Today’s Totally Random
Lines
Look, what is best, that best I wish in
thee:
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
Sonnet 37
Yes, it’s sonnet
time again! And Today’s Lines are the rhyming couplet that finishes this particular sonnet.
Shall we take a look at the first twelve lines? Based on this ending, I’m going
to assume that it’s fairly upbeat. Let’s hope it’s understandable as well.
As a decrepit
father takes delight
(okay, maybe it’s a little depressing; let’s not give up hope yet.)
To see
his active child do deeds of youth (at the very least, easy to understand what he’s saying so far…)
So I,
made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite (Fortune’s dearest spite?)
Take all
my comfort of thy worth and truth (hmmmm…).
For
whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit (all good things),
Or any of
these all, or all, or more (yes, yes…)
Entitled
in their parts do crowned sit (getting a little less clear here)
I make my
love engrafted to this store: (getting fuzzier)
So then I
am not lame, poor, nor despised
Whilst
that this shadow doth such substance give,
That I in
thy abundance am sufficed,
And by a
part of all thy glory live.
Look, what is best, that best I wish in
thee:
This wish I have; then ten times happy
me!
I think he’s
saying is:
Q1 I’m happy
just watching you, even though I don’t have you.
Q2 I’m happy
with whatever good things you/I? have?
Q3 I’m happy living
in the shadow of your glory?
Concl. If you’re happy, I’m happy.
Well, if that’s
a valid interpretation, then it’s not such an upbeat poem after all, is it?
Here’s the summary of this sonnet from the Katherine Duncan-Jones book.
Extending
the notion (from the
previous sonnets) that he partakes vicariously of the young man’s good
parts, the poet finds consolation, perhaps delusory, for his own unlucky and
inferior status in his young friend’s talents and good fortune.
Yeah, that’s
pretty much what I said. And yeah, that’s not particularly upbeat, if you ask
me. Oh well, what can you do?
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