The little Love-god lying once asleep
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vow’d chaste life to keep
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warm’d;
And so the general of hot desire
Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm’d.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love’s fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy
For men diseas’d; but I, my mistress’ thrall, Came there for cure, and this by that I prove, Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.
4
8
12
14
—William Shakespeare[1]
As the last in the famed collection of sonnets written by English poet and playwright William Shakespeare from 1592 to 1598, Sonnet 154 is most often thought of in a pair with the previous sonnet, number 153. As A. L. Rowse states in Shakespeare's Sonnets: The Problems Solved, Sonnets 153 and 154 "are not unsuitably placed as a kind of coda to the Dark Lady Sonnets, to which they relate."[2] Rowse calls attention to the fact that Sonnets 153 and 154 "serve quite well to round off the affair Shakespeare had with Emilia, the woman characterized as the Dark Lady, and the section of the Dark Lady sonnets".[3] Shakespeare used Greek mythology to address love and despair in relationships. The material in Sonnets 153 and 154 has been shown to relate to the six-line epigram ascribed to Marianus Scholasticus in the Greek Anthology.[4] The epigram resembles Sonnets 153 and 154, addressing love and the story of Cupid, the torch, and the Nymph's attempt to extinguish the torch.[5]
^Pooler, C[harles] Knox, ed. (1918). The Works of Shakespeare: Sonnets. The Arden Shakespeare [1st series]. London: Methuen & Company. OCLC 4770201.
^[Rowse, A. L. Shakespeare's Sonnets: The Problems Solved. Harper & Row, Publishers. New York: 1964. pg. 317]
^[Rowse p.319]
^Anth. Pal. ix. 627.
^[Schoenfeldt, Michael Carl. "FINIS." A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 68. Print.]
in the famed collection of sonnets written by English poet and playwright William Shakespeare from 1592 to 1598, Sonnet154 is most often thought of in...
Sonnet 130 is a sonnet by William Shakespeare, published in 1609 as one of his 154sonnets. It mocks the conventions of the showy and flowery courtly sonnets...
Sonnet 18 (also known as "Shall I compare thee to a summer day") is one of the best-known of the 154sonnets written by English poet and playwright William...
Sonnet 20 is one of the best-known of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. Part of the Fair Youth sequence (which...
Sonnet 29 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is part of the Fair Youth sequence (which comprises...
Sonnet 73, one of the most famous of William Shakespeare's 154sonnets, focuses on the theme of old age. The sonnet addresses the Fair Youth. Each of...
A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The...
Sonnet 66 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the...
Sonnet 104 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the...
Sonnet 2 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a procreation sonnet within the Fair Youth sequence...
Sonnet 55 is one of the 154sonnets published in 1609 by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is included in what is referred to as...
Sonnet 60 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the...
Sonnet 1 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a procreation sonnet within the Fair Youth sequence...
informal name given to the 141st of William Shakespeare's 154sonnets. The theme of the sonnet is the discrepancy between the poet's physical senses and...
Sonnet 17 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is the final poem of what are referred to by scholars...
Sonnet 12 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a procreation sonnet within the Fair Youth sequence...
Sonnet 14 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a procreation sonnet within the Fair Youth sequence...
Sonnet 16 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is among those sonnets referred to as the procreation...
Sonnet 151 is the 151st of 154 poems in sonnet form by William Shakespeare published in a 1609 collection titled Shakespeare's sonnets. The sonnet belongs...
Sonnet 30 is one of the 154sonnets written by the English poet and playwright William Shakespeare. It was published in the Quarto in 1609. It is also...
Sonnet 27 is one of 154sonnets published by William Shakespeare in a quarto titled Shakespeare's Sonnets in 1609. It is a part of the Fair Youth group...
Sonnet 129 is one of the 154sonnets written by William Shakespeare and published in the 1609 Quarto. It is considered one of the "Dark Lady" sonnets...
Sonnet 3 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is often referred to as a procreation sonnet that falls...
Sonnet 65 is one of 154sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the...
Sonnet 152 is a sonnet by William Shakespeare. It is one of a collection of 154sonnets, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty...
Sonnet 19 is one of 154sonnets published by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare in 1609. It is considered by some to be the final sonnet...
Global Information
