Sonnet 86
Was the proude full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my braine inhearce,
Making their tombe the wombe wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,
Above a mortall pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compiers by night
Giving him ayde, my verse astonished,
He, not that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast,
I was not sick of any fear from thence.
But when your countenance filled up his line,
Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.
Commentary
Address to his beloved concerning a rival poet
Changes to the original text: line 2, 'to' changed to 'too'
In the first quatrain, the poet asks whether it was the 'proude full sail of his (the rival poet's) great verse' which inhibited the poet's own expressions of love to the fair young man.
In the second quatrain, the poet asks whether it was the fact that the rival poet's spirit was taught to write 'above a mortal pitch' by spirits at night that silenced him.
The third quatrain gives the answer to both the preceding verses: no, it was none of these things.
The final couplet asserts that it was the fact that the young man himself appeared in the rival poet's verse that enfeebled his muse.
This forms a very detailed picture of the rival poet, who is here supposed to have assistance in composing verse from spirits at night. The rival is described as having 'an affable familiar ghost' that 'nightly gulls him with intelligence'. There was certainly a 'school of night' during the 1590's.: members of the group, centred around Sir Walter Raleigh, were Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, Matthew Roydon and Thomas Hariot.