Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Imperatives! :)

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