English Wordplay ~ Listen and Enjoy
Sonnet 46
These next two sonnets explore the duality of eye and heart: a common theme during the Renaissance.
A. L. Rowse in his Shakespeare's Sonnets writes: Contemporary life is reflected in the image of impanelling the jury, the tenants of the manor: their verdict was to award a moiety, one half, to each other.
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, How to divide the conquest of thy sight; Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar, My heart mine eye the freedom of that right. My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,-- A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes-- But the defendant doth that plea deny, And says in him thy fair appearance lies. To side this title is impannelled A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart; And by their verdict is determined The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part: As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part, And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.
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Introduction to the Sonnets
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