The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 128

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: To Kiss the Music Player
Content: A very sensual sonnet whose maxim could well have been: "If music be the food of love, play on". The author envies the intimacy that the musical instrument has with his subject while she plays and is ultimately willing to share her.

How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,

The subject is portrayed to be my music who herself plays music. This alludes to the subject being not just someone whom the author is attracted to but whom he is having a physical relationship with: she makes music with the instrument whilst he makes music with the subject.

The blessed wood may denote the musical instrument as a virginal.

Assonance using s is used extensively throughout the sonnet anticipating the objective of kissing the subject.

Counterpoint between concord and confounds.

Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!

jacks is also consistent with the musical instrument being a virginal or harpsichord, although this is in error as it is the keys that are able to kiss the tender inward of the player's hand, not the jacks that are the part of the mechanism that acuates the plucking of the strings. This has been rectified in the Bodleian version below.

Amusing image of the author's red lips blushing at the boldness of the wood of the musical instrument.

leap To kiss (performed by the jacks) morphs to the final lips to kiss performed by the author.

The musical instrument is portrayed as an active participant by kissing the subject's hands.

To be so tickled they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blessed than living lips.

would change their state plays on the word would changing its state to wood.

The subject is now portrayed as an active participant by tickling the musical instrument.

Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

fingers and lips are equally represented in the sonnet (3 times each) and figuratively demonstrate that the author is prepared to share physical intimacy of the subject with others, a notion that is developed in later sonnets.

A manuscript of a slightly different version of this sonnet is now held in the Bodleian Library.
Differences are highlighted:

How oft when thou, dear dearest music playest
Upon that blessed wood whose motions sounds,
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently swayst
The wiry concord that mine ear consounds,
O how I envy those keys that nimble leaps,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reaped
At the wood boldness by thee blushing stand,
To be so touched the fain would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips
O'er whom your fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blessed than living lips.
Since then those keys so happy are in this,
Give them your fingers, me your lips to kiss.

Compare this sonnet with Henry Constable's

Of Her Excellency Both in Singing and Instruments

Not that thy hand is soft, is sweet, is white,
Thy lips sweet roses, breast sweet lily is,
That love esteems these three the chiefest bliss
Which nature ever made for lips' delight.
But when these three to show their heavenly might
Such wonders do, devotion then for this
Commandeth us, with humble zeal to kiss
Such things as work miracles in our sight.
A lute of senseless wood by nature dumb
Touched by thy hand doth speak divinely well
And from thy lips and breast sweet tunes do come
To my dead heart the which new life do give
Of greater wonders heard we never tell
Than for the dumb to speak, the dead to live.