Sonnet 94

Commentary

Address to his beloved

Changes to the original text: line 2 comma taken out after 'thing'; comma taken out after 'others'; line 8, comma taken out after 'Others'; line 14, comma taken out after 'fester'.

Despite the fact that this poem expresses considerable disillusionment, not to say bitterness, with regard to the object of the poet's affections, it achieves nevertheless a perfection in terms of the sonnet form which has rarely been equalled in the English language.

We move from a detailed, perhaps tortuous analysis of the loved one's nature in the octet, to the summer's flower in the sestet, an image which then dominates to the end.

The first quatrain concerns itself with the apparent paradox that the class of people who move others (to love) are actually people who themselves remain unmoved. We have to presume that the poet includes his beloved in this category of person, or rather that he only talks about this class of person in general because the beloved is an example. What the young man 'shows' is love incarnate, what he 'does' is rather to withhold love (what he 'shows'). The opposition between appearance (show) and being (do) is repeatedly treated in the sonnets.

The second quatrain goes on to attempt a justification for this behaviour: the beloved does not respond to the poet's overtures because he is keeping his riches from being used up; his face, after all, belongs to him, others can lay no claim to own him, nor claim any right to lecture him on how to behave.

The third quatrain introduces the idea of the summer's flower which is an adornment to the summer, as the loved one is presumably an adornment to the court, though he does not perceive himself as such, he does not himself see his own beauty. But....we reach a clear break with the preceding ideas as a moral dimension introduces itself. The summer's flower is susceptible to infection, and the more beautiful the flower, the ranker the result.

I do not know whether lilies that fester do in fact smell worse than weeds. Given Shakespeare's knowledge of nature, they probably do. But the meaning is clear: when those who are the most beautiful are tainted by odious actions, the effect is stronger than if the same thing happened to somebody 'ordinary'. Whether you agree or not, the fact is that it is very difficult to argue against poetry. One usually gives the impression of being a pedant.