been created for a woman’s sexual use, or the beloved
could have been created to be a woman. Unfortunately,
while she was creating the beloved, Nature “fell a-dot-
ing” (l. 10), or did not pay close attention, or behaved
foolishly. Consequently, she added “one thing” (l. 12)
that removed the beloved from the lover. That thing was
“nothing” (l. 12) that the lover needed or wanted. The
COUPLET attempts to explain the “one thing.” It states
that Nature “pricked thee out for women’s pleasure” (l.
13). On one level that line can simply indicate that
nature “chose” the beloved to provide women with plea-
sure. But how was that to happen? If the thing added to
the beloved was a “penis”—and the word prick was also
slang for the penis in the early modern period—then we
can say that nature gave a womanly beautiful man a sex
organ that was designed for a woman and not the male
speaker. But there is another possibility. Since nothing
could also be slang for a woman’s vagina, the addition
referred to could also be a clitoris, a woman’s organ of
pleasure. Again this presents a number of possible read-
ings: A heterosexual male lover is upset because the
beautiful person he loves has a penis, something he
wishes his lover did not have; a homosexual male lover
is upset because the beautiful person he loves has a cli-
toris, something he wishes his lover did not have; a het-
erosexual female lover is upset because the beautiful
person she loves has a clitoris, something she wishes her
lover did not have; a homosexual female lover is upset
because the beautiful person she loves has a penis,
something she wishes her lover did not have. The sad
fi nal line indicates that the speaker will always love the
beloved, but in a nonsexual way. The beloved’s sexual
activity (“use,” l. 14) will be the “treasure” (l. 14) of the
others who want a lover of the beloved’s biological sex.
See also SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM; SHAKESPEARE’S SON-
NETS (OVERVIEW).
FURTHER READING
Mahood, M. M. Shakespeare’s Wordplay. 1957. Reprint, Lon-
don: Methuen, 1968.
Theodora A. Jankowski
Shakespeare’s sonnets: Sonnet 23 (“As an
unperfect actor on the stage”) WILLIAM SHAKE-
SPEARE (1599) WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’s Sonnet 23,
one of those addressed to the LOVELY BOY, describes the
poet’s awkwardness; it is one of several sonnets to do
so. This awkwardness is sometimes due to the speak-
er’s social status, which is lower than that of the young
man, and at other times is a result of a transgression
committed by one of them. In Sonnet 23, however, the
awkwardness is due to the strength of the speaker’s
love for the young man. His intense emotions prevent
him from speaking with his accustomed eloquence,
and he pleads with the young man to read “what silent
love hath writ” (l. 13) in the more controlled medium
of the poet’s books.
Like most of Shakespeare’s SONNETS, Sonnet 23 is
divided into three QUATRAINs and a COUPLET. The fi rst
quatrain works by antithesis: The poet compares him-
self fi rst to an actor, a person whose words and actions
are carefully scripted, and then to “some fi erce thing”
(l. 3), a wordless being whose actions are driven by
uncontrolled appetites. The “unperfect actor on the
stage”—that is, an inexperienced or inept actor who
“with his fear is put besides his part” (ll. 1–2)—is
unable to speak the lines written for him. The “fi erce
thing replete with too much rage” may be a wild ani-
mal, but “thing” is a common Renaissance slang term
for penis. This thing is strong, but his “strength’s abun-
dance weakens his own heart” (l. 4) and depletes what
was once replete. Thus, the timid actor and the fi erce
thing arrive at the same speechless conclusion.
The poet then moves to the fi rst person, explaining
that his “fear of trust” causes him to “forget to say, /
The perfect ceremony of loves [rite]” (ll. 5–6). Gram-
matically, it is not clear whether the speaker fears to
trust himself or the young man, but like the actor or
the fi erce thing, he also forgets what to say, because he
too is “unperfect” or “replete with too much rage.” The
“perfect ceremony,” the right set of words that will
complete “love’s rite” and permit the union of the
young man and the speaker, consists of words the
speaker cannot remember when he is in the young
man’s presence. Like the fi erce thing, the poet fi nds “in
mine own love’s strength [I] seem to decay” (l. 7), and
that self-destruction is the result of his being
“O’ercharg’d with burthen of mine own love’s might”
(l. 8). O’ercharg’d, like many images in the sonnets, has
multiple meanings: commercial (the beloved is tooSHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS: SONNET 23 367