Shakespeare’s Sonnets

The little Love-god lying once asleep
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vow’d chaste life to keep
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warm’d;
And so the general of hot desire
Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm’d.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love’s fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy
For men diseased; but I, my mistress’ thrall,
Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,
Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.
William Shakespeare

Presenters

Mark Chatterley
Thierry Heles

The post Sonnet 154: The little Love-god lying once asleep appeared first on In Ear Entertainment.

Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep.
A maid of Dian’s this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground,
Which borrowed from this holy fire of love
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress’ eye love’s brand new-fired,
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast.
I sick withal the help of bath desired,
And thither hied, a sad distempered guest,
But found no cure; the bath for my help lies
Where Cupid got new fire—my mistress’ eye.
William Shakespeare

Presenters

Mark Chatterley
Thierry Heles

The post Sonnet 153: Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep appeared first on In Ear Entertainment.

In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing,
In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths’ breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjured most,
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is lost.
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,
And to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them swear against the thing they see:
For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured eye,
To swear against the truth so foul a lie.
William Shakespeare

Presenters

Mark Chatterley
Thierry Heles

The post Sonnet 152: In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn appeared first on In Ear Entertainment.

Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body’s treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
But rising at thy name doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize; proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her ‘love’ for whose dear love I rise and fall.
William Shakespeare

Presenters

Mark Chatterley
Thierry Heles

The post Sonnet 151: Love is too young to know what conscience is appeared first on In Ear Entertainment.

O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
With insufficiency my heart to sway,
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantize of skill
That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O, though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.
If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
William Shakespeare

Presenters

Mark Chatterley
Thierry Heles

The post Sonnet 150: O, from what power hast thou this powerful might appeared first on In Ear Entertainment.

Canst thou, O cruel, say I love thee not,
When I against myself with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of myself, all tyrant for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
On whom frown’st thou that I do fawn upon?
Nay, if thou lour’st on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in myself respect
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
Those that can see, thou lov’st, and I am blind.
William Shakespeare

Presenters

Mark Chatterley
Thierry Heles

The post Sonnet 149: Canst thou, O cruel, say I love thee not appeared first on In Ear Entertainment.

O me! What eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or if they have, where is my judgement fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote,
Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s ‘No’.
How can it? O, how can love’s eye be true,
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
No marvel then though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.
O cunning love, with tears thou keep’st me blind,
Lest eyes, well-seeing, thy foul faults should find.
William Shakespeare

Presenters

Mark Chatterley
Thierry Heles

The post Sonnet 148: O me! What eyes hath love put in my head appeared first on In Ear Entertainment.

My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th’uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I, desperate, now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed:
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
William Shakespeare

Presenters

Mark Chatterley
Thierry Heles

The post Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever, longing still appeared first on In Ear Entertainment.

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Feeding these rebel pow’rs that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servants’ loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And death once dead, there’s no more dying then.
William Shakespeare

Presenters

Mark Chatterley
Thierry Heles

The post Sonnet 146: Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth appeared first on In Ear Entertainment.

Those lips that Love’s own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said “I hate”
To me that languished for her sake.
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that, ever sweet,
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
“I hate” she altered with an end
That followed it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
“I hate” from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying “not you.”
William Shakespeare

Presenters

Mark Chatterley
Thierry Heles

The post Sonnet 145: Those lips that Love’s own hand did make appeared first on In Ear Entertainment.