Understand Shakespeare's language with this sonnet followed by a modern translation. One of my maddest interpretations, but it was a lot of fun to make. I think a very lonely year has got to me! If you haven't yet, check out my video of Sonnet 100 ( • Shakespeare Locked Dow... ) to see where the toga footage came from.
This is the second of two sonnets where Shakespeare demands his Muse returns to help him write poetry about the Fair Youth. Sonnets 100-101 can be performed as a pair.
Sonnet 100 - • Shakespeare Locked Dow...
As I'm in lockdown, I'm using this time to learn all of Shakespeare's sonnets. I hope you find the modern translation afterwards entertaining. 101 down 53 to go!
This poem is both part of the Fair Youth Sonnets & part of the sequence from 87-126 known as the Fickle Youth Sonnets.
Sonnet 101 full text:
O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer, Muse! Wilt thou not haply say
'Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
But best is best if never intermixed'?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb,
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem, long hence, as he shows now.
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Shakespeare meets Eastenders in these sonnets - • Shakespeare Sonnets as...
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Intro music composed & recorded by Joel Goodman.
/ @eppingmusicschool