Theme: Rival Poet
Content: A comparison between the monotonous efforts of a rival to praise the subject and the poet's more honest efforts.
So is it not with me as with that muse
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself
for ornament doth use,
And every fair with
his fair doth
rehearse,
- This appears to allude to a rival poet who was motivated to write his verse by a painting of the subject or a beautiful woman.
- The subject's deification is alluded to in the way that heaven uses the subject's beauty for ornamentation.
Making a couplement
of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth, and sea's rich
gems,
With April's first-born flowers, and all things
rare
That heaven's air
in this huge rondure hems.
- The subject's beauty is coupled by the rival poet with the beauty of the heavens, sea, Springtime's flora, and everything hemmed in by planet Earth's atmosphere .
- heaven emphasised again.
- The couplement in line 5 may be a mocking reference to the rival poet's monotonous repetitive use of fair from line 4 or alternatively could be a reference to George Chapman's use of English couplets in his translation of Homer's Odysseys.
O let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in
heaven's air.
- The poet here pleads for the honesty of his verse to be recognised although he concedes it is not as bright as the heaven's stars.
- heaven emphasised again.
- These 2 quatrains share the same rhyme pattern with compare, rare, fair and air.
- The repeat of heaven's air from Q2 transfers the use of the phrase from the rival poet to this poet.
Let them say more that like of hearsay
well;
I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
- Heaven is missing in the couplet but is perhaps echoed in hearsay which itself echoes the rehearse of Q1.
- I will not praise that purpose not to sell appears to confirm that this poetry was written for private consumption, not public sale.
- not to sell may identify line 1's "that muse" by being a pun on George Chapman, a likely rival poet: Chapman was a 16th.Century word meaning "buyer", hence, I will not praise that purpose not to sell also meaning "I will not praise the efforts of Chapman / buyer / not to sell".
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net