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O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me
Worthy perusal, stand against thy sight;
For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thyself dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine, which rhymers invocate;
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to out-live long date.

If my slight muse do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

XXXIX.

O, how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?

What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is't but mine own, when I praise thee?
Even for this let us divided live,

And our dear love lose name of single one;
That by this separation I may give

That due to thee, which thou deserv'st alone.
O absence, what a torment would'st thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
(Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive',)

7 (Which time and THOUGHTS So sweetly DOTH deceive,)] Which, viz. entertaining the time with thoughts of love, doth so agreeably beguile the tediousness of absence from those we love, and the melancholy which that absence occasions. So, in Venus and Adonis :

"A summer day will seem an hour but short,
"Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport."

Thought in ancient language meant melancholy. See vol. xi. p. 410, n. 7, and vol. xii. p. 318, n. 1.

The poet, it is observable, has here used the Latin idiom, probably without knowing it:

Jam vino quærens, jam somno fallere curam.

The old copy

reads:

"Which time and thoughts so sweetly dost deceive."

And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
By praising him here, who doth hence remain'.
XL.

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou may'st true love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
Then, if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest 9;
But yet be blam'd, if thou thyself deceivest1
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet love knows, it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.
XLI.

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,

But there is nothing to which dost can refer. The change being so small, I have placed doth in the text, which affords an easy sense. MALONE. Does would be nearer the original reading; but I rather think it should be do, making of thoughts the nominative case.

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how to make one twain,

BOSWELL.

By praising him here, who doth hence remain.] So, in Antony and Cleopatra :

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"Our separation so abides and flies,

"That thou, residing here, go'st yet with me,
“And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee."

STEEVENS.

FOR my love thou usest ;] For has here the signification of because. MALONE.

But yet be blam'd, if thou thyself deceivest-] The quarto reads-if thou this self deceivest. It is evidently corrupt.

MALONE.

Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd2;
And when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will sourly leave her till she have prevail'd3.
Ah me! but yet thou might'st, my sweet, forbear*,
And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there

Where thou art forc'd to break a two-fold truth;
Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.

2 Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,

Beauteous thou art, therefore to be ASSAIL'D;] So, in the first Part of King Henry VI.:

"She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;
"She is a woman, therefore to be won."

Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

STEEVENS.

"That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
"If with his tongue he cannot win a woman."

MALONE.

3- till SHE have prevail'd.] The quarto reads :-till he have prevail'd. But the lady, and not the man, being in this case supposed the wooer, the poet without doubt wrote:

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till she have prevail'd."

The emendation was proposed to me by Mr. Tyrwhitt.

MALONE.

but yet thou might'st, my swEET, forbear.] The old copy reads-thou might'st my seat forbear. The context proves it to have been a corruption: for the emendation I am responsible. So, in another Sonnet :

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"Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside." Again, in our author's Lover's Complaint:

"But O, my sweet, what labour is't to leave," &c.

Again, in Othello:

"The sooner, sweet, for you."

Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

"Pro. Except my mistress.

"Val. Sweet, except not any."

Here a man is addressed by a man.

Again, in Troilus and Cressida :

"Sweet, rouse yourself."

Patroclus is the speaker, and Achilles the person addressed.

MALONE.

XLII.

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
And
yet it may be said I lov'd her dearly;
That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:-
Thou dost love her, because thou knew'st I love her;
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.
If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain 3,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross:

But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;
Sweet flattery !-then she loves but me alone.

XLIII.

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected";
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make
bright,

How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so?
How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,

When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade 7 ·
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay?

Mr. Boaden is of opinion that the context shews the original word to be right. Iago, as he observes, uses the word seat with the same meaning, vol. ix. p. 315. BOSWELL.

5 If I lose thee, my loss is my LOVE's gain,] If I lose thee, my mistress gains by my loss. MALONE.

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things UNRESPECTED] Things unnoticed, unregarded.

MALONE.

THY fair imperfect shade-] The old copy reads-their.

All days are nights to see, till I see thee,
And nights, bright days, when dreams do show
thee me 9.

XLIV.

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then, despite of space, I would be brought
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then, although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth remov'd from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land',
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But ah! thought kills me, that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles, when thou art gone,
But that, so much of earth and water wrought 2,
I must attend time's leisure with my moan;
Receiving nought by elements so slow

But heavy tears, badges of either's woe:

The two words, it has been already observed, are frequently confounded in these Sonnets. MALONE.

* All days are nights to SEE,] We should, perhaps, read:

"All days are nights to me."

The compositor might have caught the word see from the end of the line. MALONE.

As, fair to see (an expression which occurs in a hundred of our old ballads) signifies fair to sight, so,-all days are nights to see, means, all days are gloomy to behold, i. e. look like nights.

9

STEEVENS.

do show THEE ME.] That is, do show thee to me.

MALONE.

can JUMP both sea and land,] Jump has here its common signification. In Shakspeare it often signifies to hazard. This is its meaning in the well known passage in Macbeth :

"We'd jump the life to come.'

MALONE.

2 so much of EARTH AND WATER WROUGHT,] i. e. being so thoroughly compounded of these two ponderous elements. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra:

I am air and fire, my other elements

"I give to baser life." STEEVENS.

A gain, in King Henry V.: "He is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him." MALONE,

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