每日一首Sonnet (38)

XXXVIII

1. How can my muse want subjectto invent,
2. While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse
3. Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
4. For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
5. O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me
6. Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
7. For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
8. When thou thy self dost give invention light?
9. Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
10. Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;
11. And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
12. Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
13. If my slight muse do please these curious days,
14. The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

Commentary:

The poet isperhaps responding to a complaintthat his output seems to be failing, and that he has for a whileproducednothing new. The sonnet ties in with several others which praise theyouthas the source of all inspiration. 53,78, 83, 84, 98, 99, 100, 103 allworkon this theme in various ways.
Set at this point inthe sequence, between sonnetsof separation and despair, this sonnet helps to reinvest the youth withthe previous beauty and fascination which perhaps had been waning underthe influence of his faults. We are reminded once again of hissurpassingexcellence, his being, his very self, his own sweet argument whichgivesinspiration to all writers, a more powerful draught of inspiration thanthat provided by the outworn and outmoded old Nine Muses whom poets sotediouslyinvoke to give life to their songs.
It is possible thatthis is a side swipe at thedependency on classical forms and material which were the staple of somuchEnglish writing of the period. Shakespeare's sonnet sequence isnoticeablyfree of classical references. Yet we know from his poems, Venus andAdonis,The Rape of Lucrece, and his plays featuring Greek and Roman subjects,thathe was familiar enough with the classical world to dramatize and use itwhen he wished.
One effect of theabsence of classical allusionin the sonnets is that it brings the speaker closer to the reader.Thereare curtains and barriers between the two, but they stem more fromemotionaland linguistic complexity than from book learning. The Petrarchan andElizabethantradition of sonnet writing prefers that the beloved is a chaste andunassailablefair one, a Diana, and that the lover is a mad Leander prepared to swimthe Hellespont to reach her and fling himself at her feet. Yet sheremainsicy and detached in virginal purity, her beauty inflaming him to stillmoreacts of folly.
For whatever reasonShakespeare did not subscribeto this tradition. Either he wished to parody it, or he found it tooconstrictingand insufficient to portray the emotions which battered him. There areoftendirect non-parodic echoes to sonnets of other writers, as here (seenotes),and these echoes show how deeply Shakespeare was immersed in theliterarytraditions of his day, picking elements from it that suited hispurposes.

Note:

1. my muse = my poetic gifts, my inspiration. The nine Muses were goddesses of poetry in ancient Greece, each one dedicated to a specific branch of the art. The term is often used to imply that each poet has a personal Muse who looks after him/her.
want subject to invent = lack material for writing, show barrenness of inspiration.

2. While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse            2. While thou dost breathe = while you are alive. To breathe and to inspire have approximately the same meaning, the latter being a Latinate word. (See OED.1. for inspire). It is basedon the Latin inspirare meaning to breathe upon or into. Hence the youth, while breathing, also breathes inspiration into the poet.

3. Thine own sweet argument = thyself. argument is equivalent to 'subject' or 'theme'. We could therefore paraphrase 2-3 as 'While you are alive, who pour yourself as subject matter into my my verse.
too excellent - the suggestion is that the youth is too superior, too lofty to be the general subject of common writing.

4. vulgar paper = common and cheap piece of writing. vulgar is derived from the Latin vulgus - the masses, the multitude, the crowd. With a somewhat pejorative flavour, and it retained much of that meaning in Shakespeare's day. One is reminded of a modern description of one of the 'royals' by someone attached to the aristocracy who rather disliked her - 'Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar. A vulgarian.'
paper stands for the writing which is on it. Similar to modern usage, as when a speaker delivers 'a paper' at a conference.
rehearse = repeat, go over (as one would do at a rehearsal).

5. aught = anything (written by me).

6. Worthy perusal = that is worth looking at, or reading.
stand against thy sight = is strong enough, or worthy enough to be looked at by you. The conflation of idioms such as 'stand up to', 'stand in front of' (i.e. obscure), 'stand against an opponent', helps to contrast the poet's unworthiness and the youth's excellence, at the same time preventing us from believing absolutely in either.

7. This is perhaps an echo of No. 46 of the series of the 'Delia' sonnets, by Samuel Daniel, published in 1592.
But I must sing of thee and those faire eyes,
Autentique shall my verse in time to come,
When yet th'vnborne shall say, loe where she lyes,
Whose beautie made him speake that els was dombe.
See the full text of Delia

dumb - dual meaning, as in the modern sense of 'unable to speak', or 'thick, unintelligent'.

8. invention = creativity. As in line1 above.
to give light to = to inspire, to lead the way.

9. It is interesting to see that Shakespeare has contrived to have the tenth Muse on line 9, (as if the youth were equivalent to all the previous nine), and the old nine he relegates to line 10, where they are out of place and useless.

10. those old nine = the Nine Muses of old. See the note above to line 1.
invocate = call upon. It was traditional for poets to invoke the Muses at the start of the poem. E.g. Homer at the start of The Iliad - "Sing, Oh Muse, of the wrath of Achilles'. I suspect that rhymers has a pejorative flavour to it. As in Ant & Cleo:
Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors
Will catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers
Ballad us out o' tune. AC.V.2.213-5.

11. calls on - Shakespeare converts invocate to its Anglo-Saxon equivalent, as if suggesting that the ancient language of the Muses is no longer necessary.
bring forth = create, write. Poems were the poet's children, hence the metaphor of child birth.

12. numbers = verses.
to outlive long date = to last forever. (Literally - to live longer than a far distant (long) date.)


13. slight muse - powers of invention which are of no great significance.
curious = inquisitive, finicky, strange. A slight awkwardness arises from the sudden diminution of the muse, which in line 9 was to be the tenth Muse to replace all the previous nine, but now has become a slight thing barely able to raise interest from the 'curious age'. The reason is probably the need felt by the poet to emphasise in the final couplet his paucity of worth in comparison with that of the beloved.
curious = finicky, enquiring too closely into things.

14. the pain - the pain and labour of poetic creation.
the praise = the praise that accrues because of any worth in my poetry.