Sonnet 122

1. Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

2. Full character'd with lasting memory,

3. Which shall above that idle rank remain

4. Beyond all date even to eternity.

5. Or at the least, so long as brain and heart

6. Have faculty by nature to subsist,

7. Till each to razed oblivion yield his part

8. Of thee, thy record never can be miss't:

9. That poor retention could not so much hold,

10. Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,

11. Therefore to give them from me was I bold,

12. To trust those tables that receive thee more,

13. To keep an adjunct to remember thee,

14. Were to import forgetfulness in me.

Remembrance

Dedication: To Elizabeth


Explaining to Elizabeth that though Henry will record part of her legacy and that his record will die with her, she will be remembered (though not nearly so well). Asking her to "keep" the "adjunct" (Henry) for the reason of ensuring her legacy.

1st Quatrain: (1-4)

Oxford explaining to Elizabeth that his memory of her is complete and long, even to eternity.

2nd Quatrain: (5-8)

Then explains that this situation will last at least until his body continues to function.

3rd Quatrain: (9-12)

The two previous again set up that memories can be poor and that he gave a gift (his son) which won't be recorded. And from line 12 "they receive thee more", i.e., history will only record you Elizabeth

couplet (13-14),

And continues to say that Henry is not to remember you, I do not need him for this purpose. My guess is Oxford trying a further argument to convince Elizabeth. He is telling Elizabeth that it is not that you won't be remembered and this is why she should recognize Henry. I believe he implies recognition is the right thing to do.


Commentary:

Oxford again attempting to convince Elizabeth of the need to be remembered, “beyond all date, even to eternity”. But he explains that he doesn’t need Henry to remember her, which is not to say that others will not and he of course is limited by his own mortality. Thus there are several messages embedded. Personally, I do not find this as an argument to be made to mere mortals and commoners.In fact I believe "idle rank" of line 3 to be essentially suggesting a typical uninteresting succession of mere subjects.


Henry is the “adjunct” not needed by our poet and is behind the third person reference to "yield his part" in line 7. The adjunct is a metaphor that likely culminates in the “engraft” of 15. This sonnet is part of series of sonnets that attempts the use of reason to achieve its goal. Thus I must comment we have reached a new state in the poet’s psychology of acceptance of the crime. This more reasoned approach lacking emotion should be seen as an indicator of the arrow of time.

John Kerrigan remarks that the poet appears to be apologizing for giving away or losing a notebook of the “friends” writings. But in fact the tables are strictly a metaphorical device to record the memory of the subject, which is to be lost, and thus the point of this poem. A reminder of the forgetfulness we have without something left to provide a memory, something more lasting than even physical objects. Which is, an eternal lineage, which can’t exist if the lineage is broken. Unless the ‘he’ of this poem is allowed to “yield his part”.

This sonnet is in some sense answering the previous sonnet. Oxford perhaps fearing that he may have implied or else Elizabeth took offense to the idea that she would not be remembered with out an heir. This should also provide some basis again for this ordering. I have already argued that this is a proto-procreation sonnet, like the previous, and in that sense that it discusses that the poet is guilty of thinking that the subject needs a child to be remembered and for this he is apologizing.

Lines 1 and 12 are evocative of a similar usage of memory in Toilus and Cressida (IV, v), "And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts". Where memory is reflected as a tabular formatted record. Possibly deriving from chronological tables of the Chronicon (Chronicles), only surviving today mostly because of an Armenian copy. Though possibly only colloquially as actual history in Shakespeare more likely actually reflected in his knowledge and usage of Seneca and other dramatists and Dio Cassius and Roman history.

Booth typically in the orthodox tradition of literal interpretation, remarks that one has to wait until line 11 to discover that the speaker has given away the young man’s gift (book). However as I’ve already revealed this sonnet is an apology for delivering an unwelcome message in the previous sonnet. Oxford reveals in line 11 that he was a bit too immodest in being the one providing the tallies scored (i.e. Henry) and that their child was not needed for him to remember her. This though I believe intentionally still offers the implication that History might be a different story.

Vendler in an oft repeated mistake, takes Q1 for hyperbole, of course not aware that the subject (Elizabeth) was someone that very well would be remembered if not beyond all date then certainly for a very long time. Vendler also remarks on the “denigration of the young man’s gift’ in lines 3 and 9. While I would offer that the gift is Elizabeth’s memory and is not being denigrated but compared to what she has denigrated (Henry).