Weekly Sonnet, No. 131
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Sonnet CXXXI.
THOU art as tyrannous, so as thou art
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold, 5
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan:
To say they err I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it to myself alone.
And to be sure that is not false I swear,
A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face, 10
One on another's neck, do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.
1609 Quarto, old-fasioned spelling.
I3I
THou art as tiranous,so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruell;
For well thou know'st to my deare doting hart
Thou art the fairest and most precious Iewell.
Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the power to make loue grone;
To say they erre,I dare not be so bold,
Although I sweare it to my selfe alone.
And to be sure that is not false I sweare
A thousand grones but thinking on thy face,
One on anothers necke do witnesse beare
Thy blacke is fairest in my iudgements place.
In nothing art thou blacke saue in thy deeds,
And thence this slaunder as I thinke proceeds.
Robert Stonehouse
wrote:
>The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.
>
>Sonnet CXXXI.
>
>THOU art as tyrannous, so as thou art
as demanding /
>As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
to give orders; /
>For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
loves you, /
>Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
thing there is. /
>Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold, 5
But it is true that some people who look at you say /
>Thy face hath not the power to make love groan:
your face is not capable of producing the pangs
of love: /
>To say they err I dare not be so bold,
and I dare not contradict them to their faces /
>Although I swear it to myself alone.
though privately I swear on my oath that they
are wrong. /
>And to be sure that is not false I swear,
And in order to confirm that what I swear
is not false, /
>A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face, 10
when I only think about your face,
countless pains, /
>One on another's neck, do witness bear
racing up in a pack, give plain evidence /
>Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
that, in my judgment, your dark colouring is
more beautiful than any fair. /
> In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
Nothing about you is truly black, except
what you do to me;
> And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.
I suppose that must be the source of that false
tale people tell. /
By quatrains:
(1) You are as demanding as beautiful women are, because you know I
love you. (2) When people say you are not beautiful, I privately swear
you are; (3) and it is true, as the effect on me proves. (c) Only, you
are cruel; that must be the source of the slander.
The Dark Lady is addressed, only for the second time (last in 128). I
still don't know what 129 ('The expense of spirit in a waste of
shame') is doing in the middle of these poems. This and 128 are both
'thou' poems.
If a poet despises hyperbole, he is going to have to come to terms
with the fact that quite ordinary people fall in love with one
another, and one person can love someone another person could not.
This poem, as it seems to me, does that, while still preserving the
parts that are true: the unique place of the beloved in the lover's
mind and the opportunities that gives for hurting. This poem does not
disparage his Dark Lady, that is not the feeling of it. (This is
against the commentators.)
Line 1: 'so as thou art' is so vague that at first we can make nothing
of it. We have to take it with line 2.
Line 7: 'I dare not be so bold', because if he gives them the lie,
there will be a duel? Probably not; that goes too far outside the
ambience of the poem. The speaker is conscious, in a way, that his own
point of view may be wrong in the eyes of the world. He is not sure he
can assert it with truth. He has to come to terms with the fact that
quite ordinary people may be loved.
Line 9: this line is part of the 'evidence' metaphor that prevails in
the third quatrain.
Line 11: 'One on another's neck'. I think of race-horses, neck and
neck. The groans of line 10 come thick and fast.
Line 13: 'In nothing art thou black'. Is she black or is she not?
Literally, in appearance, of course she is; though in exactly what
respect we are still not clear. But here the poet shifts his use of
the word. This time it means 'evil': 'there is nothing wrong with you
except what you do'. This refers back to the cruelty of lines 1-2,
which is personal cruelty directed at the speaker. _Pace_ the
commentators, it is not a general accusation of immorality.
Line 14: a purely fanciful interpretation of the situation. It hooks
the speaker, but nobody else will swallow it. 'It is because of your
cruelty that they say these things about you.' The solutions in
Shakespeare's sonnets are poetical solutions, not legal or logical
ones.
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sonnet suggests to me that it has distinctly self-conscious artistry
playing upon comic imitation of pastoral conventions; not as satire
of aristocratic Neoplatonisms as in the Elizabethan vogue for the
pastoral, but toward realism in idioms of colloquial speech,
according to a free and careless Elizabethan spirit instead of
elaborate artifices.
Sonnet CXXXI.
1 THOU art as tyrannous, so as thou art
2 As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
3 For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
4 Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Although the angle of vision in the three parts consistently
addresses the lover's complaint issue of appearance vs. reality in
terms of a three-part development of fair vs. black, I think the
poet uses different mode of regard in each. In the first stanza, it
is "thou" addressed in conventional courtly terms of beauty as
jewelry, with "heart" the judge.
5 Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold, 5
6 Thy face hath not the power to make love groan:
7 To say they err I dare not be so bold,
8 Although I swear it to myself alone.
In the second stanza, "they" are in the frame of reference, with
shift to "I" point of view, and tone changes with use of colloquial
speech such as "in good faith" and idioms like "make love groan."
In angle of vision, the poet seems to adopt the persona of
complaining, humble shepherd of pastoral genre in commenting "I dare
not be so bold" and the exaggerated "I swear it to myself alone."
In using the pastoral as a mode of regard, however, it doesn't seem
to be of the original idealistic Arcadia sort where courtiers are
disguised as shepherds; or the anti-pastoral development of it,
where nature is contrasted with art and satire comes into it, as in
Spenser's Colin Clout; but using it as a basis for contemporary
realism in mood.
9 And to be sure that is not false I swear,
10 A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face, 10
11 One on another's neck, do witness bear
12 Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
In the third stanza there are more realistic colloquialisms and
idioms, exaggerating the persona of the pastoral shepherd, I think.
Now the judge of beauty shifts from "heart," in l.3, to "thinking,"
perhaps reflecting renaissance developments in competing versions of
order and authority: Machiavelli, Bacon, Montaigne, etc..
Here, fair vs. black probably represents the courtly, powdered ideal
of beauty vs. the rustic brown version in pastoral genre; e.g., from
Spenser's Shepherds Calendar: "I am a poore Sheepe, albe my coloure
donne:/ For with long traueile I am brent in the sonne." I assume
those versed in the pastoral vogue would immediately recognize an
ideal state of Arcadia for shepherds and their oaten pipes, in which
rustic appearances are a preferred pretended alternative to court
appearances. This is different than using "black" as reflecting
artificial cosmetic arts in other sonnets
13 In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
14 And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.
The conclusion supports and reinforces realism in the development of
point of view, again using "think" instead of "heart" in judgment
and referring to "deeds" instead of appearances.
If my idea of a sequential mode of regard in structure departs from
unity and coherence too much, I can only suggest that the
development obtains. By analogy, the poem might be compared to a
musical composition, like a madrigal in three parts, with emphasis
on English characteristic of play on melancholy. Another name for
madrigal was "sonet."
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9 And to be sure that is not false I swear,
10 A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,
11 One on another's neck, do witness bear
12 Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
In reading my comment about structure above, I see I have neglected
to mention the significance of what is probably the chief
development in what the poem achieves: the image of "One on
another's neck." In Shakespeare's typical manner of concealed
artistry, he apparently is adding to the ways we judge beauty.
Besides "heart," "thinking," and appearances in visualizing "face,"
the image of neck on neck probably includes sexual congress,
anticipated by "a thousand groans." Very realistic and insightful,
IMO.
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