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SONNET 39 |
PARAPHRASE |
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O, how thy worth with
manners may I sing, |
O, how can I praise your worth with modesty, |
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When thou art all the better
part of me? |
When you are my better-half? |
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What can mine own praise to
mine own self bring? |
What good is praise offered by myself to
myself? |
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And what is
't but mine own when I praise thee? |
And what is it but praise for myself when I praise you? |
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Even for this let us divided
live, |
Let us then live divided, |
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And our dear love lose name
of single one, |
And let people no longer refer to us as being one in the same, |
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That by this separation I
may give |
That this by separation I may give you |
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That due to thee which thou
deservest alone. |
That due which you alone deserve. |
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O absence, what a torment
wouldst thou prove, |
O what a torment your absence would be, |
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Were it not thy sour leisure
gave sweet leave |
If you absence did not allow me |
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To entertain the time with
thoughts of love, |
To turn my thoughts to love, |
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Which time and thoughts so
sweetly doth deceive, |
Those thoughts, which deceive time and my other sad thoughts, |
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And that thou teachest how
to make one twain, |
Those thoughts that show me how to make us two again become one, |
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By praising him here who
doth hence remain! |
By praising him here who is in fact absent. |
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ANALYSIS Sonnet 39 is about the
necessity of separation. The last few lines could cause some confusion; the
poet is saying that, although he is separated from his lover, and therefore
'twain' or divided, they are really still one in the same. This can be so
because of the sweet thought of love guiding the poet, allowing him to show
that his lover is still within his heart and thus joined to him in spirit, no
matter where his lover is in body. No one knows for sure the true identity of
Shakespeare's dear friend, but most scholars agree that he was the Earl of Southampton, the poet's patron. |