Sonnet XXXV
No more be griev’d at that which thou hast done:Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.All men make faults, and even I in this,Authorizing thy trespass with compare,Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense;Thy adverse party is thy advocate,And ’gainst myself a lawful plea commence:Such civil war is in my love and hate,That I an accessary needs must be,To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- accessary a.
- Accompanying, as a subordinate; additional; accessory; esp., uniting in, or contributing to, a crime, but not as chief actor. See Accessory.
- needs adv.
- Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; -- often with must, and equivalent to of need. [Orig. gen. of need, used as an adverb. Cf. - wards.]
- sourly adv.
- In a sour manner; with sourness.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet XXXV 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 XXXV, in The Sonnets (1609), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shakespeare-sonnets/sonnet-35.html, id L00053.
Form and metre
Sonnet XXXV 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 84%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
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 ABABCDCDEFEFGG doneA · mudB · sunA · budB · thisC · compareD · amissC · areD · senseE · advocateF · commenceE · hateF · beG · meG
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.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| No more be griev’d at that which thou hast done: | 10 | ·········· |
| Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud: | 10 | /˘···/˘/˘· |
| Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| All men make faults, and even I in this, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Authorizing thy trespass with compare, | 10 | /˘·˘·/˘·˘/ |
| Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are; | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Thy adverse party is thy advocate, | 10 | ·/·/˘··/˘· |
| And ’gainst myself a lawful plea commence: | 10 | ···/·/˘·˘/ |
| Such civil war is in my love and hate, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| That I an accessary needs must be, | 10 | ···˘/˘˘··· |
| To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
Notes from the edition 9
Notes by William J. Rolfe, Shakespeare's Sonnets (New York, 1905), Internet Archive scan
- Line 4 Canker. Canker-worm ; as in 70. 7, 95. 2, and 99. 12 below.
- Line 5 Make faults. Cf. R. of I.. S04 : "all the faults which in thy reign ave made; " IV. T. iii. 2. 21S : "All faults 1 make," etc.
- Line 6 Authorizing. Accented on the second s\ liable, as elsewhere in S. For compare, see on 21. 5 above. The meaning u : " giving a precedent for thy fault by comparing it with mine." (Palgrave) ; or with that of other men, as the context implies.
- Line 7 Amiss. For the noun, cf. 151. 3 below and Ham. iv. 5. 18. The line seems to mean : sinning myself in palliating your offence.
- Line 8 Thy . . . thy. The quarto reads " their . . . their ; " cor- rected by Malone. Steevens explains the line thus : " Making the excuse more than proportioned to the offence."
- Line 9 Sense. Reason. Malone conjectured " incense " for in sense. Dowden says : " If we receive the present text, ' thy adverse party ' must mean Shakspere. But may we read : — ' For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense, [that is, judgment, Thy adverse party, as thy advocate.' reason] Sense — against which he has offended — brought in as his advo- cate ? " It seems to me better to connect it with the following line, as the original text does. No change is called for.
- Line 12 Love and hate. Love for his friend, hate for his conduct.
- Line 13 Accessary. Accomplice. The word occurs again in J?, of L. 1658, with the same accent as here. S. does not use accessory.
- Line 14 Sweet thief. Cf. 40. 9 : " gentle thief." For soarly Gildon has " sorely."
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