CLIV.

The little Love-god lying once asleep

Laid by his fide his heart-inflaming brand,

Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand

The fairest votary took up that fire

Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd; And fo the general of hot defire

Was fleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd.

This brand fhe quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy

For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

NOTES.

I. The theme of this and other early fonnets is fimilarly treated in Venus & Adonis, ll. 162-174:-

Torches are made to light, jewels to wear,
Dainties to tafle, fresh beauty for the ufe,

Herbs for their fmell, and fappy plants to bear :
Things growing to themselves are growth's abuse:
Seeds Spring from feeds and beauty breedeth beauty;
Thou was begot; to get it is thy duty.

Upon the earth's increase why shouldst thou feed,
Unless the earth with thy increase be fed?

By law of nature thou art bound to breed,
That thine may live when thou thyself art dead:
And fo, in spite of death, thou doft furvive,
In that thy likeness fill is left alive.

6. Self-fubftantial fuel, fuel of the fubftance of the flame itself.

12. Makeft wafe in niggarding. Compare Romeo & Juliet, A& 1. fc. 1, 1. 223

BEN. Then he hath fworn that she will still live chafte? ROM. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste.

13, 14. Pity the world, or else be a glutton devouring the world's due, by means of the grave

(which will swallow your beauty-compare Sonnet LXXVII. 6, and note), and of yourself, who refuse to beget offfpring. Compare All's Well, A&t 1. fc. 1, Parolles fpeaking, 'Virginity . . . consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own ftomach'. Steevens proposed 'be thy grave and thee', i.e. be at once thyself and thy grave.

II. In Sonnet 1. the Friend is 'contracted to his own bright eyes'; fuch a marriage is fruitless, and at forty the eyes will be 'deep-funken'. The 'glutton' of I. reappears here in the phrase all-eating shame'; the 'makest waste' of 1. reappears in the 'thriftless praise' of II. If the youth addressed were now to marry, at forty he might have a fon of his present age, i.e. about twenty.

8. Thriftless praife, unprofitable praise.

11. Shall fum my count and make my old excufe, shall complete my account, and serve as the excuse of my oldness. Hazlitt reads whole excuse.

III. A proof by example of the truth set forth in II. Here is a parent finding in a child the excuse for age and wrinkles. But here that parent is the mother. Were the father of Shakspere's friend living, it would have been natural to mention him; XIII. 14 'you had a father' confirms our impreffion that he was dead.

There are two kinds of mirrors-firft, that of glafs; fecondly, a child who reflects his parent's beauty.

5. Unear'd, unploughed. Compare the Dedica

tion of Venus & Adonis, 'I fhall . . . never after ear fo barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest'.

5, 6. Compare Measure for Measure, A& 1. fc. 4, 11. 43, 44:

Her plenteous womb

Expreffeth his full tilth and husbandry.

7, 8. Compare Venus & Adonis, 11. 757-761:— What is thy body but a fwallowing grave Seeming to bury that pofterity,

Which by the rights of time thou needs must have, If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?

9, 10. Compare Lucrece, 11. 1758, 1759 (old Lucretius addreffing his dead daughter):—

Poor broken glass, I often did behold

In thy fweet femblance my old age new-born. 11. Compare A Lover's Complaint, l. 14: Some beauty peep'd through lattice of fear'd age.

12. Golden time. So King Richard III., A& 1. fc. 2, 1. 248, the golden prime of this sweet prince'. 13. If thou live; Capell fuggefts love.

IV. In Sonnet III. Shakspere has viewed his friend as an inheritor of beauty from his mother; this legacy of beauty is now regarded as the bequest of nature. The ideas of unthriftiness (1. 1) and niggardliness (1. 5) are derived from Sonnets I. II.; the 'audit' (1. 12) is another form of the 'fum my count' of II. II. The new idea introduced in this

fonnet is that of ufury, which reappears in VI. 5, 6.

3. So Measure for Measure, A& 1. fc. 1, ll. 36-41.
Spirits are not finely touch'd

But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends
The Smalleft fcruple of her excellence

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herfelf the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use.

Compare with this fonnet the arguments put into the mouth of Comus by Milton: Comus, 679-684 and 720-727.

4. Free, liberal.

8. Live, fubfift. With all your usury you have not a livelihood, for, trafficking only with yourself, you put a cheat upon yourself, and win nothing by fuch ufury.

14. Th' executor, Malone reads 'thy executor'.

V. In Sonnets v. VI. youth and age are compared to the seasons of the year: in VII. they are compared to morning and evening, the seasons of the day.

1. Hours, a diffyllable, as in The Tempest, Aa v. 1. 4.

2. Gaze, object gazed at, as in Macbeth, A& v. fc. 8,

1. 24.

4. Unfair, deprive of beauty; not elsewhere used by Shakspere, but in Sonnet CXXVII. we find 'Fairing the foul'.

9. Summer's distillation, perfumes made from flowers. Compare Sonnet LIV. and A Midsummer Night's Dream, A&t 1. fc. 1, ll. 76, 77: