• The octave (the first 8 lines), usually rhyming abbaabba, establishes
the speaker’s situation.
• The sestet (the last 6 lines), usually with the rhyme scheme cdcdcdor cdecde, resolves, draws conclusions about, or expresses a reaction to
the speaker’s situation.
The Petrarchan sonnet has been called
organic in its unity because the octave and sestet fit together naturally.
Unity is also produced by the rhyme scheme, which involves only four or
five different rhyming sounds.
The Shakespearean form also has 14 lines but is structured
differently.
• Three quatrains (stanzas of 4 lines) are followed by a rhyming couplet
(2 lines).
• The rhyme scheme is ababcdcdefefgg.
• The first quatrain introduces a
situation, which is explored in the next two quatrains. The third quatrain (or
sometimes the final couplet) usually includes a turn, or shift in thought. The
couplet resolves the situation.
The English sonnet began with another
lovelorn poet, Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542). In the 1530s, Wyatt translated
some of Petrarch’s love sonnets and wrote a few of his own in a slight
modification of the Italian form. Another English poet who deserves credit for
popularizing the sonnet in England is Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547).
Building on Wyatt’s modifications to the form, Surrey changed the rhyme scheme
of the sonnet to make it more suitable to the English language. Surrey’s
innovations distinguished the English sonnet from the Italian sonnet, and
eventually became known as the Shakespeareansonnet because of Shakespeare’s mastery of the
form.
Song to
Celia is from Ben Jonson’s The Forest.
John F.M.Dovaston was the first to point out in 1815 that song to Celia
was constructed from passages in the prose epistles of Philostratus. Ben Jonson is indebted to him for the
bantering tone and the ingenious conceit.
But he has so skilfully transformed the borrowing that the poem appear
original and, to use the words of George Parfit, thoroughly English in Diction,
syntax and rhythm. W.M.Evans observes
that the happy marriage of words and music is responsible for its excellence.
The first eight lines express how the
poet esteems the kiss of Celia superior to wine and Jove’s nectar. The next eight lines suggest that she can
influence and improve upon Nature; for she makes the garland fresh and lends
her fragrance to it, which is more pleasant and lasting than its own sweet
smell. This conceit smacks of the
metaphysical concept of unified sensibility.
The poem, thus extols the unique and and almost divine trait of Celia.
The poem may be divided into two
eight-lined stanzas with the rhyme scheme abcb abcb, each line consisting of
eight syllables. It is marked by
classical poise, elegance, subdued emotion and an urban tone.
Care-charmer Sleep is a
sonnet in Delia. Like Sidney, Daniel
addresses sleep. In the first quatrain,
he describes sleep as a care-charmer, the brother of death and son of dark
night. He requests sleep to relieve him
of the agony caused by his unfulfilled love.
I the second quatrain he says that the waking hours of the day will make
him mourn his misfortune. In the third
quatrain he asks dream not to visit him during the night, unfolding the painful
desires of the day. In the couplet he
expresses his wish not to wake up from his sleep lest he be tormented by the
disdain of the mistress.
Lever praises Daniel for the formal perfection
achieved by him in his sonnet structure—a perfection unmatched in the work of
any of his contemporaries except Shakespeare—and for the subtle variations of
metre in consonance with the implication of these traits. Daniel achieves his effect with monosyllabic
words. Long vowel and diphthongs are
used to produce a slow movement in consonance with the heaviness of his
heart. The sonnet consists of three
quatrains with a final couplet, having the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR The little Love-god lying once asleep, Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep, Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand, The fairest votary took up that fire, Which many legions of true hearts had warmed, And so the general of hot desire, Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed. This brand she quenched in a cool well by, Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual, Growing a bath and healthful remedy, For men discased, but I my mistress' thrall, Came there for cure and this by that I prove, Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep, A maid of Dian's this advantage found, And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep In a cold valley-fountain of that ground: Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love, A dateless lively heat still to endure, And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove, Against strange maladies a sovereign cure: But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired, The boy for trial needs would touch my breast, I sick withal the help of bath desired, And thither hied a sad distempered guest. But found no cure, the bath for my help lies, Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn, But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing, In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn, In vowing new hate after new love bearing: But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee, When I break twenty? I am perjured most, For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee: And all my honest faith in thee is lost. For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness: Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy, And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness, Or made them swear against the thing they see. For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I, To swear against the truth so foul a be.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE Love is too young to know what conscience is, Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss, Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove. For thou betraying me, I do betray My nobler part to my gross body's treason, My soul doth tell my body that he may, Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason, But rising at thy name doth point out thee, As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride, He is contented thy poor drudge to be, To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side. No want of conscience hold it that I call, Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FIFTY O from what power hast thou this powerful might, With insufficiency my heart to sway, To make me give the lie to my true sight, And swear that brightness doth not grace the day? Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, That in the very refuse of thy deeds, There is such strength and warrantise of skill, That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds? Who taught thee how to make me love thee more, The more I hear and see just cause of hate? O though I love what others do abhor, With others thou shouldst not abhor my state. If thy unworthiness raised love in me, More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
SONNET HUNDRED FORTY NINE Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not, When I against my self with thee partake? Do I not think on thee when I forgot Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake? Who hateth thee that I do call my friend, On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon, Nay if thou lour'st on me do I not spend Revenge upon my self with present moan? What merit do I in my self respect, That is so proud thy service to despise, When all my best doth worship thy defect, Commanded by the motion of thine eyes? But love hate on for now I know thy mind, Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FORTY EIGHT O me! what eyes hath love put in my head, Which have no correspondence with true sight, Or if they have, where is my judgment fled, That censures falsely what they see aright? If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, What means the world to say it is not so? If it be not, then love doth well denote, Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no, How can it? O how can love's eye be true, That is so vexed with watching and with tears? No marvel then though I mistake my view, The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears. O cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind, Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FORTY SEVEN My love is as a fever longing still, For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please: My reason the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept Hath left me, and I desperate now approve, Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest, My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are, At random from the truth vainly expressed. For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FORTY SIX Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth, My sinful earth these rebel powers array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms inheritors of this excess Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end? Then soul live thou upon thy servant's loss, And let that pine to aggravate thy store; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; Within be fed, without be rich no more, So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men, And death once dead, there's no more dying then.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FORTY FIVE Those lips that Love's own hand did make, Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate', To me that languished for her sake: But when she saw my woeful state, Straight in her heart did mercy come, Chiding that tongue that ever sweet, Was used in giving gentle doom: And taught it thus anew to greet: 'I hate' she altered with an end, That followed it as gentle day, Doth follow night who like a fiend From heaven to hell is flown away. 'I hate', from hate away she threw, And saved my life saying 'not you'.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still, The better angel is a man right fair: The worser spirit a woman coloured ill. To win me soon to hell my female evil, Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a devil: Wooing his purity with her foul pride. And whether that my angel be turned fiend, Suspect I may, yet not directly tell, But being both from me both to each friend, I guess one angel in another's hell. Yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt, Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FORTY THREE Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch, One of her feathered creatures broke away, Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch In pursuit of the thing she would have stay: Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase, Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent, To follow that which flies before her face: Not prizing her poor infant's discontent; So run'st thou after that which flies from thee, Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind, But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me: And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind. So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will, If thou turn back and my loud crying still.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FORTY TWO Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving, O but with mine, compare thou thine own state, And thou shalt find it merits not reproving, Or if it do, not from those lips of thine, That have profaned their scarlet ornaments, And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine, Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents. Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those, Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee, Root pity in thy heart that when it grows, Thy pity may deserve to pitied be. If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, By self-example mayst thou be denied.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FORTY ONE In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note, But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise, Who in despite of view is pleased to dote. Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted, Nor tender feeling to base touches prone, Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited To any sensual feast with thee alone: But my five wits, nor my five senses can Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee, Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man, Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be: Only my plague thus far I count my gain, That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.
SONNET HUNDRED AND FORTY Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain: Lest sorrow lend me words and words express, The manner of my pity-wanting pain. If I might teach thee wit better it were, Though not to love, yet love to tell me so, As testy sick men when their deaths be near, No news but health from their physicians know. For if I should despair I should grow mad, And in my madness might speak ill of thee, Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. That I may not be so, nor thou belied, Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
