there being no dull flesh to cumber him as he rushes forward in his fiery race? Compare the neighing stallion of Adonis, Venus & Adonis, ll. 300-312. 14. Go, move ftep by step, walk, as in The Tempest, А& II. fc. 2, 1. 22. STEPHANO.- We'll not run, Monfieur Monfier. I have placed the last two lines, spoken as I take it, by Love, within inverted commas. LII. The joy of hope, the hope of meeting his friend spoken of in the last sonnet (LI.). 4. For blunting, because it wouid blunt. So The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A& 1. fc. 2, 1. 136, 'Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold'. 7-12. So I King Henry Iv., А& ш. fc. 2, 11. 55-59 Thus did I keep my perfon fresh and new ; 8. Captain, chief. So Timon of Athens, A& 111. fc. 5, 1. 49 (Dyce; but qu.? captain substantive) :'The afs more captain than the lion'. Carcanet, necklace, or collar of jewels. Comedy of Errors, А& ш. fc. 1, l. 4. LIII. Not being able, in abfence, to poffefs his friend, he finds his friend's fhadow in all beautiful things. 4. You, although but one person, can give off all manner of shadowy images. Shakspere then, to illuftrate this, chooses the most beautiful of men, Adonis, and the most beautiful of women, Helen; both are but shadows or counterfeits (i.e. pictures, as in Sonnet xvI.) of the 'master-mistress' of his paffion. 8. Tires, head-dreffes, or, generally, attire. 9. Foison, abundance. As in The Tempeft, A& IV. fc. 1, 1. 110. Compare Antony & Cleopatra, A& v. fc. 2, 1. 86: For his bounty There was no winter in 't; an autumn 'twas 12. Blessed. The fancy Shakspere has taken for this word in LII. I, II, 13, runs on into this sonnet. LIV. Continues the thought of LIII. There Shakspere declared that over and above external beauty, more real than that of Helen and Adonis, his friend was pre-eminent for his conftancy, his truth. Now he proceeds to celebrate the worth of this truth. 5. Canker-blooms, bloffoms of the dog-rose. Much Ado about Nothing, A& 1. fc. 3, 1. 28, ‘I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace'. 8. Difclofes, opens, as in Hamlet, A& 1. sc. 3, 1. 40: The canker galls the infants of the Spring For as 9. For their virtue, because their virtue. in Othello, A& m. fc. 3, 1. 263, Haply, for I am black'. 10. Unrespected, unregarded. 11, 12. See the quotation from A Midsummer Night's Dream, in note on Sonnet v. 9. 14. When that, beauty, the general subje&t of the fonnet ; or youth, taken from 'fweet and lovely youth' of L. 13. Vade, fade, as in Paffionate Pilgrim, x. 1. By verfe. So the Quarto. Malone reads 'my verse'. LV. A continuation of LIV. This looks like an Envoy, but LVI. is still a fonnet of abfence. See on this fonnet, Introduction, p. xliii. 1. Monuments. The Quarto has monument. 3. Thefe contents, what is contained in this rhyme. 14. Till the judgement that yourself arife, till the decree of the judgment-day that you arife from the dead. LVI. This, like the fonnets immediately preceding, is written in absence (lines 9, 10). The 'love' Shakspere addreffes, 'Sweet love, renew thy force', is the love in his own breast. Is the fight of his friend, of which he fpeaks, only the imaginative seeing of love; fuch fancied fight as two betrothed perfons may have although fevered by the ocean? 6. Wink. See note on XLIII. I. Here, to sleep as after a full meal. 8. Dullness. Taken in connection with 'wink', meaning fleep, dullness feems to mean drowfinefs, as when Profpero fays of Miranda's flumber (The Tempe, A& 1. fc. 2, l. 185) 'Tis a good dulness'. 13. Or. The Quarto has As. Mr. Palgrave reads Elfe. LVII. The absence spoken of in this fonnet seems to be voluntary absence on the part of Shakspere's friend. 5. World-without-end hour, the tedious hour, that feems as if it would never end. So Love's Labour's Loft, A& v. sc. 2, 1. 799, 'a worldwithout-end bargain'. 13. Will. The Quarto has Will (capital 'W', but not italics). If a play on words is intended, it must be 'Love in your Will (i.e. your Will Shakfpere) can think no evil of you, do what you please’; and alfo Love can discover no evil in your will'. LVIII. A close continuation of LVII.; growing diftruft in his friend, with a determination to resist fuch a feeling. Hence the attempt to disqualify himself for judging his friend's conduct, by taking the place of a vassal, a servant, a slave, in relation to a fovereign. 6. The imprifon'd absence of your liberty, the feparation from you, which is proper to your state of freedom, but which to me is imprisonment. Or the want of fuch liberty as you possess, which I, a prisoner, suffer. 8. Tame to fufferance, bearing tamely even cruel distress; or, tame even to the point of entire fub iniffion. 11. To what you will. Malone reads' time: Do what you will'. LIX. Is this connected with the preceding fonnet? or a new starting-point? Immortality conferred by verse, LIV.-LV., is again taken up in Sonnet LX. connected with LIX., and jealoufy, LVII. in LXI. 8. Since mind, etc., 'Since thought was first expressed in writing'.-Schmidt. 11. Whether, etc. 'Whether' is often monofyllabic in Elizabethan verse. In this line the Quarto prints the fecond 'whether' where; so in Venus & Adonis, 1. 304, ‘And where he run or fly they know not whether '. The Cambridge editors read 'Whether we are mended, or whether better they'. Dyce reads 'Whether we're mended or whêr better they'. 12. Or whether, etc., i.e. whether the ages, revolving on themselves, return to the fame things. LX. The thought of revolution, the revolving ages, LIX. 12, fets the poet thinking of changes wrought by time. 5. The main of light; The entrance of a child into the world at birth is an entrance into the main or ocean of light; the image is suggested by 1. 1, where our minutes are compared to waves. Flourish Set on youth, external decoration of youth. So in Nafh's Summer's Laft Will & Teftament (Hazlitt's Dodfley, vol. viii. p. 73), 'Folly Erafmus fets a flourish on'. 10. Compare Sonnet II. I, 2. N |