Sonnet 120

Last updated

«
»
Sonnet 120
Sonnet 120 1609.jpg
The first five lines of Sonnet 120 in the 1609 Quarto
Rule Segment - Fancy1 - 40px.svg

Q1



Q2



Q3



C

That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow which I then did feel
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer’d steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by yours, you’ve pass’d a hell of time;
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffer’d in your crime.
O, that our night of woe might have remember’d
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me then, tender’d
The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

Contents




4



8



12

14

—William Shakespeare [1]

Sonnet 120 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

Structure

Sonnet 120 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:

×  /    ×  /      ×     /   ×   /  ×      /  Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel. (120.4) 

Four lines (5, 7, 9, and 11) have a final extrametrical syllable or feminine ending, as for example:

 ×  /   ×   /    ×  / ×  /   ×     /(×)  For if you were by my unkindness shaken, (120.5) 
/ = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus. (×) = extrametrical syllable.

Interpretations

Notes

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

Related Research Articles

Sonnet 94 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 94 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 45 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 45 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 45 is continued from Sonnet 44.

Sonnet 47 Poem by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's Sonnet 47 is one of the Fair Youth sequence, addressed to a well-born young man. More locally, it is a thematic continuation of Sonnet 46.

Sonnet 52 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 52 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 58 Poem by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's Sonnet 58 is a syntactic and thematic continuation of Sonnet 57. More generally, it belongs to the large group of sonnets written to a young, aristocratic man, with whom the poem's speaker shares a tempestuous relationship. In this poem, the speaker complains of the beloved's voluntary absence, using the occasion to outline a more general lament against his own powerlessness and the indifference of the young man.

Sonnet 61 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 61 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 91 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 91 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

Sonnet 152 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 152 is a sonnet by William Shakespeare. It is one of a collection of 154 sonnets, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, first published in a 1609.

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

Sonnet 142 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 142 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare.

Sonnet 131 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 131 is a sonnet written by William Shakespeare and was first published in a 1609 quarto edition titled Shakespeare's sonnets. It is a part of the Dark Lady sequence, which are addressed to an unknown woman usually assumed to possess a dark complexion.

Sonnet 75 Poem by William Shakespeare

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 119 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 119 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

Sonnet 90 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 90 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 108 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 108 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 111 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 111 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 113 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

Sonnet 114 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 114 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 115 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 115 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 121 Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 121 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 his young lover.

References

First edition and facsimile
Variorum editions
Modern critical editions