1. O lest the world should task you to recite,

2. What merit lived in me that you should love

3. After my death (dear love) forget me quite,

4. For you in me can nothing worthy prove.

5. Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,

6. To do more for me than mine own desert,

7. And hang more praise upon deceased I,

8. Than niggard truth would willingly impart:

9. O, lest your true love may seem false in this,

10. That you for love speak well of me untrue,

11. My name be buried where my body is,

12. And live no more to shame nor me nor you.

13. For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,

14. And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

Nothing Worth

Dedication: To Elizabeth

Telling Elizabeth to forget him when he is gone because of the shame stamped upon him and his unworthiness. Explaining to Elizabeth that this shame is the result of bringing forth their son and finishing with the reminder that she as he is guilty as well in both the bringing forth and in loving something of “nothing worth” which Henry must be by virtue of the denial of his existence and the failure to use him for the purpose to which Oxford is referring to as his worth, succeeding her.

1^st Quatrain: (1-4)

Telling Elizabeth to forget him so that she may not be asked what virtue she found in him to love.

2^nd Quatrain: (5-8)

Telling her that unless she is capable of concocting some lie to give him virtue and praise …

3rd Quatrain: (9-12)

That unless her love inspires her to concoct untruthful good praises, then his name should be burried like his body so that he will no longer bring either of them shame.

couplet (13-14),

Finally alluding to the source of his shame, Henry, "that which he brings forth" and telling her that she should share the shame if she loves him but won't utilize him for succesion.

Commentary:

This sonnet raises two important autobiographical and pertinent issues. That of Oxford’s name to be buried in line 11 and what he brings forth in line 13. The first an important clue to the mystery of this story where the poet tells his love to forget him more explicitly than we have yet seen. This of course must only be done he has told her, she “can devise some virtuous lie”. Which likely the poet provided possibly with a story of rape perhaps.

The couplet and its reflection that the subject is guilty “to love things of nothing worth” is reminiscent of Sonnet 141 where the poet loved what others “despise(d)” and 150 where he loved “what others do abhor”

One of the key points of this sonnet though are as many Oxfordians would point out. That Oxford is expressing his anonymity with line 11, “My name be buried where my body is”. The other arguably as important point is what the poet discusses in the couplet. “For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth”. That modern scholars presume it is his verse that he is referring to completely misses the point of this sonnet.

Vendler argues that line 13 is a statement that the works that the poet brings forth are things nothing worth and that he denies his own merit as a beloved. Her argument that the poem says, “you should be shamed to love things nothing worth”, is an indication that he and his works are the same thing. She evidently again sees no contradiction to the poet’s boasts of the power of his verse elsewhere.