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Sonnet 114

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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.
  
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Sonnet 114

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.

Sonnet 114 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

Contents

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.

References

Sonnet 114 Wikipedia