an unasked question. Thus, it is only the image of love
that “dwell(s),” in the beautiful face (l. 10), and those
“looks” produce “nothing... but sweetness tell” (l. 12),
with tell pointing to perception, not fact. The speaker
may seem to be complimenting the lover’s beauty, but
it is by an indirect negation—in other words, by
reminding us what is not there.
The couplet at the very end again focuses on reli-
gious imagery, with a reference to the very well-known
biblical story of Eve, the fi rst woman—and fi rst tempt-
ress—who was unfaithful to God. The lover’s “beauty”
is now fi nally compared to “Eve’s apple” (l. 13), the
original forbidden fruit that the lover has metaphori-
cally copied by fi nding a different romantic companion.
Like Eve’s original sin, the infi delity does not represent
or “answer” (l. 14) the lover’s beauty, and the lover’s sin
will continue to “grow” (l. 13) if there is not true “vir-
tue” (l. 14) to match the appearance of love. Despite all
the previous despair, in this last line the speaker seems
to be holding onto the faintest hope for their own
renewed happiness and the lover’s redemption.
See also SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS (OVERVIEW).
Michael W. Young
Shakespeare’s sonnets: Sonnet 94 (“They that
have power to hurt and will do none”) WIL-
LIAM SHAKESPEARE (1599) Sonnet 94 plays on the
Petrarchan convention common to many other Eliza-
bethan SONNET SEQUENCEs, that of the beloved as a
coldhearted mistress. Starting with the basic ITALIAN
(PETRARCHAN) SONNET form of setting up the problem
in the initial OCTAVE before resolving it in the fi nal SES-
TET, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE spends the fi rst eight lines
talking about people and then the next four lines talk-
ing about fl ora before, in a uniquely Shakespearean
twist on the topic, comparing people and fl ora in the
fi nal COUPLET, to the former’s disadvantage.
The SONNET begins by explaining that people who
have the power to hurt others, yet do not hurt them,
are not doing what would be the most natural thing for
them to do. Though capable of moving others, whether
through their words or actions, they are themselves
like stone—unmoved, cold, not easily tempted. These
people fi ttingly inherit heaven’s graces and do not
squander their gifts; they own their own images while
others can only serve them. Similarly, the summer
fl ower makes the summer sweet, though the fl ower
merely lives and dies. However, if the fl ower is infected,
then the basest weed outlives it. In this manner, sweet
things (and people) can be turned sour by the things
they do, just as dying lilies smell worse than weeds.
Reworking the fl oral imagery that previously
appeared in Sonnet 54, the poem places an ironic
twist on the topic of estrangement. Using a BIBLICAL
ALLUSION to the parable of the talents, the speaker jus-
tifi es severing his connection with the young man
because he is “cold” and has been “unmoved” (l. 4) by
the speaker’s proffered friendship. Editorial choice
results in variations in the punctuation at the end of
line 12, rendered as either a period or a colon. This
choice shifts the emphasis placed on the fi nal two
lines as the poem ends with either a complete sestet or
a QUATRAIN and a couplet.
See also SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS (OVERVIEW).
FURTHER READING
Easthope, Anthony. “Same Text, Different Readings: Shake-
speare’s Sonnet 94.” Critical Quarterly 28, no. 1–2 (1986):
53–60.
Peggy J. HueyShakespeare’s sonnets: Sonnet 97 (“How like a
winter hath my absence been”) WILLIAM SHAKE-
SPEARE (1599) Scholars have long held that this poem
is addressed to the LOVELY BOY, a beautiful young aristo-
crat whose presence dominates most of WILLIAM SHAKE-
SPEARE’s SONNET. It begins with the speaker-poet refl ecting
on a time when the two men were apart. The poet likens
this period of separation to winter and laments, “What
freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!” (l. 3). As an
extended metaphor, winter is a season as well as a state
of being. By contrast, the young aristocrat is decidedly
unwinter-like and described, appositionally, as “the
pleasure of the fl eeting year” (l. 2). The poet and the
young aristocrat are thus separated by space, season,
and mood.
Estranged, the poet feels time pass slowly, as it does
during periods of self-absorbed melancholy. His mem-
ories of the young aristocrat only worsen matters, for382 SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS: SONNET 94