Sonnet 125

« » Sonnet 125
The first two lines of Sonnet 125 in the 1609 Quarto
Q1 Q2 Q3 C Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which prove more short than waste or ruining? Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent, For compound sweet forgoing simple savour, Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent? No, let me be obsequious in thy heart, And take thou my oblation, poor but free, Which is not mix’d with seconds, knows no art But mutual render, only me for thee. Hence, thou suborn’d informer! a true soul When most impeach’d stands least in thy control. 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare

Q1



Q2



Q3



C

Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which prove more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mix’d with seconds, knows no art
But mutual render, only me for thee.
Hence, thou suborn’d informer! a true soul
When most impeach’d stands least in thy control.

4



8



12

14

Sonnet 125 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.

Sonnet 125 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, although (as discussed below) in this case the f rhymes repeat the sound of the a rhymes. It is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 6th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

Lines 7 (scanned above) and 5 each have a final extrametrical syllable or feminine ending. Line 13 contains both an initial reversal and a rightward movement of the fourth ictus (resulting in a four-position figure, × × / /, sometimes referred to as a minor ionic):

An initial reversal is also found in line 8, while a mid-line reversal occurs in line 4. Due to the flexibility of emphasis in monosyllables, the beginning of line 11 may be scanned as regular, an initial reversal, or a minor ionic.

The meter demands that line 9's "obsequious" function as three syllables, and line 12's "mutual" as two.