The Sonnets and Other Poems (36 page)

⁴coloured ill
of ugly complexion/of evil disposition (in terms of color, may suggest a dark complexion, considered unattractive, or use of cosmetics)

⁸pride
plays on sense of “sexual desire” (often used of female animals)

¹²hell
plays on the slang term for “vagina”

¹⁴fire … out
i.e. drive him out/infect him with venereal disease

¹rhetoric
persuasive eloquence

³perjury
in
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Longaville has vowed to see no woman for three years, but has fallen in love with Maria

⁵forswore
vowed to renounce

⁸grace
favor/divine mercy

¹¹Exhal’st
draw up (and burn away, as the sun burns off mist)

In … is
she, as the sun, has absorbed the vaporous
vow

¹Cytherea
or Venus, the Roman goddess of love (from the Greek island of Cythera)

²Adonis
in classical mythology, the beautiful youth loved by Venus (Shakespeare tells their story in
Venus and Adonis
)

green
youthful, blooming

³lovely
amorous/beautiful

⁶favours
love tokens/her sexual parts

⁸still
always

⁹unripe
immature

want conceit
lack understanding

¹⁰figured proffer
implied offer (of sex)

¹¹tender
young

¹³queen
may pun on “quean,” i.e. prostitute

toward
willing, yielding

¹⁴froward
stubborn, contrary

¹forsworn
guilty of breaking an oath (Berowne had sworn to see no woman for three years)

⁴osiers
willows

⁵Study
the student (i.e. Berowne himself, who has vowed to study for three years)

his bias leaves
leaves his rightful course (of learning);
bias
is a bowling term for the oblique course followed by a ball

⁶art
knowledge

⁷mark
target, goal

¹⁰praise
credit

parts
qualities/physical features

¹¹Jove
supreme Roman god; his weapons were
thunder
and
lightning

dreadful
formidable, frightening

¹²bent
directed

³Cytherea
Venus, goddess of love

⁴tarriance
waiting, sojourn

Adonis
the beautiful youth with whom Cytherea was in love

⁵osier
willow tree

⁶Adon
i.e. Adonis

spleen
hot body/irritability

⁷hotter
i.e. with lust

look For
await, expect

⁹Anon
soon

¹¹glorious
splendid/shining

¹²wistly
longingly

¹³bounced in
threw himself into the water

whereas
where

¹⁴Jove
supreme Roman god

flood
river

²dove
the bird was proverbially faithful in love

⁵damask
the red of the damask rose

grace
adorn

⁶falser
more deceitful

deface
spoil, make ugly

⁹coinèd
created (with connotations of counterfeiting)

¹⁰Dreading
fearful of

¹¹protestings
declarations

¹⁵framed
created

foiled
trampled on, destroyed

¹⁶fell
plays on sense of “succumbed sexually”

a-turning
changing/having sex (with other men)

¹⁷whether
which

¹⁸Bad … neither
i.e. she was certainly a bad lover, but wasn’t even a particularly good lecher

²needs
necessarily

³thee
this poem appears also in
Poems in Diverse Humours
(1598), where it is dedicated to “Master R. L.” (thought to be Richard Lynch, a fellow poet)

⁵Dowland
John Dowland, lutenist and composer

⁷Spenser
Edmund Spenser, poet, author of
The Faerie Queen
(1596)

conceit
ingenuity/imagination

¹⁰Phoebus
Apollo, Greek and Roman god of music and poetry; often depicted carrying a lyre similar to a
lute

¹³both
i.e. music and poetry

feign
say in their poetry

¹⁴One knight
seems to be a reference to a particular individual, perhaps a patron; no definitive identification has been made

¹queen of love
i.e. Venus

²[ ]
indicates a missing line

⁴Adon
Adonis, the young man Venus loved; he died hunting when a boar wounded him