Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,

  Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

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  MODERN TEXT

  I need you the way living things need food or the grass needs rain, and to attain the peace that only you can give me, I fight with myself the way a miser struggles with his wealth. One moment he enjoys his wealth proudly, and the next he’s worried that someone from these thieving times will steal his treasure. One moment I think it’s best to be alone with you, but then I think it would be better if the rest of the world could see my pleasure. At times I feel oversatisfied from looking at you excessively, but a little later I’m starving to get a look at you. I can’t experience or pursue any enjoyment except what you can give me or I can take from you. That’s why I suffer and feel hungry day after day, because I either get too much of you or none at all.

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  Why is my verse so barren of new pride,

  So far from variation or quick change?

  Why with the time do I not glance aside

  To new-found methods and to compounds strange?

  Why write I still all one, ever the same,

  And keep invention in a noted weed,

  That every word doth almost tell my name,

  Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

  O know, sweet love, I always write of you,

  And you and love are still my argument.

  So all my best is dressing old words new,

  Spending again what is already spent:

  For as the sun is daily new and old,

  So is my love still telling what is told.

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  Why is my poetry so lacking in new ornaments, so determined in avoiding variation and change? Why don’t I, like everyone else these days, take a look at the new literary styles and weird combinations of other writers? Why do I always write the same thing, always the same, and always in the same distinctive style, so that almost every word I write tells you who wrote it, where it was born, and where it comes from? Oh, you should know, sweet love, I always write about you, and you and love are continually my subjects. So the best I can do is find new words to say the same thing, spending again what I’ve already spent: Just as the sun is new and old every day, my love for you keeps making me tell what I’ve already told.

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  Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,

  Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;

  The vacant leaves thy mind’s imprínt will bear,

  And of this book this learning mayst thou taste:

  The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show

  Of mouthèd graves will give thee memory;

  Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know

  Time’s thievish progress to eternity.

  Look what thy memory cannot contain,

  Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find

  Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,

  To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

  Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

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  Your mirror will show you how your beauty is wearing away; your clock how your precious minutes are slipping away; the pages of this blank notebook will record your thoughts; and you may learn the following things from those thoughts: The wrinkles that your mirror will show you will remind you of open graves. By the hands of your clock, you’ll learn how time keeps stealing away to eternity. Write down whatever you can’t remember on these blank pages, and later, when you encounter those thoughts again, the children of your brain, they’ll have grown up, nourished by your continued reflection. They’ll be like a new acquaintance. Doing these things often—looking in the mirror and at the clock, and writing in the book—will benefit you and greatly enrich your book.

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  ORIGINAL TEXT

  So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,

  And found such fair assistance in my verse,

  As every alien pen hath got my use,

  And under thee their poesy disperse.

  Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,

  And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

  Have added feathers to the learnèd’s wing

  And given grace a double majesty.

  Yet be most proud of that which I compile,

  Whose influence is thine and born of thee.

  In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,

  And arts with thy sweet graces gracèd be;

  But thou art all my art, and dost advance

  As high as learning my rude ignorance.

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  I have cited you as my source of inspiration so often, and you’ve helped my poetry so much, that every other writer has adopted my habit of addressing poems to you, and now they all write their poetry in your name. Your beautiful eyes are such a source of inspiration that they’ve helped the mute sing high notes, raised the ignorant to new heights of intelligence, helped the educated soar even higher, and enhanced the gracefulness of the graceful. Yet your greatest pride should be in my accomplishment, because it’s done under your influence and inspired by you. With other writers, you only improve their style, adding an extra sheen to the skill they already have. But without you I have no skill at all; you lift up my utter ignorance so that I am well-educated.

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  Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,

  My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,

  But now my gracious numbers are decayed,

  And my sick muse doth give another place.

  I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument

  Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,

  Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent

  He robs thee of and pays it thee again.

  He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word

  From thy behavior; beauty doth he give

  And found it in thy cheek; he can afford

  No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.

  Then thank him not for that which he doth say,

  Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay.

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  When I was the only writer who looked to you for inspiration, only my poetry received all of the benefits of your noble grace. But now the poems I write under your inspiration have gotten worse, and I’m forced to make room for someone else. I admit, my sweet love, that such a lovely subject as you deserves to have a better writer working for you. But whatever your new poet says about you, he’s only stealing the ideas from you and giving them back to you. He says you’re virtuous, but he only learned that word from watching your behavior. He says you’re beautiful, but he only found out about beauty from your face. He has no praise to give you except for what he finds in you already. So don’t thank him for what he says about you, since you’re paying for everything he gives you.

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  O how I faint when I of you do write,

  Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,

  And in the praise thereof spends all his might,

  To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.

  But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,

  The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

  My saucy bark, inferior far to his,

  On your broad main doth willfully appear.

  Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,

  Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;

  Or, being wracked, I am a worthless boat,

  He of tall building and of goodly pride.

  Then, if he thrive and I be cast away,

  The worst was this: my love was my decay.

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  I get very discouraged when I write about you, knowing that a superior writer is writing about you too. He uses all of his powers of praise to make me tongue-tied when I write about your glory. But since your worth is as big as the ocean, able to support the smallest boat as well as the biggest ship, my impudent little boat, which is far inferior to his, stubbornly makes an appearance on your waters. Even at your shallowest, you keep me afloat, while he sails out over your measureless depths. And if I wind up being wrecked, I’m only a worthless little vessel, whereas he’s a tall ship—something to be proud of. So if he does well and I find myself shipwrecked and discarded, the worst I can say is this: I was destroyed because of my love for you.

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  Or I shall live, your epitaph to make,

  Or you survive, when I in earth am rotten,

  From hence your memory death cannot take,

  Although in me each part will be forgotten.

  Your name from hence immortal life shall have,

  Though I, once gone, to all the world must die.

  The earth can yield me but a common grave,

  When you entombèd in men’s eyes shall lie.

  Your monument shall be my gentle verse,

  Which eyes not yet created shall o’er-read,

  And tongues to be your being shall rehearse

  When all the breathers of this world are dead.

  You still shall live—such virtue hath my pen—

  Where breath most breathes, ev’n in the mouths of men.

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  Either I will live to write your epitaph after you die, or you will survive me when I’m rotting in the grave. Death cannot take away your memory, but it will cause everything to do with me to be forgotten. Your name will live eternally, but once I’m gone, I’ll be dead to the world. I’ll only be granted an ordinary grave, but your tomb will be where everyone can see it. Your monument will be these tender poems of mine, which future generations will read and talk about, when everyone who’s now living is dead. My pen has such power that you’ll not only stay alive, you’ll live where the essence of life resides: in the breath and voices of men.

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  I grant thou wert not married to my muse,

  And therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook

  The dedicated words which writers use

  Of their fair subject, blessing every book.

  Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,

  Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,

  And therefore art enforced to seek anew

  Some fresher stamp of the time-bett’ring days.

  And do so, love; yet when they have devised

  What strainèd touches rhetoric can lend,

  Thou, truly fair, wert truly sympathized

  In true plain words by thy true-telling friend.

  And their gross painting might be better used

  Where cheeks need blood—in thee it is abused.

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  I admit that you weren’t married to my poetry, so you’re not doing anything wrong if you read what other writers say about you in the books they dedicate to you—you, the beautiful subject that blesses their books. You are as knowledgeable as you are beautiful, and you see that I’m incapable of praising you sufficiently, so you’re forced to look again for some newer, fresher writer in these days of literary improvements. Go ahead and do so, my love. Yet while these writers have invented whatever elaborate stylistic devices they can borrow from rhetoric, you would be more truthfully represented, since you’re truly beautiful, by the true, plain words of your truth-telling friend. And the overblown praise of these other writers might be more appropriately applied to people who need to be beautified. For you, such rhetorical excess is misused.

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  I never saw that you did painting need,

  And therefore to your fair no painting set.

  I found, or thought I found, you did exceed

  The barren tender of a poet’s debt.

  And therefore have I slept in your report,

  That you yourself, being extant, well might show

  How far a modern quill doth come too short,

  Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.

  This silence for my sin you did impute,

  Which shall be most my glory, being dumb.

  For I impair not beauty, being mute,

  When others would give life, and bring a tomb.

  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes

  Than both your poets can in praise devise.

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  It never seemed to me that you needed to be praised, so I never described your beauty with profuse or elaborate rhetoric. I could see (or I thought I could see) that you were better than any praise a poet could give you. Therefore, I haven’t exerted myself to describe you, so that you yourself, since you’re still alive, could show everybody how much more worthy you are than my commonplace writing style can describe. You decided that this silence on my part was a fault, but I’m particularly proud of my muteness. By remaining silent, at least I don’t damage your beauty, whereas other writers try to bring you to life in their writing, and kill you instead. You possess more life in one of your beautiful eyes than all of your poets could invent by praising you.

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  Who is it that says most, which can say more

  Than this rich praise, that you alone are you—

  In whose confíne immurèd is the store

  Which should example where your equal grew?

  Lean penury within that pen doth dwell

  That to his subject lends not some small glory.

  But he that writes of you, if he can tell

  That you are you, so dignifies his story.

  Let him but copy what in you is writ,

  Not making worse what nature made so clear,

  And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,

  Making his style admired everywhere.

  You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,

  Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.

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  Which writer says the most about you? Which of them can say anything more to praise you than that only you are you, and that all beauty is stored in you, so that there’s nothing to compare you to but yourself? Only a very poor writer is unable to improve the subject he’s writing about at least a little, but whoever writes about you will have given his writing dignity simply by reporting that you are you. If that writer simply describes you accurately, managing not to mess up what nature made so perfectly, he’ll have created such an image that his writing skills will become famous, his style admired everywhere. For all of the beauty you’re blessed with, you curse yourself by loving to hear yourself praised so much, because then people write worse praise trying to flatter you.

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  My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,

  While comments of your praise, richly compiled,

  Reserve their character with golden quill

  And precious phrase by all the muses filed.

  I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,

  And like unlettered clerk still cry “Amen”

  To every hymn that able spirit affords,

  In polished form of well-refinèd pen.

  Hearing you praised, I say “’Tis so, ’tis true,”

  And to the most of praise add something more;

  But that is in my thought, whose love to you,

  Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.

  Then others for the breath of words respect,

  Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

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  My mute poetry politely remains silent, while commentaries praising you pile up, capturing the essence of your character in golden words and precious phrases inspired by all the muses. I think good thoughts about you while other people write good words, and like an illiterate parish clerk I continually cry “amen” to every poem of praise that capable poets produce about you in their polished and refined style. When I hear you praised, I say, “That’s right, that’s true,” and add a little something to their utmost praise of you. What I add is only in my own mind, but in my own mind I know I love you the most, though I speak the least. So respect others for the words of praise they offer you, but respect me for my silent thoughts, which express themselves only in actions.

  Parish clerks told the church congregation when to respond and when to say “amen” during services.

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  Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

  Bound for the prize of all too precious you,

  That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,

  Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

  Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write

  Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

  No, neither he, nor his compeers by night

  Giving him aid, my verse astonishèd.

  He, nor that affable familiar ghost

  Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,

  As victors of my silence cannot boast.

  I was not sick of any fear from thence;

  But when your countenance filled up his line,

  Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.

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  Was it the ambitious and impressive poem that my rival wrote for you that discouraged me from writing my own poem, killing my thoughts before I could put them into words? Was it his creative power, aided by the spirits of all the dead authors he’s read so that he writes better than any mortal should, that stunned me into silence? No, it was neither him nor those friends of his who visit him at night and help him, who silenced me with amazement. Neither he nor that friendly little ghost that tricks him with false information each night can boast that they’re responsible for my silence. I wasn’t sick because of any fear of them. But when you looked favorably on his writing and thus made it even better, then I suddenly had nothing to say, and you made my writing feeble.