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 | ·····/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.