This afternoon’s sonnet: #36
_______________________________________
XXXVI
Let me confess that
we two must be twain,
Although our
undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots
that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by
me be borne alone.
In our two loves
there is but one respect,
Though in our lives
a separable spite,
Which though it
alter not love's sole effect,
Yet doth it steal
sweet hours from love's delight.
I may not evermore
acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed
guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public
kindness honour me,
Unless thou take
that honour from thy name:
But do not so, I
love thee in such sort,
As thou being
mine, mine is thy good report.
_______________________________________
It starts with the let
me, which turns indicatives into nominally imperative sentences. Although
and though are riddle and paradox
markers, and that’s what the first two quatrains are doing, and the yet at the beginning of line 8 marks not
a turn, but rather complements the though
of the preceding line. The third
quatrain states a problem (in the narrow sense). The volta is the but at the beginning of the closing couplet, and the closing
couplet’s again really an indicative, but turned into an imperative by means of
the do not so. I’ll read the next sonnet tomorrow morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment