Dowden quotes resty-stiff from Edward III. iii. 3. p. 44, Tauchnitz ed.; and Dyce refers to Cole's Latin and English Dictionary: "Resty, piger, lentus."

246. c. line 11: be a SATIRE to decay. That is, mock decay. Satire is explained to satirist, for which we are referred to The Poetaster, v. 1:

The honest satyr hath the happiest soul.

-Gifford's Ben Jonson, vol. ii. p. 524. 247. CI.-Subject the same. "O truant Muse" repeats "Where art thou, Muse?" of last sonnet.

248. CI. line 3: Both TRUTH and BEAUTY.-Love inspires my Muse; and with my Muse does it rest to make his beauty and truth immortal. Compare Son. xiv. 11: As truth and beauty shall together thrive;

and line 14:

Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date. So Son. liv. 1, 2:

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! and The Phoenix and the Turtle, 62-64:

Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but 't is not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.

249. CII. lines 7, 8:

As Philomel in summer's FRONT doth sing,

And stops her pipe in growth of riper days.

Dowden compares The Winter's Tale, iv. 4. 3: "Peering in April's front." The idea of the passage is partially the same as that in Merchant of Venice, v. 1. 104-108.

250. CII. line 12: And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.—Compare Son. lii. 3, 4:

The which he will not every hour survey,

For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.

In the previous line (11) "wild music" reminds us of Milton's "warbling his woodnotes wild."

251. CIII.-If my verse is lame, the fault lies with the subject, to which none could do justice. Compare Son. lxxxiii., especially the last six lines.

252. CIII. line 1: what POVERTY.-So Son. lxxxiv. 5: Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,

253. CIII. line 10: To MAR the subject that before was WELL.-Dowden compares Lear, i. 4. 369:

Striving to better, oft we mar what's well;

and King John, iv. 2. 28, 29.

254. CIV. To the eyes of true love beauty never passes:

the loved object remains the same. The idea is expressed again in Son. cviii. 9-14.

255. CIV. line 3: THREE winters cold.-A time reference, which does not, however, help very much in evolving the history of the Sonnets. Dyce reads three winters' cold.

256. CIV. line 10: STEAL from his figure.-Compare Son. lxxvii. 7: "thy dial's shady stealth.” The "hourly dial" is mentioned in Lucrece, 327.

257. Cv.-Compare Son. Ixxvi. and cviii.

Is "plain and true;" there's all the reach of it.
259. CV. lines 10, 11:
VARYING to other words;
And in this CHANGE is my INVENTION spent.
Compare Son. lxxvi. 2:

So far from variation or quick change. Change, as in The Two Gentlemen, iv. 2. 69: "Hark, what fine change is in the music;" and invention as in the Dedication to Venus and Adonis, "the first heir of my invention." The sense of the lines is clear: all I can do is to express fair, kind, and true in different ways; the subject must always be the same.

260. CVI.-All attempts in the past to describe beauty are but faint anticipations, prefigurings, of your beauty.

261. CVI. line 3: And beauty making beautiful, &c.That is, beauty as the subject which enabled these poets of old to write beautifully.

262. CVI. line 9: So all their praises are but PROPHECIES. -Dowden well compares Constable's Diana:

Miracle of the world, I never will deny

That former poets praise the beauty of their days; But all those beauties were but figures of thy praise, And all those poets did of thee but prophesy. 263. CVI. line 12: They had not SKILL enough.-Q. has still, an impossible reading, as it seems to me. 264. CVII. lines 1, 2:

nor the PROPHETIC SOUL

Of the wide world dreaming on THINGS TO COME. Prophetic soul (cf. Hamlet, i. 5. 40) echoes the prophecies of the last sonnet, line 9. Things to come is the best of the proposed emendations of Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3. 4, 5.

265. CVII. lines 5-8: The mortal MOON, &c.-This sounds like a contemporary reference, and Mr. Gerald Massey explains it as an allusion to the death of Elizabeth and the release of Southampton from the Tower. I believe that the lines do contain some reference; only the clue to it has been lost. We may compare for much the same language Venus and Adonis, 509, 510.

268. CVIII. I can say nothing in your praise which I have not said before: yet these things which I have repeated so often can never seem old to me, because love which inspires them is ever fresh, and to true love the object loved must always remain young and beautiful as it was at first. The theme with which he closes the sonnet reminds us of xv. 13, 14:

And, all in war with Time, for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

And again, civ. 1-3:

To me, fair friend, you never can be old, &c.

269. CVIII. line 3: what NEW to register.-The Quarto has now. New is pretty certainly right. We gain noth

ing by Sidney Walker's

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

270. CVIII. line 9: in LOVE'S FRESH CASE.-I believe this only means, in the case of love which is ever fresh. Love is the emphatic word: in the case of love time and change do not count. Fresh is added to strengthen the idea of love's abiding vigour.

271. CIX. line 5: if I have RANG'D.-Ranged=gone away or astray; so Tennyson, In Memoriam, canto xxi.: "her little ones have ranged."

272. CIX. line 7: Just to the time, &c.-At the right time and-half-quibblingly-not altered with the time, i.e. by

absence.

273. CIX. line 11: be STAIN'D.-Staunton needlessly proposed strain'd. For blood-passion, in line 10, cf. Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1. 74.

274. CIX. lines 13, 14:

For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, MY ROSE.

That is, you apart, excepted, I count the world nothing. With my rose cf. "beauty's rose" in Son. i. 2. So Othello, v. 2. 13-16.

275. cx. This and the following sonnet are generally regarded as a reference by Shakespeare to his actor's life. See what is said on the subject in Troilus and Cressida, note 67.

276. cx. line 3: GOR'D mine own thoughts.-Gor'd=done violence to; cf. Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3. 228.

277. cx. line 4: Made old offences of affections new. Dowden says: "Entered into new friendships and loves, which were transgressions against my old love." I do not altogether see how this sense can be got out of the English, though it agrees well with line 11. May it not mean: prostituted my love-a love so new, so unknown to other men, so rare-to the old hackneyed purposes and commonplaces of the stage, made capital out of my emotions, turned my passion to account, sold cheap what is most dear? All this being done in his capacity as actor.

278. CXI. line 1: WITH Fortune chide.-Q. has wish.

279. CXI. line 10: Potions of EISEL.-So Hamlet, v. i. 299: "Woo 't drink up eisel?" Nares quotes from Skelton: He drank eisel and gall To redeeme us withal,

See Dyer's Folklore of Shakespeare, p. 275; and Hunter's Illustrations, ii. p. 263.

280. CXII. - Your praise or blame is for me the sole standard of right and wrong. Pity in line 1 repeats the pity in cxi. 14.

281. CXII. line 10: my ADDER'S SENSE.-See Troilus and Cressida, note 127.

282. CXII. line 13: in my purpose BRED.-Bred = firmly established or harboured. Cf. Son. cviii. 13:

Finding the first conceit of love there bred.

283. CXII. line 14: ARE dead.-Q. has y'are, and some editors read they're. I have followed the Globe ed. 284. CXIII.-Though away you are present to me in everything; cxix. is a continuation.

285. CXIII. line 6: which it doth LATCH.-So Macbeth, iv. 3. 195: Where hearing should not latch them.

In Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 2. 36, latch=smear.

286. CXIII. line 14: maketh MINE UNTRUE. So the Quarto; but it is very strange. Untrue must be a substantive, with the sense, perhaps, error. Various proposals have been made; myself, I should like to read eyne. 287. CXIV. lines 4-6: your love taught it this alchemy, &c. So Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1. 232-234:

293. CXVI. line 7: It is the STAR.— Referring to the northern star. Cf. Much Ado, iii. 4. 59; and Julius Cæsar, iii. 1. 60-62. So The Faithful Shepherdess, i. 2:

that fair star

That guides the wandering seaman through the deep. -Beaumont and Fletcher, Mermaid ed. vol. ii. p. 329. 294 CXVI. line 8: Whose worth's unknown, &c.—A difficult and much-discussed line. Dowden says: "The passage seems to mean, 'As the star, over and above what can be ascertained concerning it for our guidance at sea, has unknowable occult virtue and influence, so love, beside its power of guiding us, has incalculable potencies.' This is not very satisfactory; but I am afraid I cannot suggest anything better. Perhaps the difficulty comes in this way, that we do not quite know how an Elizabethan regarded the stars. Popular astronomy may have held that the northern star was materially as rich in wealth as this earth. Suppose now that we take worth literally; the sense might be this: The height, altitude, of the star is known; but who can tell what riches it contains? The outward is visible to us; the inward is hidden. So, too, with love. We can gain a rough estimate and idea of its extent; we can measure it from the outward. But the real essence and worth of the passion is incalculable, unknown, just as the worth of the star is unknown. In either case we see little more than the outside, the surface.

295. CXVI. line 9: TIME'S FOOL.-Dowden compares I. Henry IV. v. 4. 81: "life time's fool."

296. CXVI. line 12: But BEARS IT out even to the EDGE of doom. Compare All's Well, iii. 3. 5, 6. It is redundant, just as in an expression like "carry it;" cf. Othello, i. 1. 66, 67:

What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe,

If he can carry 't thus!

297. CXVII. line 3: FORGOT upon your dearest love TO CALL-Compare Son. ci.:

=

O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd? &c.

298. CXVII. lines 5, 6:

frequent been with UNKNOWN MINDS, And given to TIME.

Line 5 illustrates Dowden's interpretation of cx. 4. Time the time, society; see Son. xvi. 10. Staunton, who seems to have had a mania for making needless emendations, proposed "to them."

299. CXVII. line 9: Book both my wilfulness.—Book= register, as in Henry V. iv. 7. 76, if, that is to say, we adopt Dyce's reading in the latter passage.

300. CXVII. line 11: within the LEVEL.-Level-aim; cf. A Lover's Complaint, 309:

That not a heart which in his level came.

301. CXVII. lines 13, 14:

1 did strive to PROVE The constancy and virtue of your love.

Contrast cx. 10, 11:

Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend.

302. CXVIII. line 2: With EAGER compounds.-Eager = VOL. VIII.

bitter, sharp, the French aigre. It is used twice in Hamlet in the same sense; cf. i. 4. 2: "a nipping and an eager air;" and i. 5. 69: “like eager droppings into milk."

303. CXVIII. line 6: did I FRAME my feeding.—Frame= suit, adapt. So the Passionate Pilgrim, 323: And to her will frame all thy ways;

and III. Henry VI. iii. 2. 185:

And frame my face to all occasions. 304. CXIX.-Carrying on idea of previous sonnet, with the same metaphor, "potions," "fever," &c.

305. CXIX. line 10: That better is by EVIL still MADE BETTER. -Repeating the "by ill be cured" of cxviii. 12.

306. CXIX. line 14: And gain by ILL.-The Quarto has ills; but I think the singular is required; cf. "O benefit of ill" in line 9.

307. CXX.-Remembering how much I suffered when you were untrue, I might have divined how much you would suffer by my disloyalty, and that thought should have given me reason to pause. Still the fact that you did trespass once must be an excuse for me now. We are quits.

308. CXX. line 9: 0, that OUR NIGHT OF WOE.-Compare Venus and Adonis, 481:

The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day. Staunton proposed sour.

309. cxx. line 11: And soon to you, &c.-Sidney Walker would print the line thus:

And soon to you, as you to me then, tender'd.

I don't think the change is necessary.

310. CXXI. line 1: than VILE ESTEEMED.-Dyce and some other editors read vile-esteem'd.

311. CXXI. line 3: And the just PLEASURE lost.—Should we not read and the just pleasure's lost? the sense being: We lose that pleasure which seems vile ("is so deem'd") to others, but is not felt to be so by us.

312. CXXI. line 6: Give SALUTATION to my sportive BLOOD. -So Henry VIII, ii. 3. 103: “If this salute my blood a jot." I owe the reference to Dowden.

313. CXXI. line 9: I AM THAT I AM.-We may remember Iago's "I am not what I am" (Othello, i. 1. 65).

314. CXXI. line 11: themselves be BEVEL.-Bevel = slanting or crooked: a builder's term.

315. CXXII-He has received some tables (memorandumbooks) from his friend and has given them away. Here he apologizes for having done so: the true tables on which you are written down are my heart and brain: what others should I need?

316. CXXII. line 1: Thy gift, thy TABLES.-For tables see Troilus and Cressida, note 262.

317. CXXIII. He takes up the idea of forgetfulness suggested in last line of last sonnet: he will be true in spite of time. The poem is full of conventional metaphor.

318. CXXIII. line 7: And rather make THEM born to our desire.-Them" what thou dost foist upon us;" the sense being, "you foist upon us things which really are old and 449 220

hackneyed, but which we imagine to be new-"born to our desire"-created just to please us.

319. CXXIV. lines 3, 4: As subject to Time's love, &c.— "My love might be subject to Time's hate, and so plucked up as a weed, or subject to Time's love, and so gathered as a flower" (Dowden).

320. CXXIV. line 7: THRALLED DISCONTENT. -Does this refer to the affected "melancholy" of which Jaques speaks? See note 126 on As You Like It; and cf. Thomas Lord Cromwell, iii. 2: "My nobility is wonderful melancholy: is it not most gentlemanlike to be melancholy?" (Tauchnitz ed. p. 101).

321. CXXIV. line 12: nor GROWS with heat.-Steevens would read glows.

322. CXXVI. This poem is generally regarded as the envoy, the conclusion of the series addressed to Shakespeare's friend. The editor of the Quarto evidently thought that a couplet was missing, as he left a space for theapparently-absent lines 13, 14.

323. CXXVI. line 2: his SICKLE, HOUR.-There must be some corruption of the text. Unfortunately no emendation-sickle hoar, fickle hour, sickle-hour-is at all satisfactory.

324. CXXVI. line 14: And her QUIETUS is to render thee. -For quietus see Hamlet, iii. 1. 75. Sometimes we find the full expression quietus est.

325. CXXVII.-Introducing the "Dark Woman" series of Sonnets.

326. CXXVII. line 1: BLACK was not counted FAIR.-See Troilus and Cressida, note 14.

327. CXXVII. line 3: beauty's SUCCESSIVE heir.-See Titus Andronicus, note 1.

328. CXXVII. line 9: my mistress' BROWS are raven black. -Q. has eyes, which, I think, must be wrong. I have followed the Globe editors. Walker proposed hairs.

329. CXXVII. line 10: Her EYES so suited, and they mourners seem.—It is worth noting that in the old prose History of Dr. Faustus Helen is described as having "most amorous cole black eyes;" and Helen, as we know from Marlowe, was taken as a perfect type of beauty. Sidney complains (Astrophel and Stella, vii. 1, 2):

When Nature made her chief work-Stella's eyes; In colour black, why wrapt she beams so bright? -Arber's English Garner, vol. 1. p. 506. Suited clad, as in cxxxii. 12; and Lear, iv. 7. 6. Dyce reads as they. For the conceit in the line cf. cxxxii. 1-3.

330. CXXVII. line 11: not born FAIR. -The use of cosmetics in dyeing hair, and such like devices, are continually referred to; see, for instance, Stubbes' Anatomy of Abuses, part I. pp. 67-69; and Fairholt's Lilly, vol. i. pp. 288, 289. Perhaps these customs were introduced from Italy. Coryat in his Crudities has much to tell us concerning the ways of the Venetian ladies: "All the women of Venice every Saturday in the afternoone doe use to annoint their haire with oyle, or some other drugs, to the end to make it looke faire, that is whitish. For that colour is most affected of the Venetian Dames and Ladies." He describes

the process, which included drying in the sun (vol. ii. pp. 37, 38).

331. CXXVIII. line 1: thou, my MUSIC.-Compare Son. viii. 1: "Music to hear."

332. CXXIX.-As a study of lust contrasted with love this sonnet may be compared with Lucrece, 687-743, and the single stanza in Venus and Adonis, 799-804. It is a commonplace of criticism that Shakespeare's Sonnets almost suffer as works of art from this plethora of meaning; they are, in Trench's phrase, “so double-shotted with thought." I suppose there is nowhere in the plays and poems a more striking instance of compression than this sonnet affords. Every line is packed with passion. It may be noticed that the poem seems to be rather out of place; linked in no way with the preceding and following sonnets.

333. CXXIX. line 4: Savage, extreme, rude, CRUEL-Compare Hero and Leander, Second Sestiad, 299, 300: Love is not full of pity, as men say,

But deaf and cruel where he means to prey.
-Bullen's Marlowe, iii. 35.

334. CXXIX. line 10: HAD, HAVING, and in quest TO HAVE -The sense is clear; the grammar less so. For similar compressions cf. Troilus and Cressida, ii. 3. 263: He must, he is, he cannot but be wise;

and Hamlet, i. 2. 158:

It is not nor it cannot come to good.

335. CXXIX. lines 11, 12:

A bliss in proof,-and PROV'D, A VERY WOE;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
The Quarto has proud and very wo. The sentiment of the
couplet is an obvious one; cf. Lucrece, 211, 212:

What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy;

and lines 867, 868:

The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours
Even in the moment that we call them ours.

336. CXXX.-A description of his mistress in the conventional style of Elizabethan idealism. For a close parallel we may turn to Fidessa, Son. xxxix.-Arber's English Garner, v. p. 610; and for a good contrast to Watson's Teares of Fancy-Arber's Reprint, p. 43. We find such passages of highly-wrought description in Spenser, Sidney, Lodge; indeed, passim in the sonnet literature of the time.

337. cxxx. line 4: If HAIRS be WIRES.-Why do Elizabethan writers always compare hair with wire? It is not a particularly happy image: yet it occurs over and over again. Here are some instances: Spenser's Epithalamion: Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden ayre.

-Globe ed. p. 58 Parthenophil and Parthenophe, Son. xiii.: Her hair disordered, brown and crispéd wiry. -Arber's English Garner, vol. v. p. 346;

Whose ticing hair, like nets of golden wire,
Enchains thy heart.

-Dyce's Greenes Peele, p. 602. Was it something in the Elizabethan coiffure which sug. gested the comparison? The hair may have been stiffened until it really looked like wire.

338. CXXX. line 14: As any she belied with FALSE COMPARE.-Compare Son. xxi. 1-8.

339. CXXXI. line 3: to my DEAR DOTING heart.-Dyce reads dear-doting.

340. CXXXII. lines 1-4: Thine eyes I love, &c.-Compare 1 Son. cxxvii. Much the same conceit occurs in Astrophel and Stella, vii. 11-14 (Arber's English Garner, vol. i. p. 506). 341. CXXXII. line 2: thy HEART TORMENTS.-Q. has heart torment; and it has been suggested that we should place a comma after heart, and refer torment to eyes in the previous line.

342. CXXXII. line 6: the GRAY cheeks of the east.-See note on Titus Andronicus, ii. 2. 1.

343. CXXXIII.-A fresh idea. The " dark woman has taken his friend from him. Connected with xl. xli. xlii.?

344. CXXXIII. line 5: Me from myself, &c.-Compare The Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii. 1. 172, 173. My next self in line 6 is repeated in that other mine in cxxxiv. 3.

345. CXXXIII. line 9: Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward. We have this idea several times; cf. Son. xxii. 6, 7: my heart,

Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me;

Son. cix. 3, 4:

As easy might I from myself depart

As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie;

and Richard III. i. 2. 204:

Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart. Compare too Barnes Parthonophil and Parthenophe, xvi.: Yet this delights, and makes me triumph much, That mine Heart, in her body lies imprisoned. -Arber's English Garner, vol. v. p. 349. 346. CXXXIII. line 13: being pent in thee.-See Troilus and Cressida, note 184.

347. CXXXIV. -The verbal links with the last sonnet are clear: "he is thine" echoes "perforce am thine;" and "that other mine" repeats "my next self."

348. CXXXIV. line 9: The statute of thy beauty, &c. -You will put the statute into execution and claim the letter of your bond, like a very Shylock. obligation for money" (Malone).

Statute" security or

349. CXXXV. Here, and in the next sonnet, we have elaborate quibbles, such as were common enough in Shakespeare's time. Sidney plays upon the word Rich in exactly the same way; see Astrophel and Stella, xxxvii. (Arber's English Garner, vol. i. p. 521). In line 2 "Will to boot" refers to his friend; "Will in overplus" - Shakespeare him

self. In the first line Will ought, I believe, to be written "will" = desire, in antithesis to "wish." Possibly, however, the husband of the "dark woman' was a Will.

350. cxxxv. line 13: Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill. So the Quarto; but I can make no sense of the text. Of the emendations, two are noticeable: "Let no unkind 'No' fair beseechers kill" (Dowden); and “no fair beseechers skill" avail, i.e. against Shakespeare. The latter is Mr. W. M. Rossetti's proposal.

351. CXXXVI. line 8: Among a number ONE is RECKON'D NONE. SO Hero and Leander, First Sestiad, 255: “One is no number;" and Fifth Sestiad, 339, "for one no number is" (Bullen's Marlowe, vol. iii. pp. 15 and 84). Compare, too, Romeo and Juliet, i. 2. 32, 33, and note.

352. CXXXVI. line 10: in thy STORE'S account.-Q. has stores; but everywhere else the word occurs in the singular. 353. CXXXVI. line 12: a SOMETHING SWEET to thee.Query: a something, sweet, to thee, as Dyce reads.

354. CXXXVI. lines 13, 14: Make but my name thy love, &c.-Dowden says: "Love only my name (something less than loving myself), and then thou lovest me, for my name is Will, and I myself am all will, i.e. all desire." Is this right? I should have thought the sense was: "Let your love be named Will (i.e. his friend), and then in loving him you must indirectly love me, since my name too is Will.

355. CXXXVII. line 6: Be ANCHOR'D in the bay. --Compare Antony and Cleopatra, i. 5. 31-33; and Cymbeline, v. 5. 393. 356. CXXXVII. lines 9, 10:

a SEVERAL plot Which my heart knows the WIDE WORLD'S common place. Several belonging to a private owner. Cf. Love's Labour's Lost, ii. 1. 223, where (as here) a quibble is intended: My lips are no common, though several they be.

A several was an inclosed field, as opposed to public land = a common. Wide world, as in Son. cvii. 2.

357. CXXXVIII.-See the Passionate Pilgrim, poem 1. 358. CXXXIX. line 6: forbear to GLANCE thine EYE aside. -Compare cxl. 14: "Bear thine eyes straight."

359. CXXXIX. line 14: KILL ME OUTRIGHT with looks, &c. -So Constable, Diana, Son. v. of the Fourth Decade, 7-9: Dear! if all other favour you shall grudge, Do speedy execution with your eye! With one sole look, you leave in me no soul. -Arber's English Garner, vol. ii. p. 243. Dowden compares Astrophel and Stella, xlviii. 13, 14: Dear killer, spare not thy sweet cruel shot; A kind of grace it is, to slay with speed. -Arber's English Garner, vol. i. p. 527. 360. CXL. line 3: Lest SORROW LEND me WORDS.-We may remember Macbeth, iv. 3. 209, 210:

the grief that does not speak

Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break. "True grief is dumb," says a character in Old Fortunatus, ii. 2 (Mermaid edition of Dekker, p. 332); and Seneca long before had written:

Curæ leves loquuntur, majores stupent,