Silvester!

Last sonnet of the year:

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CXVII

  Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,

  Wherein I should your great deserts repay,

  Forgot upon your dearest love to call,

  Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

  That I have frequent been with unknown minds,

  And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right;

  That I have hoisted sail to all the winds

  Which should transport me farthest from your sight.

  Book both my wilfulness and errors down,

  And on just proof surmise, accumulate;

  Bring me within the level of your frown,

  But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate;

    Since my appeal says I did strive to prove

    The constancy and virtue of your love.

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Beautiful in its simplicity  J  The volta is the but at the beginning of the antepenultimate line, the turn continues with the since at the beginning of the following line, and is only completed with the last two words of the poem.  I’ll blog again in 2014  J

Sonnet 116

A very famous one for this morning’s sonnet:

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CXVI

  Let me not to the marriage of true minds

  Admit impediments. Love is not love

  Which alters when it alteration finds,

  Or bends with the remover to remove:

  O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

  It is the star to every wandering bark,

  Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

  Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

  Within his bending sickle's compass come;

  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

  But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

    If this be error and upon me prov'd,

    I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

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The voltas are:  First, the O, no! at the beginning of the second quatrain and the but at the beginning of the antepenultimate line; then—at a different level—the if at the beginning of the closing couplet and the nor in the final line.  Another sonnet in the afternoon—

Love is a babe! :)

Here’s today’s second sonnet:

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CXV

  Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

  Even those that said I could not love you dearer:

  Yet then my judgment knew no reason why

  My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.

  But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents

  Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,

  Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,

  Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;

  Alas! why fearing of Time's tyranny,

  Might I not then say, 'Now I love you best,'

  When I was certain o'er incertainty,

  Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?

    Love is a babe, then might I not say so,

    To give full growth to that which still doth grow?

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The but at the beginning of the second quatrain is a volta.  The Alas! in the Petrarchan position is another, and the final volta is the then in the penultimate line.  More tomorrow!

If it be poison'd ...

Does not feel like a Monday  J  Morning sonnet:

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CXIV

  Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,

  Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?

  Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,

  And that your love taught it this alchemy,

  To make of monsters and things indigest

  Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,

  Creating every bad a perfect best,

  As fast as objects to his beams assemble?

  O! 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,

  And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:

  Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,

  And to his palate doth prepare the cup:

    If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin

    That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

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The sonnet starts with a common volta marker or, which is repeated at the beginning of line 3 to introduce the red herring.  The O! in the Petrarchan position marks a return to the opening lines, and the if in the Shakespearean/Spenserian position is another volta, moving to the point of the poem.  I’d say the doth in the final line is a final volta as well.  Another one in the afternoon!

Smiling on Sunday evening

FINALLY  J  All six of my Fall grades are in, and I got straight A’s  J  Here’s sonnet 113:

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CXIII

  Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;

  And that which governs me to go about

  Doth part his function and is partly blind,

  Seems seeing, but effectually is out;

  For it no form delivers to the heart

  Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch:

  Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,

  Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;

  For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,

  The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,

  The mountain or the sea, the day or night:

  The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.

    Incapable of more, replete with you,

    My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.

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The first turns are the and in line 3 and the but in line 4, setting up the idea of oxymorons that runs through the whole poem.  Count the number of negative auxiliaries  J  and antonym pairs, including the superlatives in lines 9–10.  The main volta is very late:  It’s the thus in the final line, between the final pair most true and untrue, emphasizing the last oxymoron.  More tomorrow—

#112

Ice, again  L  Today’s first sonnet:

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CXII

  Your love and pity doth the impression fill,

  Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;

  For what care I who calls me well or ill,

  So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?

  You are my all-the-world, and I must strive

  To know my shames and praises from your tongue;

  None else to me, nor I to none alive,

  That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong.

  In so profound abysm I throw all care

  Of others' voices, that my adder's sense

  To critic and to flatterer stopped are.

  Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:

    You are so strongly in my purpose bred,

    That all the world besides methinks are dead.

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I wonder whether the verb o’er-green in line 4 was inspired by world in the next line (and also in the final line of the sonnet).  The voltas would be the mark at the beginning of line 12 and the that at the beginning of the final line.  More in the afternoon—   

He'll "drink up eisel" :)

It’s dark now, but it’s still not that cold  J  Today’s second sonnet:

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CXI

  O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

  The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

  That did not better for my life provide

  Than public means which public manners breeds.

  Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

  And almost thence my nature is subdu'd

  To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:

  Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd;

  Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink,

  Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;

  No bitterness that I will bitter think,

  Nor double penance, to correct correction.

    Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,

    Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

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Eisel’s vinegar, but it must have been a powerful word as far as Shakespeare was concerned.  For example, it shows up in Hamlet’s rant from Act V, Scene 1:

'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:

Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?

Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?

I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?

To outface me with leaping in her grave?

Be buried quick with her, and so will I:

And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw

Millions of acres on us, till our ground,

Singeing his pate against the burning zone,

Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,

I'll rant as well as thou.

The volta’s again a late one:  It’s the even that at the beginning of the final line.  More tomorrow—

Saturday morning

The rare sunny day  J  And the leisure to enjoy it!  Today’s first sonnet:

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CX

  Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,

  And made my self a motley to the view,

  Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

  Made old offences of affections new;

  Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth

  Askance and strangely; but, by all above,

  These blenches gave my heart another youth,

  And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.

  Now all is done, save what shall have no end:

  Mine appetite I never more will grind

  On newer proof, to try an older friend,

  A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.

    Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

    Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

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The antonym pairs in lines 3 and 4 alert me to an unusually early turn:  The but in line 6 is already a volta.  Another antonym pair in line 8 precedes the volta save in the Petrarchan position.  Finally, a fourth antonym pair in line 11 sets up the Shakespearean volta then at the beginning of the closing couplet.  More in the afternoon—

Volta project, part 109

Here’s today’s second sonnet:

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CIX

  O! never say that I was false of heart,

  Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify,

  As easy might I from my self depart

  As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:

  That is my home of love: if I have rang'd,

  Like him that travels, I return again;

  Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd,

  So that myself bring water for my stain.

  Never believe though in my nature reign'd,

  All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,

  That it could so preposterously be stain'd,

  To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;

    For nothing this wide universe I call,

    Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

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The though at the beginning of the second line is a turn already.  The second and third quatrains are almost interlinked after the manner of Spenser  J  The main turn is the save at the beginning of the final line.  More tomorrow—

Is this the weekend?

Weekends lose some meaning when classes aren’t in session  J  Friday morning sonnet:

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CVIII

  What's in the brain, that ink may character,

  Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit?

  What's new to speak, what now to register,

  That may express my love, or thy dear merit?

  Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,

  I must each day say o'er the very same;

  Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,

  Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.

  So that eternal love in love's fresh case,

  Weighs not the dust and injury of age,

  Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,

  But makes antiquity for aye his page;

    Finding the first conceit of love there bred,

    Where time and outward form would show it dead.

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The volta is the but at the beginning of the antepenultimate line.  I might be starting to see the turns a little better now  J  Another sonnet in the afternoon. 

Volta project, #107

A somewhat darker sonnet for this dark afternoon:

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CVII

  Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul

  Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,

  Can yet the lease of my true love control,

  Supposed as forfeit to a confin'd doom.

  The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,

  And the sad augurs mock their own presage;

  Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd,

  And peace proclaims olives of endless age.

  Now with the drops of this most balmy time,

  My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,

  Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rime,

  While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:

    And thou in this shalt find thy monument,

    When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

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Come to think of it, this is only dark because of a few dark words (such as “doom” and “sad” and so on).  The first two quatrains, with their lush but depressing description of natural setting, vaguely remind me of Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach.  I’m seeing maybe two turns:  The now at the beginning of the third quatrain with its shift from the setting, and the when at the beginning of the final line, which contrasts the lyric I’s fate with stuff that will die away.  Now I’ll go away and try to finish the grading that’s due early tomorrow. 

On our lack of tongues :)

Here’s today’s first sonnet:

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CVI

  When in the chronicle of wasted time

  I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

  And beauty making beautiful old rime,

  In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

  Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

  Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

  I see their antique pen would have express'd

  Even such a beauty as you master now.

  So all their praises are but prophecies

  Of this our time, all you prefiguring;

  And for they looked but with divining eyes,

  They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

    For we, which now behold these present days,

    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

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I had to look up wight:  It means “a living being; creature; especially a human being.”  The volta is the but in the final line, and the build-up to the volta is amazing  J  Another sonnet in the afternoon—

Silvia? :)

Today’s second sonnet:

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CV

  Let not my love be call'd idolatry,

  Nor my beloved as an idol show,

  Since all alike my songs and praises be

  To one, of one, still such, and ever so.

  Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,

  Still constant in a wondrous excellence;

  Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd,

  One thing expressing, leaves out difference.

  'Fair, kind, and true,' is all my argument,

  'Fair, kind, and true,' varying to other words;

  And in this change is my invention spent,

  Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.

    Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone,

    Which three till now, never kept seat in one.

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The play of cause-and-effect statements in the first two quatrains is delightful  J  The volta would be the this change in line 11, and the point of the poem is delayed until the never in the final line.  Also:  The fair, kind, and true makes me think right away of the following:

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From Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV, Scene 2

Who is Silvia? what is she,

    That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise is she;

    The heaven such grace did lend her,

That she might admirèd be.

Is she kind as she is fair?

    For beauty lives with kindness.

Love doth to her eyes repair,

    To help him of his blindness;

And, being helped, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,

    That Silvia is excelling;

She excels each mortal thing

    Upon the dull earth dwelling;

To her let us garlands bring      

Es hoert nicht auf (es schneit ohn Unterlass)

Christmas day.  First sonnet:

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CIV

  To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

  For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,

  Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,

  Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,

  Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,

  In process of the seasons have I seen,

  Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,

  Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

  Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,

  Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd;

  So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

  Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd:

    For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:

    Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

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First, the volta:  It’s the yet in line 9, i.e. at the Petrarchan place this time.  More striking is the prominent cæsura in line 3, marked with a period to make sure that I don’t miss it  J  Tha metaphor is developed in such detail!  Lines 4 and 5 might have seemed commonplace without line 7.  The Pointe und Wirkung is delayed until the final line of the sonnet, which definitely adds to its Wirkung  J  I’ll post another in the evening.

Change of pace :)

I think I’ll again go to two sonnets a day for the break  J  Here’s the second one for today:

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CIII

  Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,

  That having such a scope to show her pride,

  The argument, all bare, is of more worth

  Than when it hath my added praise beside!

  O! blame me not, if I no more can write!

  Look in your glass, and there appears a face

  That over-goes my blunt invention quite,

  Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.

  Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,

  To mar the subject that before was well?

  For to no other pass my verses tend

  Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;

    And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,

    Your own glass shows you when you look in it.

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I’m thinking the more worth at the end of line 3 is the main turn in this one.  The other turns—such as the over-goes in line 7—pretty much just repeat the first one.  Maybe the for at the beginning of line 11 is another turn, but it’s spelling out what’s already been assumed in the previous lines.  More tomorrow—

Volta project, part 102

Tuesday morning.  Sonnet 102:

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CII

  My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;

  I love not less, though less the show appear;

  That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,

  The owner's tongue doth publish every where.

  Our love was new, and then but in the spring,

  When I was wont to greet it with my lays;

  As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,

  And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:

  Not that the summer is less pleasant now

  Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

  But that wild music burthens every bough,

  And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

    Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:

    Because I would not dull you with my song.

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In the first two lines, the cæsuræ have the nature of voltas, and are even followed by the standard turn marker though.  The next two lines introduce the point of the sonnet, but stated in terms of how to do it wrong.  This one is a very deliberate poem  J  Lines 5–6 return to the lyric I (and the lyric You), and the following line introduces the simile, which is interwoven with the I and the You throughout the rest of the poem.  The opening words of most of the remaining lines are turns  J  In fact, every one of them except the and at the beginning of line 12.

Volta project, part 101! :)

Blogging very late again (long drive to Ann Arbor and back).  Today’s sonnet:

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CI

  O truant Muse what shall be thy amends

  For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?

  Both truth and beauty on my love depends;

  So dost thou too, and therein dignified.

  Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,

  'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;

  Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;

  But best is best, if never intermix'd'?

  Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?

  Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee

  To make him much outlive a gilded tomb

  And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.

    Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how

    To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

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The first turn is the for’t in line 10, the second the then at the beginning of the closing couplet.  I think the how at the end of the penultimate line might be a third turn?  Enjambements are relatively rare in Shakespeare’s sonnets, and this one’s way late in the poem  J  More tomorrow—

How do you say "ausgerechnet" in English?

I know it’s really late, but I didn’t want to skip a day ausgerechnet on the brink of #100:

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C

  Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,

  To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?

  Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,

  Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

  Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,

  In gentle numbers time so idly spent;

  Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem

  And gives thy pen both skill and argument.

  Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,

  If Time have any wrinkle graven there;

  If any, be a satire to decay,

  And make time's spoils despised every where.

    Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,

    So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.

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The volta would be the if any at the beginning of line 11.  More tomorrow—

15-line sonnet

Had great fun driving on ice yesterday  -_-  Today’s sonnet:

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XCIX

  The forward violet thus did I chide:

  Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

  If not from my love's breath? The purple pride

  Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells

  In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd.

  The lily I condemned for thy hand,

  And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;

  The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,

  One blushing shame, another white despair;

  A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both,

  And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;

  But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth

  A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

    More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,

    But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.

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Note:  It’s fifteen lines, not fourteen lines  J  Fourteen lines do not a sonnet make, because, like Jim said, a sonnet’s really all about turns.  Dante has some twenty-line sonnets (Dante himself called them sonnets).  But the volta’s obvious in this one:  It’s the yet in the penultimate line.  I’m going to be in triple digits tomorrow  J

Survived finals week!!

I’m finally done with finals!!  And my first grade is in:  I got an A on Nonverbal  J  And here comes the week of grading finals …  But first, today’s sonnet:

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XCVIII

  From you have I been absent in the spring,

  When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,

  Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

  That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.

  Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell

  Of different flowers in odour and in hue,

  Could make me any summer's story tell,

  Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:

  Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

  Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;

  They were but sweet, but figures of delight,

  Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

    Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away,

    As with your shadow I with these did play.

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The yet at the beginning of the second quatrain is already a turn.  The you, you in the last line of the third quatrain is another, bringing us back from the metaphors to the addressee of the sonnet.  Reapeated words—takrār-e lafzī—are a powerful tool, but a lot less common in English poetry than, say, in Persian or Urdu poetry—I’m thinking of Hāfiz:

barq-e ʼishq ar Khirman-e pashmīna pōshē sōKht sōKht

jaur-e shāh-e kāmrāN gar bar gadā’ē raft raft

or Ātish:

zamīn-e chaman gul khilātī hai kyā kyā

badaltā hai raNg āsmāN kaise kaisē

…  The main volta would still be the yet at the beginning of the closing couplet.  Now to drive to Ann Arbor and get my daughter for the weekend  J