wilt prove none". of VIII. 14, is carried on in "consum'st thyself in single life" of IX. 2. 4. Makeless, companionless. Th' Elfe, therewith astownd, Upstarted lightly from his looser Make. Spenser, Faerie Queene, Bk. I. c. vii. st. 7. 12. User. Sewell has us'rer. X. The "murderous shame" of Ix. 14 reappears in the "For shame!" and "murderous hate of X. In IX. Shakspere denies that his friend loves any one; he carries on the thought in the opening of X., and this leads up to his friend's love of Shakspere, which is first mentioned in this sonnet. 7, 8. Seeking to bring to ruin that house (¿.e., family) which it ought to be your chief care to repair. These lines confirm the conjecture that the father of Shakspere's friend was dead. See Sonnet XIII. 9–14. 3 King Henry VI., Act v. sc. 1, 11. 83, 84: I will not ruinate my father's house, Compare Who gave his blood to lime the stones together; and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act v. sc. 4, 11. 7-11:— O thou that dost inhabit in my breast, Repair me with thy presence, Silvia. 9. O change, etc. O be willing to marry and beget children, that I may cease to think you a being devoid of love. XI. The first five lines enlarge on the thought (x. 14) of beauty living" in thine;" showing how the beauty of a child may be called thine. 2. Departest, leavest. "Ere I depart his house," King Lear, Act III. sc. 5, 1. 1. 4. Convertest, dost alter, or turn away. Compare Sonnet XIV. 12: If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert. 7. The times, the generations of men. 9. Store, "i.e., to be preserved for use."-MALONE. "Increase of men, fertility, population." Compare Othello, Act Iv. sc. 3, 11. 84–86 :— DES. I do not think there is any such woman. SCHMIDT. EMIL. Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as would store the world they played for. 11. To whom she gave much, she gave more. Sewell, Malone, Staunton, Delius, read "gave thee more.' 14. Nor let that copy die. Here" copy" means the original from which the impression is taken. In Twelfth Night, Act I. sc. 5, 1. 261, it means the transcript impression taken from an original: Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive, If you will lead these graces to the grave See also Macbeth, Act III. sc. 2, 1. 38. XII. This sonnet seems to be a gathering into one of V., VI., VII. Lines 1, 2, like VII., speak of the decay and loss of the brightness and beauty of the day; lines 3-8, like V., VII., of the loss of the sweets and beauties of the year. 3. Violet past prime. Compare Hamlet, Act I. sc. 3, 1. 7, " A violet in the youth of primy nature." 66 4. Sable curls all silver'd. The Quarto, 1609, reads "or silver'd." An anonymous critic suggests "o'er-silver'd with white." Compare Hamlet, Act 1. sc. 2, 1. 242 (Horatio, of the ghost's beard) : It was as I have seen it in his life, A sable silver'd. 8. Compare A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II. sc. 1, 1. 95: The green corn Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard. 9. Question make, consider. XIII. Shakspere imagines his friend in XII. 14 borne away by Time. It is only while he lives here that he is his own, XIII. 1, 2. Note "you" instead of "thee," and the address "my love" for the first time. 1. Yourself. This seems to mean your own. So in the Argument of Daniel's "Letter of Octavia," Antony could not "dispose of himself, being not himself," i.e., not his own, but Cleopatra's. 5. So Daniel, Delia, XLVII. : in beauty's lease expired appears The date of age, the calends of our death. 6. "Determination in legal language means end."MALONE. 9-13. The same thought of thriftless waste which appears in Sonnets I., IV. 14. You had a father. Compare All's Well that Ends Well, Act I. sc. 1, ll. 19, 20, "This young gentlewoman had a father, O, that had!' how sad a passage 'tis!" The father of Shakspere's friend was probably dead. Shakspere looks forward to the time when his friend also shall be dead (l. 12), and wishes that a son may then be living to say, as Shakspere's friend says now, "I had a father." XIV. In XIII. Shakspere predicts stormy winter (the "seasons' quality" of XIV. 4) and the cold of death; he now explains what his astrology is, and at the close of the sonnet repeats his melancholy prediction. 1, 2. So Sidney, Arcadia, Book III. "O sweet Philoclea, . . . thy heavenly face is my astronomy." Astrophel and Stella (ed. 1591), Sonnet XXVI. : Though dusty wits dare scorn astrology [I] oft forejudge my after-following race So Daniel, Delia, Sonnet Xxxx. (on Delia's eyes): Stars are they sure, whose motions rule desires; 6. Pointing. "Write 'Pointing, i.e., appointing; or at least so understand the word. Tarquin and Lucrece, Stanza CXXVI. :— Whoever plots the sin, thou [Opportunity] point'st the season."-W. S. WALKER. 8. Oft predict, frequent prognostication. Sewell (ed. 2) reads "By aught predict," i.e., by anything predicted. 9, 10. Compare Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV. sc. 3, 11. 350-353 From women's eyes this doctrine I derive : That show, contain, and nourish all the world. 10-14. I introduce the inverted commas before truth after convert, before Thy and after date. 10. Read such art, gather by reading such truths of science as the following. 12. Store. See note on XI. 9. Convert, rhyming here with "art; " so in Daniel, Delia, Sonnet XI., "convert" rhymes with "heart." XV. Introduces Verse as an antagonist of Time. The stars in XIV., determining weather, plagues, dearths, and fortune of princes, reappear in xv. 4, commenting in secret influence on the shows of this world. 3. Stage. Malone reads state. But the word present like show is theatrical, and confirms the text of the Quarto. Compare Antony and Cleopatra, Act III. sc. 13, 11. 2931: : |