Sonnet 103

Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 103

The first two stanzas of Sonnet 103 in the 1609 Quarto

Q1 Q2 Q3 C	Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth, That having such a scope to show her pride, The argument, all bare, is of more worth Than when it hath my added praise beside! O, blame me not, if I no more can write! Look in your glass, and there appears a face That over-goes my blunt invention quite, Dulling my lines and doing me disgrace. Were it not sinful then, striving to mend, To mar the subject that before was well? For to no other pass my verses tend Than of your graces and your gifts to tell; And more, much more, than in my verse can sit, Your own glass shows you when you look in it.	4 8 12 14
	—William Shakespeare^[1]

Sonnet 103 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

Synopsis

The poet says that his feeble lines cannot do justice to the subject's beauty, but merely mar it with their own inadequacy. The poet's only achievements are the result of that beauty, which is much more clearly visible simply by looking in a mirror.

Structure

Sonnet 103 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 7th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

  ×  / ×   /    ×   /   ×  /   ×   / 
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,

 /  ×    ×  /     ×    /×    /  ×   / 
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace. (103.7-8)

/ = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus.

This is followed (in line 8) by a common metrical variation: the initial reversal, which also occurs in line 6. Inversions may also occur mid-line, as in line 9's "striving".

Notes

^ Pooler, C[harles] Knox, ed. (1918). The Works of Shakespeare: Sonnets. The Arden Shakespeare [1st series]. London: Methuen & Company. OCLC 4770201.

References

First edition and facsimile

Shakespeare, William (1609). Shake-speares Sonnets: Never Before Imprinted. London: Thomas Thorpe.
Lee, Sidney, ed. (1905). Shakespeares Sonnets: Being a reproduction in facsimile of the first edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OCLC 458829162.

Variorum editions

Alden, Raymond Macdonald, ed. (1916). The Sonnets of Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. OCLC 234756.
Rollins, Hyder Edward, ed. (1944). A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Sonnets [2 Volumes]. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. OCLC 6028485. — Volume I and Volume II at the Internet Archive

Modern critical editions

Atkins, Carl D., ed. (2007). Shakespeare's Sonnets: With Three Hundred Years of Commentary. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-4163-7. OCLC 86090499.
Booth, Stephen, ed. (2000) [1st ed. 1977]. Shakespeare's Sonnets (Rev. ed.). New Haven: Yale Nota Bene. ISBN 0-300-01959-9. OCLC 2968040.
Burrow, Colin, ed. (2002). The Complete Sonnets and Poems. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192819338. OCLC 48532938.
Duncan-Jones, Katherine, ed. (2010) [1st ed. 1997]. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Arden Shakespeare, third series (Rev. ed.). London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4080-1797-5. OCLC 755065951. — 1st edition at the Internet Archive
Evans, G. Blakemore, ed. (1996). The Sonnets. The New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521294034. OCLC 32272082.
Kerrigan, John, ed. (1995) [1st ed. 1986]. The Sonnets ; and, A Lover's Complaint. New Penguin Shakespeare (Rev. ed.). Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-070732-8. OCLC 15018446.
Mowat, Barbara A.; Werstine, Paul, eds. (2006). Shakespeare's Sonnets & Poems. Folger Shakespeare Library. New York: Washington Square Press. ISBN 978-0743273282. OCLC 64594469.
Orgel, Stephen, ed. (2001). The Sonnets. The Pelican Shakespeare (Rev. ed.). New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0140714531. OCLC 46683809.
Vendler, Helen, ed. (1997). The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-63712-7. OCLC 36806589.

William Shakespeare

Plays

Comedies	All's Well That Ends Well As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Cymbeline Love's Labour's Lost Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night's Dream Much Ado About Nothing Pericles, Prince of Tyre ✻ The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Two Noble Kinsmen ✻ The Winter's Tale
Tragedies	Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus Hamlet Julius Caesar King Lear Macbeth Othello Romeo and Juliet Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus and Cressida
Histories	King John Edward III ✻ Richard II Henry IV 1 2 Henry V Henry VI 1 ✻ 2 3 Richard III Henry VIII ✻
Early editions	Quarto publications First Folio Second Folio
See also	Problem plays Late romances Henriad Characters A–K L–Z Ghost character Chronology Performances Settings Scenes

Poems

Shakespeare's sonnets
- comparison to Petrarch
A Lover's Complaint
The Phoenix and the Turtle
The Rape of Lucrece
Venus and Adonis

Apocrypha

Plays	Arden of Faversham The Birth of Merlin Cardenio ✻† Double Falsehood Edmund Ironside Fair Em Locrine The London Prodigal Love's Labour's Won † The Merry Devil of Edmonton Mucedorus The Puritan The Second Maiden's Tragedy Sejanus His Fall Sir John Oldcastle Sir Thomas More ✻ The Spanish Tragedy Thomas Lord Cromwell Thomas of Woodstock Ur-Hamlet † Vortigern and Rowena A Yorkshire Tragedy
Poems	The Passionate Pilgrim To the Queen

Plays

Poems

The Passionate Pilgrim
To the Queen

Life
and works

Birthplace
Bibliography
- Complete Works of William Shakespeare
- Translations
Coat of arms
Collaborations
Editors
English Renaissance theatre
Globe Theatre
Handwriting
Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men
- The Theatre
- Curtain Theatre
Music
New Place
Portraits
Religious views
Sexuality
Spelling of his name
Stratford-upon-Avon
Style
Will
Grave

Legacy

Institutions	Folger Shakespeare Library Shakespeare Quarterly Royal Shakespeare Company Royal Shakespeare Theatre Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Shakespeare's Globe (replica) Shakespeare Institute