1. Who is it that says most which can say more,
2. Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you,
3. In whose confine immured is the store
4. Which should example where your equal grew,
5. Lean penury within that Pen doth dwell,
6. That to his subject lends not some small glory,
7. But he that writes of you, if he can tell,
8. That you are you, so dignifies his story.
9. Let him but copy what in you is writ,
10. Not making worse what nature made so clear,
11. And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
12. Making his style admired every where.
13. You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
14. Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.
Him but Copy (of), What is in You Writ
Dedication: To Elizabeth
Asking Elizabeth effectively who expresses her worth better?, and answering (a bit obscurely) with the (one, whose) “confine is immured in store”. Providing further reference with the notion of Henry as an example, who is both her equal and is growing. Asking that Elizabeth let him be the copy of Elizabeth that Oxford felt that he was meant to be. Finishing with an admonishment to Elizabeth, that she is too fond of praise and thus not allowing Henry to share her limelight.
1st Quatrain: (1-4)
Oxford making a parody of the praise Elizabeth receives in telling her that she is singular and unique. That in line 3, she really holds in storage her replacement. In line 4 playing on the irony that inside of her her equal (Henry) literally grew.
2nd Quatrain: (5-8)
Reflecting on the poverty offered by the "Pen" which should be revealing the Elizabeth's story in line 5. Explaining with a clear implication of understatement in line 6 that this oversight denies of "not some small glory". While lines 7 and 8 tell Elizabeth that even then her presence still brings "glory" to these written praises.
3rd Quatrain: (9-12)
However in line 9 Oxford puns on "copy" to imply that should these writers add her heir, it would give their lines even greater "wit" and admiration in lines 11 and 12.
couplet (13-14),
Thus he finishes with the admonition to her that by monopolizing on the praises she receives, she ultimately brings a curse to herself. Thus implying that these praises should be shared with her son.
Commentary:
This sonnet is a veritable explanation of Henry as the Pen writing Elizabeth’s story. This and similar metaphor’s of Henry being the written work or other artistic work will be come even more prevalent.
Line 9's copy should be considered the same copy that is potentially to die in the couplet of sonnet 11.
Scholars have found the first four lines of this sonnet impossible to interpret, as Stephen Booth suggests, is “a series of propositions that are ridiculous if taken literally”. I so completely disagree that this is transparently understandable in relation to the paradigm I’m providing of the hidden child stored away.
The mistake of orthodoxy is to suppose that the rival poet and the youth to whom it is thought this poem is addressed are separate people and of course the complete failure to see the addressee of most of these poems has never actually changed from the women he started addressing (in this sequencing at least) to the women he’ll mostly continue to address all the way to the end (or beginning if using the numbers) of the sonnet sequence. Thus traditional scholarship fails completely to see that the rival is not expressed by his poetry but by his very being. Thus the other is most likely metaphorical poet who expresses himself by his nature. This theme is reflected on the true subject the mother of the poem his mother. It is of course she who is found of praise being the monarch so familiar with it. And why she being she so dignifies this other “poet’s” story.
Vendler offers that this sonnet is offered as an explanation of her literal interpretation of 82, where she posits that it concerns the young man’s willingness to let many poet’s dedicate their work to him. I prefer to address 82 when we get to it but suffice it to say that my position is that her interpretation is quite wrong.
This sonnet actually of course preceded 82 and contains a separate but related argument addressed to Elizabeth concerning Henry. Here the poet attempts to argue that Henry is in essence a printed book of Elizabeth’s manuscript. A work that embodies what she has written within her.
And he initially asks who can say more clearly or expounded on the special qualities that Elizabeth has than Henry (this rich praise). While Vendler observes that you alone are you constitutes unique praise and that this is usually reserved for a Deity.
What Vendler misses is the explicit nature of the he that copies. Which she interprets as a general reference to a copyist that somehow is charged with reproducing the “writing of nature”. But the poem tells of the copy’s wit and style. Also is the failure to see the contrast of the couplet to the sonnet which provides the basis for why the subject will not allow the copy, the subject’s own fondness for getting all the praise.