Sonnet 80

1. O how I faint when I of you do write,

2. Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,

3. And in the praise thereof spends all his might,

4. To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame.

5. But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)

6. The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

7. My saucy bark (inferior far to his)

8. On your broad main doth wilfully appear.

9. Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,

10. Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,

11. Or (being wreck'd) I am a worthless boat,

12. He of tall building and of goodly pride.

13. Then if he thrive and I be cast away,

14. The worst was this, my love was my decay.

If He Thrive

Dedication: To Elizabeth

Oxford explains to Elizabeth that though her praises are well deserved, they bear a greater cost. She has within herself the ability to understand this. Then he continues on with the metaphor of her as the ocean and while he the lonely little boat, while Henry is a great ship awaiting his ascension. Finishing with the thought, his love for Elizabeth was worth whatever cost that he ultimately bears.

1st Quatrain: (1-4)

Telling Elizabeth how overwhelming it is to write of her praises in line 1. Telling her that he know a greater soul is within her in line 2. Telling her that this praise brings a cost to Henry in line 3. While in line 4 telling her how hard it is for him thus to express her renown.

2nd Quatrain: (5-8)

Offering her that her own value is immense in line 5. Beginning an analogy with sailing ships, with which he has some experience, telling her it her worth is not expressed in arrogance but is the utility of a sail pulling ship in line 6. That his voice for expressing her worth inferior to Henry in line 7. That Henry is an essential and intrinsic a part of her as the mainsail which only she can allow to provide further propulsion in line 8.

3rd Quatrain: (9-12)

Comparing is own small draft (depth of water drawn) with that of Henry whose depth is immeasurable on her metaphorical ocean in lines 9 and 10. Further complimenting the analogy with his own lack of utility in being a "wreck'd boat" while Henry is a sturdy English (no doubt) Galleon like ship.

couplet (13-14),

Finally telling Elizabeth of his own disposability and that he is willing to accept such a fate and it is all for her love.


Commentary:

Henry here as great ship to Oxford’s lowly boat. This sonnet is another supposed “rival poet” sonnet but in reality a reflection on the youth’s greater worth not as a poet but as a way of continuing his subject the one with the “broad main” i.e., Elizabeth. This poem again as the fair youth loses much of its meaning when not understood as to a subject for whom there is much greater importance to continue herself. In addition the continuation of the theme that the poet will fade away is not ironically a mere metaphorical reference to his insignificance it is a real reflection of our poet’s willingness to give up his identity and become the virtually unknown figure that he has become.

Line 13 is enormously important for understanding the story of the twin elements of Henry’s recognition along with Oxford’s acceptance of his own anonymity which he had planned himself as I have tried to demonstrate in the creation of the Stratford man has his front.

Vendler apparently has this poem as an “unrivalry” with his supposed rival. Calling the poem “a vigorous antithesis of contested ground between the speaker and rival poet”. She confesses to being somewhat at a loss to explain what Shakespeare had in mind “with respect to how the last line relates to the rest of the sonnet. While I am genuinely sympathetic and admit to having some difficulties myself, I am usually at a far greater loss to try and understand Vendler’s frequently tortured but almost always inventive interpretations. But the last line should be clear. Oxford is expressing that he will be all too happy to be forgotten provided Henry finds his true usage.


I can’t help but be struck by the rival theory though in general. The notion of a rival so praised for greater distinction is supposedly coming from a man who claims his own verse to be virtually immortal seems to me to be a mild contradiction. But if understood that this “rival” was in fact no rival at all, as the poet never claims he was, but a metaphor for another worthy of the analogy himself to immortal verse should reconcile this contradiction.


Note:

It seems to me that this sonnet predates the "great ship" ranking and terminology of the Stuart era. As already mentioned English navigation saw tremendous changes in relatively brief time. But the entire English merchant activities also changed with the creation of the Levant company and English traders actually providing their own transport instead of relying as they had previously on Venetians.