Sonnet 149 (original) (raw)

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Poem by William Shakespeare

«» Sonnet 149
The first two lines of Sonnet 149 in the 1609 Quarto of Shakespeare's sonnets
Q1Q2Q3C Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,When I against myself with thee partake?Do I not think on thee, when I forgotAm of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?On whom frown’st thou that I do fawn upon?Nay, if thou lour’st on me, do I not spendRevenge upon myself with present moan?What merit do I in myself respect,That is so proud thy service to despise,When all my best doth worship thy defect,Commanded by the motion of thine eyes? But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind; Those that can see thou lov’st, and I am blind. 481214 —William Shakespeare[1]

Sonnet 149 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare.

It is considered a Dark Lady sonnet, as are all from 127 to 152.

Sonnet 149 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 8th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

× / × / × / × / × / Revenge upon myself with present moan? (149.8)

/ = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus.

The last line begins with a common metrical variant, an initial reversal:

/ × × / × / × / × / Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind. (149.14)

Initial reversals are potentially present in lines 3, 4, and 14, and a mid-line reversal is potentially present in line 6.

The meter demands that line 2's "cruel" be pronounced as two syllables,[2] and line 11's "defect" (although a noun) be stressed on the second syllable.[3]

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. 522.
3. ^ Kerrigan 1995, p. 382.

First edition and facsimile

• Shakespeare, William (1609). Shake-speares Sonnets: Never Before Imprinted. London: Thomas Thorpe.
• Lee, Sidney, ed. (1905). Shakespeares Sonnets: Being a reproduction in facsimile of the first edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OCLC 458829162.

Variorum editions

• Alden, Raymond Macdonald, ed. (1916). The Sonnets of Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. OCLC 234756.
• Rollins, Hyder Edward, ed. (1944). A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Sonnets [2 Volumes]. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. OCLC 6028485. — Volume I and Volume II at the Internet Archive

Modern critical editions

• Atkins, Carl D., ed. (2007). Shakespeare's Sonnets: With Three Hundred Years of Commentary. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-4163-7. OCLC 86090499.
• Booth, Stephen, ed. (2000) [1st ed. 1977]. Shakespeare's Sonnets (Rev. ed.). New Haven: Yale Nota Bene. ISBN 0-300-01959-9. OCLC 2968040.
• Burrow, Colin, ed. (2002). The Complete Sonnets and Poems. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192819338. OCLC 48532938.
• Duncan-Jones, Katherine, ed. (2010) [1st ed. 1997]. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Arden Shakespeare, third series (Rev. ed.). London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4080-1797-5. OCLC 755065951. — 1st edition at the Internet Archive
• Evans, G. Blakemore, ed. (1996). The Sonnets. The New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521294034. OCLC 32272082.
• Kerrigan, John, ed. (1995) [1st ed. 1986]. The Sonnets ; and, A Lover's Complaint. New Penguin Shakespeare (Rev. ed.). Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-070732-8. OCLC 15018446.
• Mowat, Barbara A.; Werstine, Paul, eds. (2006). Shakespeare's Sonnets & Poems. Folger Shakespeare Library. New York: Washington Square Press. ISBN 978-0743273282. OCLC 64594469.
• Orgel, Stephen, ed. (2001). The Sonnets. The Pelican Shakespeare (Rev. ed.). New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0140714531. OCLC 46683809.
• Vendler, Helen, ed. (1997). The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-63712-7. OCLC 36806589.