Theme: Indescribable beauty
Content: A possible favourite of Shakespeare's given that there is an alternative version in manuscript form that may suggest re-working and perfecting (else the alternative is a memorial version). Like Sonnet 101, the author effectively deifies the subject, in this instance by describing prophets predicting the subject's coming but being as incapable as anyone else to properly describe their beauty.
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest
wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies
dead and lovely
knights;
- wights is archaic form meaning fairest "people" of the past whose beauty enables beautiful poetry to be written.
- ladies dead is quite a paradox to lovely knights emphasising a positive inclination towards a male subject rather than female.
- Possible pun on dead within ladies.
- Possible reference to the author in knights as a knight was a gentleman who served a king or lord.
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now.
- The praise of the fair subjects reported elsewhere in the sonnet is here phonetically embedded in expressed.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
And for they looked but with divining
eyes
They had not skill enough your worth to sing;
- The verse-writers from olden times are now portrayed as prophets predicting the beauty of the author's subject.
- Their divining eyes aggrandises the subject to divine level.
- Even the great poets of the past were not able to express praise sufficient for the subject, just as the author says he cannot. In this way, the author puts himself in the same league as poets of the past as well as classifying the subject's beauty as divine.
For we which
now behold these present days
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
- we shows that the affliction of not being able to sufficiently praise the subject is one that is shared by all of the poet's contemporaries.
Alternative of Sonnet 106 that exists in manuscript form (differences highlighted in blue):
When in the annals
of
all-wasting
time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights;
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of face,
of hand, of lip,
of eye, or brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
E'en such a beauty
as you master now.
So all their praises were
but
prophecies
Of these our
days,
all you prefiguring,
And for they saw
but
with divining eyes
They had not skill enough your worth to sing;
For we which now behold these present
days
Have eyes to wonder, but no
tongues
to praise.
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net