Sonnet LXXXVI
Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,Bound for the prize of all too precious you,That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?No, neither he, nor his compeers by nightGiving him aid, my verse astonished.He, nor that affable familiar ghostWhich nightly gulls him with intelligence,As victors of my silence cannot boast;I was not sick of any fear from thence:But when your countenance fill’d up his line,Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.
Words in this poem
- inhearse v. t.
- To put in, or as in, a hearse or coffin.
- womb n.
- The belly; the abdomen. [OE. wombe, wambe, AS. wamb, womb; akin to D. wam belly, OS. & OHG. wamba, G. wamme, wampe, Icel. vömb, Sw. v&mb, Dan. vom, Goth. wamba.]
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
- nightly a.
- Of or pertaining to the night, or to every night; happening or done by night, or every night; as, nightly shades; he kept nightly vigils.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet LXXXVI 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 LXXXVI, in The Sonnets (1609), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shakespeare-sonnets/sonnet-86.html, id L00104.
Form and metre
Sonnet LXXXVI 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 86%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 14% 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 ABABCDCDEFEFGG verseA · youB · inhearseA · grewB · writeC · deadD · nightC · astonishedD · ghostE · intelligenceF · boastE · thenceF · lineG · mineG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, | 10 | ·········· |
| Bound for the prize of all too precious you, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? | 10 | /˘········ |
| Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write, | 10 | ···/·/˘··· |
| Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| No, neither he, nor his compeers by night | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Giving him aid, my verse astonished. | 10 | /˘····˘/˘˘ |
| He, nor that affable familiar ghost | 10 | ···/˘˘˘/˘· |
| Which nightly gulls him with intelligence, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘˘ |
| As victors of my silence cannot boast; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| I was not sick of any fear from thence: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| But when your countenance fill’d up his line, | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine. | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
Notes from the edition 4
Notes by William J. Rolfe, Shakespeare's Sonnets (New York, 1905), Internet Archive scan
- Line 1 Proud full sail. Cf. 80. 6 above. As Minto notes, this suits well the grand fourteen-syllable lines of Chapman's Iliad. Fleay, who believes that Xash was the rival poet, sees here an " ironical reference to a prosaic sonnet by Nash in Prince Pennilesse, accom- panying a complaint that Amyntas's (Southampton's?) name is omit- ted in the Sonnet Catalogue of English heroes appended to Spenser's F. Q." Xash uses the words " full sail " in that connection. Furnivall remarks : " ' The proud full sail of his great verse ' probably alludes to the swelling hexameters of Chapman's english- ing of Homer. ' His spirit, by spirits taught to write,' may well refer to Chapman's claim that Homer's spirit inspired him, a claim made, no doubt, in words, before its appearance in print in his Tears of Peace, 1609 : — ' I am, said he [Homer], that spirit Elysian, That . . . did thy bosom fill With such a flood of soul, that thou wert fain, With exclamations of her rapture then, To vent it to the echoes of the vale, . . . ... and thou didst inherit My true sense, for the time then, in my spirit ; And I invisibly went prompting thee.' . . . See, too, on Shakspere's sneer at his rival's ' affable familiar ghost, which nightly gulls him with intelligence,' Chapman's Dedication to his Shadow of .Vight (1594), p. 3, 'not without having drops of their souls like an awaked familiar,' and in his Tears of Peace : — ' Still being persuaded by the shameless night, That all my reading, writing, all my pains, Are serious trifles, and the idle veins Of an unthrifty angel that deludes My simple fancy .' . . . These make a better case for Chapman being the rival than has been made for any one else." Dowden says : " No Elizabethan poet wrote ampler verse, none scorned ' ignorance ' more, or more haughtily asserted his learning than Chapman. In The Tears of Peace (1609), Homer as a spirit visits and inspires him ; the claim to such inspiration may have been often made by the translator of Homer in earlier years. Chapman was preeminently the poet of Night. The Shadow of Night, with the motto ' Versus mei habebunt aliquantum Noctis,' appeared in 1594; the title page describes it as containing ' two poeticall Hymnes.' In the dedication Chapman assails unlearned 'passion-driven men,' 'hide-bound with affection to great men's fancies,' and ridicules the alleged eternity of their ' idolatrous platts for riches.' 'Now what a supererogation in wit this is, to think Skill so mightily pierced with their l …
- Line 3 Inhearse. Enclose as in a coffin ; found again in I Hen. VI. iv. 7. 45.
- Line 4 Making their tomb the womb, etc. Malone compares R. and /• "• 3-9 ■ — " The earth that 's nature's mother is her tomb; What is her burying grave, that is her womb." See also Per. ii. 3. 45 : — " Whereby I see that Time 's the king of men : He 's both their parent and he is their grave ; " and Milton, P. I. ii. 911 : "The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave." We find the same thought in Lucretius, v. 259 : " Omni- parens eadem rerum commune sepulcrum."
- Line 8 Astonished. Stunned as by a thunderstroke. Cf. R. of Z, 1730: " Stone-still, astonish'd with this deadly deed," etc.
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