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Sonnet CLIII

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) · 1609

iambic pentameter · English sonnet · 14 lines · from The Sonnets

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Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:A maid of Dian’s this advantage found,And his love-kindling fire did quickly steepIn a cold valley-fountain of that ground;Which borrow’d from this holy fire of Love,A dateless lively heat, still to endure,And grew a seething bath, which yet men proveAgainst strange maladies a sovereign cure.But at my mistress’ eye Love’s brand new-fired,The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,And thither hied, a sad distemper’d guest,But found no cure, the bath for my help liesWhere Cupid got new fire; my mistress’ eyes.

Words in this poem

cupid
The god of love, son of Venus; usually represented as a naked, winged boy with bow and arrow. [L.Cupido, fr. cupido desire, desire of love, fr. cupidus. See Cupidity.]
dateless a.
Without date; having no fixed time.
needs adv.
Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; -- often with must, and equivalent to of need. [Orig. gen. of need, used as an adverb. Cf. - wards.]
withal adv.
With this; with that. [With + all.]

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

Sonnet CLIII is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shakespeare's Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #1041; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.

Cite as: William Shakespeare, Sonnet CLIII, in The Sonnets (1609), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shakespeare-sonnets/sonnet-153.html, id L00171.

Form and metre

Sonnet CLIII is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.

See other English sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.

Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.

Rhyme words, stanza by stanza

The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.

  1. 1 ABABCDCDEFEFGG asleepA · foundB · steepA · groundB · loveC · endureD · proveC · cureD · firedE · breastF · desiredE · guestF · liesG · eyesG
Scansion, line by line

Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.

LineSyl.Stress
Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:10/˘······˘/
A maid of Dian’s this advantage found,10···/˘·˘/˘·
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep10···/˘/·/˘·
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;10···/˘/˘···
Which borrow’d from this holy fire of Love,10·/···/˘/··
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,10·/˘/˘···˘/
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove10···/˘·····
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.10···/˘˘·/˘·
But at my mistress’ eye Love’s brand new-fired,11···/˘····/˘
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;10···/˘·····
I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,11··˘/····˘/˘
And thither hied, a sad distemper’d guest,10·/˘·······
But found no cure, the bath for my help lies10··········
Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress’ eyes.10·/˘··/·/˘·

On this poem

Malone remarks : "This and the following sonnet are composed of the very same thoughts differently versified. They seem to have been early essays of the poet, who perhaps had not determined which he should prefer. He hardlv could have intended to send them both into the world." iierr Krau>s (quoted by Dowdan") believes these sonnets to be harmless trilles, written for the gay company at some bathing- Dlace. Herr Hertzberg (Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesell- schaft, 1878, pp. 158-162) has found a Greek source for these two sonnets. He writes : " Dann ging ich an die palatinische An- thologie und fand daselbst nach langem Suchen im ix. Buche (EirideiKTiicd) unter N. 637 die ersehnte Quelle. . . . Es lautet : — T^S' utto Tas nXaTavovs aTraAui TCTpv/xevos virvyt ev$ev"Epu>$, Yvp.<j>a.LS \a.p.TrdSa jrapfleyos. N\in<t>ai. &' aAAjjApcri, ' ri p.i\\oix(v ; a.\6t &t roiiry <r{3c(r<raij.cv,' ciTro^, ' o^jlou niip KpaStri<; p.eporruv. AafxTra? 8' tus «f$Ae£e teal i'SaTa, 6cpp.bv €K(t.9fv Nv/uK^ai 'Ep<DTta6>s \ovTpoxoev<rtv iSuip." Dowden adds : " The poem is by the Byzantine Marianus, a writer probably of the fifth century after Christ. The germ of the poem is found in an Epigram by Zenodotus : — T15 yA0i//as toi- *Epa)Ta irapa KprjvrjaLv i8r)Ktv ; Oi6p.€vos nav<Tf(.v tovto to 7r0p vfiaTi. How Shakspere became acquainted with the poem of Marianus we cannot tell, but it had been translated into Latin : ' Selecta Epi- grammata, Basel,
Notes from the edition 3

Notes by William J. Rolfe, Shakespeare's Sonnets (New York, 1905), Internet Archive scan

  1. Line 6 Dateless. Eternal. Cf. 30. 6 above. Lively = living ; ai in V. and A. 498, etc.
  2. Line 7 Prove. Y\v.d by trying, find to be. Cf. 72. 4 above. n. Bath. The quarto has " bath," but Steevens suggests that we should pr.nt " Bath " (the name of the English city).
  3. Line 14 Eyes. The quarto has " eye ; " corrected in the ed. of 1640.

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