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July 25, 2002
Heartbeat As I was
Heartbeat
As I was writing the previous entry I remember one of Shakespeare's more known sonnets: "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state". It got me thinking about Shakespeare's sonnets. There are so many good ones. Even the ones that you don't have to learn in high school are worth taking a look at. It is a truly gifted writer whose works are still prevalent and profound years after they were written. Shakespeare is the king of being timeless. I remember when I studied at the Oxford School of Drama, we had to choose a Sonnet to recite for class. Though we boistrous Americans may have wanted to do scenes and show our prowess with Shrew, or Lear, or Hamlet, the Professor was firm. He was used to boistrous Americans. You must learn to walk before you can run. It was the most interesting thing we did that season. And the professor was right. I think the sonnets are sometimes neglected. Hmm...I'll have to do something about that.
The Sonnet I recited for that assignment:
Sonnet 3
Look in thy glass and tell the the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime.
So though through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remembered not to be,
Die single, and thine image dies with thee.
A better ad for procreation I will never see. Now here is my favorite of his sonnets. Everybody knows it thanks to Sting but it's worth a revisit:
Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red than her lips' red
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks.
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by Heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Thank you William, Willie, Will, Bill. Dead a few hundred years and still we listen.
Posted by mermu at July 25, 2002 01:26 AM
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