It is disappointing how little effort most editors make to
see that the credit for conjectures goes to the right person.
>Booth says:
>
>"...the emendation is standard. It allows two different readings
>of the line: If 'Which' is read as a pronoun, then its antecedent
>is 'love', and the line says "which deceives time and thoughts."
>In the syntactically less probable event that 'Which' is understood
>as a demonstrative adjective, then 'time and thoughts' are the
>grammatical subjects of 'doth', and the line is a parenthetical
>comment that says "The aforementioned time and thoughts
>was sweet deceivers" (the second reading is possible because
>singular verbs were commonly used with plural subjects as
>well as singular - compare 112.1 and 123.11)."
I do think 'less probable' tends to understate the matter.
...
>>I would suggest that a scribe or printer has been misled by the
>>number of 'thou's into putting a second person form instead of a
>>third. Incidentally, the Quarto punctuation seems unusually wild in
>>this sonnet.
>
>How so? And what do you mean by a second person form versus
>a third person? Aren't we talking singular vs. plural?
Not understood. Between 'dost' and 'doth', which is plural? Or
between absence and love?
On the punctuation, I mean the semicolon at the end of line 3 with a
comma at the end of 4; the colon at the end of line 7 and another
colon at the end of 8; and the period at the end of 12. These break
up the meaning more than usual, or that is my impression.
>And if the
>printer made a mistake, I doubt it was by interpretation. Maybe
>a misreading of 'st' for 'th'.
As well as the printer, we have to deal with at least one fair copy
made by a scribe. I agree this looks more like a scribe's error than
a printer's.
...
ew...@bcs.org.uk
KQKnave
Stonehouse) writes:
>>In the syntactically less probable event that 'Which' is understood
>>as a demonstrative adjective, then 'time and thoughts' are the
>>grammatical subjects of 'doth', and the line is a parenthetical
>>comment that says "The aforementioned time and thoughts
>>was sweet deceivers" (the second reading is possible because
>>singular verbs were commonly used with plural subjects as
>>well as singular - compare 112.1 and 123.11)."
>I do think 'less probable' tends to understate the matter.
Maybe, but that is how I read it the first time.
>...
>>>I would suggest that a scribe or printer has been misled by the
>>>number of 'thou's into putting a second person form instead of a
>>>third. Incidentally, the Quarto punctuation seems unusually wild in
>>>this sonnet.
>>
>>How so? And what do you mean by a second person form versus
>>a third person? Aren't we talking singular vs. plural?
>Not understood. Between 'dost' and 'doth', which is plural? Or
>between absence and love?
The Riverside says that 'doth' is "good Elizabethan usage with
a plural subject." 'Time and thoughts' is plural.
>
>On the punctuation, I mean the semicolon at the end of line 3 with a
>comma at the end of 4; the colon at the end of line 7 and another
>colon at the end of 8; and the period at the end of 12. These break
>up the meaning more than usual, or that is my impression.
You're right, it is worse than usual. Maybe the apprentice did this one?
>>And if the
>>printer made a mistake, I doubt it was by interpretation. Maybe
>>a misreading of 'st' for 'th'.
>As well as the printer, we have to deal with at least one fair copy
>made by a scribe. I agree this looks more like a scribe's error than
>a printer's.
>...
>ew...@bcs.org.uk
>
>
Jim
KQKnave
Stonehouse) writes:
>>What misprint? I don't see one in my copy.
>In the diagram on page 205, the rhyme 'one - alone' in sonnet 36 is
>attributed to the second quatrain, not the first.
>
That's right, there is that misprint on p205. I was looking
at the two texts of the sonnets only.
Jim