Today’s Totally Random
Lines
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the
best,
Even to thy pure and most most loving
breast.
Narrator
Sonnet 110 Concluding Couplet
All right then; that’s the last two lines of the sonnet, and this being a sonnet, like many of them, it’s hard enough to understand in its entirety, so it makes no sense at all trying to figure out these two lines. Unless of course we take a stab at the whole thing. Well that being said, no, I don’t mind if I do. Here goes.
As I’ve said
many times, the sonnets are best viewed a quatrain at a time. Here’s number
one.
Alas, ‘tis true I have gone here and there,
And made
myself motley to the view,
Gored mine
own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences
of affections new;
Sounds like he’s saying that he’s been a pretty big jerk. It’s hard to tell exactly what he’s done, but he’s acted poorly, that’s for sure.
Most true
it is that I have looked on truth
Askance
and strangely: but, by all above,
These
blenches (turnings
aside) gave my heart another youth,
And worst
essays (trials or
tests) proved thee my best of love.
This second quatrain gets a little tougher. I think he’s reiterating that he’s done wrong, but by doing so it has allowed him to see anew that thee (whoever that is) is his true love.
Now all
is done, have what shall have no end:
Mine appetite
I never more will grind
On newer proof,
to try an older friend,
A god in
love, to whom I am confined.
I’m pretty much throwing up my hands and waving the white flag on this quatrain. Okay, I’ll take a crack at it. Now that all is said and done, there’s nothing he can do about it. But he’s changing and never again will try something new to test his love for thee, to whom he is committed solely.
Then give
me welcome, next my heaven the best,
Even to
thy pure and most most loving breast.
He’s saying, ‘please welcome me back and accept me, you who are the next thing to heaven for me; welcome me to your loving breast.’
There, I did it. Now, as is always the test, let’s take a look at what Katherine Duncan-Jones has to say in The Arden Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Here’s her one sentence summation.
The speaker acknowledges that he has strayed in affection from the youth (Thee), but claims that this has served only to strengthen his original and continuing devotion.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I said, isn’t it? Ahhh, sonnets; they’re the best!
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