Sonnet 46
1. Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
2. How to divide the conquest of thy sight,
3. Mine eye my heart their picture's sight would bar,
4. My heart mine eye the freedom of that right,
5. My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
6. (A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)
7. But the defendant doth that plea deny,
8. And says in him their fair appearance lies.
9. To 'cide this title is impanneled
10. A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,
11. And by their verdict is determined
12. The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part.
13. As thus, mine eye's due is their outward part,
14. And my heart's right, their inward love of heart.
Mine Eye's Due
Dedication: To Elizabeth
Expressing both the conflict between them and his own internal conflict of loving Elizabeth despite what she has done to him.
1st Quatrain: (1-4) Explaining the struggle of his eye and heart as a metaphor for both his love and his anguish. Telling her that his heart would not allow his eye to look on her. Yet he can't help to exercise the need to.
2nd Quatrain: (5-8) Now telling her that his heart tells him that she lives on in Henry. Alluding to Henry's secrecy with the notion that he is never seen by clear seeing eyes. Explaining how Elizabeth hears this plea on deaf ears. But tells her the in Henry again her fairness is passed on.
3rd Quatrain: (9-12) Using the legal notion of calling a jury, he reflects on how this decision should be decided and pointing out that both the eye and heart must play a part.
couplet (13-14), Telling her at last that though his heart points him toward loving her but seeing clearly he must still pursue Henry's right (her "outward part")
Commentary:
Most important of this sonnet is the reoccurrence of something at odds with the poet’s site which was first seen in 148. This now creates the dichotomy between the poet’s sight and his heart, which tells him Henry and Elizabeth are essentially one as he tells her in line 5 “that thou in him dost lie”. And yet there is a seeming gaping separation between them. The legal terminology of the impaneled jury is often times the typical types clues referred to by Oxfordians since Oxford had substantial legal training attending Gray’s Inn one of the preeminent legal training bodies of the time. Gray’s Inn being one of the four Inns of Court.
In line 5 he tells Elizabeth that she is once again express in Henry. While in line 6 he makes reference to Henry being hidden (in the closet) and a secret so well kept even those likely who should know possibly don’t or at least pretend not to.
The couplet seems to me to suggest that Oxford is suggesting that loving Elizabeth and his duty to the truth of Henry are an equal and not mutually exclusive proposition. However by proclaiming this to Elizabeth he is clearly expressing his commitment to Henry and thus this sonnet is a warning of sorts that he is likely planning something in the contingency that she will not act herself. Thus I believe Oxford was and integral part of the Essex Rebellion. Far more so than the mere part his play Richard II played as a vehicle for stirring sedition with the performance the play and it’s deposition scene the day before the rebellion.
Lines 3, 8, 13 and 14 has again instances where “their” frequently appears as “thy” in other versions such as the Riverside edition.
Carl Atkins (Shakespeare's Sonnets 2007) in response to Robert Hope Case refers to this sonnet as a "trifle" (reflecting Vendler's remark about it being a bagatelle) about deciding whether it is better to rejoice in love or the vision of loveliness. This completely fails to see the sonnet as part of the poet's larger struggle to reconcile his vision and his emotions going back to the very beginning of the