Theme: Standing in the Shadow.
Content: A play on the letters de, th and t in describing how the author ameliorates his own status by standing in the shadow of the subject's greater substance.
As a decrepit
father takes
delight
To see his active child do deeds
of youth,
So I, made
lame by fortune's dearest
spite,
Take all my comfort of thy
worth and truth;
- A de quatrain in which the author looks on at the subject as an old father who experiences vicarious pleasure in the subject's activities.
- A th sonnet with all lines containing words that include th. In the Quarto, spite in line 3 is spelled spight, therefore containing the necessary th but in reverse, i.e. made lame. This, in turn, is emphasised by the reversed th in the rhyming delight.
For whether
beauty,
birth, or wealth,
or
wit,
Or any of these
all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy
parts do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this
store.
- The author again describes beauty, birth and wealth in the subject and identifies them as characteristics that do not define him.
- beauty alliterates into birth via b, birth alliterates into wealth via th, wealth alliterates into wit via w.
- The only thing the author can graft onto these qualities is love.
So then
I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
Whilst that
this
shadow doth such
substance give
That I in thy
abundance am
sufficed
And by a part of all thy
glory live.
- The author enjoys vicarious pleasure by standing in the shadow of the subject's glories that counter the misery of his personal poor fortune.
- Mid-line rhyme of substance and abundance.
Look what
is best, that
best I wish in
thee;
This wish I have,
then
ten times happy
me.
- The letter t appears 10 times in the couplet, echoing the author's ten times happy.
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net