Sonnet 114

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Sonnet 114 in the 1609 Quarto
Q1 Q2 Q3 C Or whether doth my mind, being crown’d with you, Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery? Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true, And that your love taught it this alchemy, To make of monsters and things indigest Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, Creating every bad a perfect best, As fast as objects to his beams assemble? O, ’tis the first; ’tis flattery in my seeing, And my great mind most kingly drinks it up: Mine eye well knows what with his gust is ’greeing, And to his palate doth prepare the cup: If it be poison’d, ’tis the lesser sin That mine eye loves it and doth first begin. 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare[1]

Sonnet 114 is one of

sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

Synopsis

Is the poet's mind flattered, like a king, by the youth's presence, or is it simply a truth that is being told by his eyes that ugly things are made beautiful by the mental image of the youth? Surely it must be flattery, that he consumes like a king. He knows he enjoys it even if it's poisonous. Even if it is, it's less of a sin because his eye is motivated by love.

Structure

Sonnet 114 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 7th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

  ×/ ×   /   ×  /  ×  /  ×    / 
Creating every bad a perfect best, (114.7)

Lines 6, 8, 9, and 11 have a final extrametrical syllable or feminine ending:

 ×     / × /   ×   ×     /    /    × / (×) 
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, (114.6)

/ = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus. (×) = extrametrical syllable.

Line 6 exhibits another metrical variation, the rightward movement of the third ictus (resulting in a four-position figure, × × / /, sometimes referred to as a minor ionic). Minor ionics may potentially be found in lines 5 and 10. Another metrical variation, a mid-line reversal, is found in line 4:

×     /   ×    /    /     ×    ×  /   × / 
And that your love taught it this alchemy, (114.4)

An initial reversal is potentially present in line 2.

The meter demands a few variant pronunciations: Line 1's "being" functions as one syllable, and line 9's "flattery" as two.^[2]

Notes

References

First edition and facsimile

• Shakespeare, William (1609). Shake-speares Sonnets: Never Before Imprinted. London: Thomas Thorpe.
• OCLC 458829162
  .

Variorum editions

• OCLC 234756
  .
• OCLC 6028485. — Volume I and Volume II at the Internet Archive

Modern critical editions

• Atkins, Carl D., ed. (2007). Shakespeare's Sonnets: With Three Hundred Years of Commentary. Madison:
  OCLC 86090499
  .
• OCLC 2968040
  .
• Burrow, Colin, ed. (2002). The Complete Sonnets and Poems.
  OCLC 48532938
  .
• OCLC 755065951. — 1st edition at the Internet Archive
• OCLC 32272082
  .
• OCLC 15018446
  .
• Mowat, Barbara A.; Werstine, Paul, eds. (2006). Shakespeare's Sonnets & Poems.
  OCLC 64594469
  .
• OCLC 46683809
  .
• OCLC 36806589
  .