When I wrote a sonnet for one of my classes I came here for
inspiration. Sonnet comes from the Italian
sonetto or little song. These little
songs aren’t created so easily – they are guided by
many rules. Shakespearian sonnets are made of fourteen lines
arranged into three quatrains with an a-b-a-b rhyme scheme,
finished off with a rhyming couplet. The first four lines introduce
the topic (most often addressing love, friendship, the tyranny of
time, beauty’s evanescence, death), while the second quatrain
goes into more depth. The third quatrain introduces a sharp
thematic or imagistic twist. The couplet summarizes the theme or
introduces a fresh new look at the theme.
While pondering these rules, I passed a boy reciting sonnets,
but I became perplexed. Did his rendition follow the rules?
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
A woman’s face, with nature’s own hand
painted,
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy,
Suddenly the boy repeated with flair:
Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy,
And with a flourish of his hand he concluded:
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?
Just when I though he had finished he broke into a new fervor of
recitation:
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Lo, in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?
Now I was getting confused. The boy seemed not to be making any
sense at all. He had the sonnet all in a jumble and he kept
repeating things. It seemed purely nonsensical, but he persisted
on:
Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye
That thou consum’st thyself in single life?
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?
I felt particularly disconcerted when the boy suddenly
proclaimed:
For shame! Deny that thou bear’st love to any,
Who for thyself art so unprovident.
His little ditty utterly bewildered me. Was there some sense in
his nonsense?
FTF gets a collectible compass coin -- look for it in lid of
container.
Note for physical cache: Look at clue.