Shakespeare's Sonnet 86

15/12/2024 20 min

Listen "Shakespeare's Sonnet 86"

Episode Synopsis

Shakespeare claims his rival is writing with some ghosts...

Sonnet 86
Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,Bound for the prize of all too precious you,That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to writeAbove a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?No, neither he, nor his compeers by nightGiving him aid, my verse astonished.He, nor that affable familiar ghostWhich nightly gulls him with intelligence,As victors of my silence cannot boast;I was not sick of any fear from thence:   But when your countenance filled up his line,   Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.