Sonnet 75

Summary

Sonnet 75 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 75
Detail of old-spelling text
Sonnet 75 in the 1609 Quarto

Q1



Q2



Q3



C

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better’d that the world may see my pleasure:
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.




4



8



12

14

—William Shakespeare[1]

Synopsis edit

The poet expresses his complete pleasure in the presence of his beloved, but says that his devotion resembles that of a miser to his money, filled with anxiety combined with pleasure in his wealth.

Structure edit

Sonnet 75 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, and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 4th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

×     /   ×  / ×  /    ×   /     ×   / 
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found. (75.4)

The 6th line exhibits two common variations: an initial reversal and a final extrametrical syllable or feminine ending:

 /   ×     ×  /   ×   /    ×     /    ×   /  (×) 
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; (75.6)
/ = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus. (×) = extrametrical syllable.

Line 8 necessarily repeats the 6th line's feminine ending. Possible initial reversals also occur in lines 1, 2, 3, 9, 12, and 13; though these can be interpreted in other ways.

The meter demands a few variant pronunciations: in the 2nd line, "showers" functions as 1 syllable, and in the 10th line "starvèd" functions as 2.[2]

Notes edit

  1. ^ Pooler, C[harles] Knox, ed. (1918). The Works of Shakespeare: Sonnets. The Arden Shakespeare [1st series]. London: Methuen & Company. OCLC 4770201.
  2. ^ Booth 2000, p. 67.

References edit

First edition and facsimile
Variorum editions
Modern critical editions