Sonnet 46 (4.4)

Hello Shakespeareans and welcome back to the Secret Five Act Structure of The Sonnets Podcast.  Today, we’ll be studying Sonnet 46.  It’s the first in a pair, and I highly recommend that you read the poem both before and after the episode.  Additionally, if you prefer to read rather than listen, the transcripts are available on the website www.sonnetspodcast.com.  Make sure you put in the www or else it won’t work.  Or you can email me at sonnetspodcast@gmail.com.

Before I dive into the poem, I want to establish the characters in it.  This is our main idea of the day.  Seemingly, there are four characters: the poet, his eyes, his heart, and his love.  There are probably plenty of creative ways to decipher this, and I’m not going to say there’s only one, but let me give you mine.  First off, the poet is, well, the poet.  That’s obvious, right?  However, here's the real question: is it Shakespeare himself or just the persona of the narrator?  Well, that I can’t answer.  However, if you ask me to guess, I’d say it’s a bit of both.  Either way, this is our first character.

Next is the “eye.”  That’s e-y-e eye.  As I’ve said many times in this podcast, when the poet is talking about his eyes, like 90% of the time he’s referencing “words,” like the actual words in the poem, which is what we, the reader, can see.  It makes sense in almost every instance.  Seemingly, Shakespeare created this work knowing that part of it would be visible and part of it wouldn’t.  As such, “eyes” are a personification of the part that we can see.  According to a quick count that I just made, the word e-y-e “eye” appears in 56 different sonnets.  That’s an incredibly high number, probably higher than most readers would think, but I’d be willing to bet around 50 of those poems are using the word as a substitute for the poet’s actual words.  For example, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.”  That means the poet’s words through the prism of the structure are nothing like transparency.  

The next part is “heart,” for which I also did a quick count.  The word “heart” appears in 46 sonnets, or roughly ⅓ of all the poems.  That’s ten fewer than “eyes.”  I suspect that could be a surprise too though maybe not too much since these are love poems afterall.  Anyway, “heart,” unlike e-y-e-s “eyes” can be many things.  It just depends on the poem, but, in this case, it’s a reference to the structure.

The final character is the person to whom the poem is written.  It’s the Young Man, who’s addressed in 2nd person as “thou.”  This is a personification of the poems, which is pretty consistent with the rest of the work.  Seemingly, the Young Man is a combination of both the eyes and heart.  He was created using words in the sonnet format.

Zooming out very briefly, I think this audience shift is important to note.  In this poem, the 2nd person “you” is the poems.  In the previous two poems, it was the structure, and in Sonnet 43, I think it was the audience.  You may find this wildly inconsistent, and I can sort of agree.  However, I think this also demonstrates both the flexibility and complexity of these poems.  We are dealing with poetry after all.  Maybe you have a better idea and that’s fine, but the point is these poems are puzzles that require a little decoding.

In the end though, we have four characters: the poet, the poems, the words he’s using, and the format he’s employing.  The big question is: what’s going on?

This is where I want to give you the big idea for the episode.  “Heart” and “eye” are two of the most regularly used symbols in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.  In all honesty, they might be the two most common symbols.  So, in that regard, this poem might feel completely derivative, probably repeated, and done better somewhere else.  However, that’s just not the case.  “Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war” is one of the most central themes of this work.  The idea is: what makes a poem great: the words or the format?  

I’ll give you an example: Let’s imagine I read to you a superb haiku poem.  Why is it special?  Is it because the words were amazing or was it because of the haiku format?  Honestly, the answer is probably both.  The haiku format is what drew us in and gave the poem credibility, but the quality of the words are what gave it notoriety.  However, I think this is more complicated in practice and it’s clearly something that many artists struggle with.  Why is their art great?  Is it their talent or the medium they are using? 

Seemingly for Shakespeare, this was a question he fought over, and Sonnets 46 and 47 personify this.  Why are Shakespeare’s 154 poems so good?  Is it because Shakespeare is the greatest writer ever or is it because the sonnet format is tailor made for his writing style?  

In some ways, it’s a chicken and the egg type argument, but in the end, that’s what this poem is about.  There are different ways to interpret the details, but the poet is clearly saying the different aspects of the creative process are fighting each other for supremacy.  It’s a very fun poem, and, in the context of Section 4, we can understand that this poem is a microcosm of what’s happening at large.  The structure is off the rails, and this poem suggests that’s in part because of an artistic civil war.  It’s a memorable poem because it tells us so much about the what the narrator is thinking.  Furthermore, it really sets up the themes we’ll see in Act 5.

Okay, so, now, let’s read the poem and see what secrets it has to share.  Here is Sonnet 46 or Sonnet 4.4:

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 pierced with crystal eyes,

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To 'cide 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 thine outward part,

And my heart's right, thine inward love of heart.

And here’s the No Fear modern translation:

My eye and my heart have gone to war with each other. They’re fighting over who gets to control your image. My eye wants to bar my heart from the image that it formed, while my heart wants to keep my eye away from its image. My heart insists that your image lies safely hidden inside of him, protected from eyes, which give everything away. But my eye, the defendant, denies the charges and argues that your beauty resides in him. To decide whose claim is right, I have assembled a jury consisting of my thoughts, all of which owe allegiance to the heart. And they have delivered a verdict to determine which portion of your image belongs to the eyes and which precious portion to the heart. This is what they say: My eyes have the rights to your outward appearance, and my heart has the right to love you and be loved by you.

So let’s walk through this poem and see what we can find.  The first line sets the stage for the next 27 lines, that is both this poem and its successor: “Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war.”  The idea is that the poet’s words and the sonnet form are at war and they want different things.  This is supported by what’s actually happening structurally in Section 4.  The 4442 format of sonnets is abandoned in favor of a 16232 arrangement.  This is a clear conflict.  In a literary sense, there is a war.  The narrator has abandoned his structure and he’s telling us it's a reflection to what’s occurring in Section 4.  This poem and the ones around it are actually expressing what’s happening structurally.  It’s amazing.  For me, I’ve known this secret for a few years.  So, it’s normalized, but I can only imagine what it’s like for you, the listener.  Maybe you think it’s the most incredible thing ever or maybe you believe it’s lunacy.  Either way, let’s press forward and fully explore my interpretation of this poem.  Afterwards, you’re welcome to make your own decisions and come to your own conclusions.

The idea of the words and structure feuding is further explained throughout the first quatrain.  Here’s line one and two: “Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, how to divide the conquest of thy sight.”  The words and structure are fighting over “how to divide the conquest of thy sight.”  “Thy sight” refers to the poems or what the poems look like, but what about “divide the conquest?”  What does this mean?  According to No Fear, this means they are fighting over the man’s image.  In other words, who’s in control of The Sonnets: the words or the structure?  Or, put differently, who’s winning this war?

Jumping way ahead, this is a huge topic for Act 5, and please let me ask you a question.  Fundamentally, what makes The Sonnets a great piece of literature?  Is it the words or the format?  Is it the poems or the secret structure?   Shakespeare is taking a different angle here, but it’s a theme he will revisit later in the final two sections of the work.

Now, let’s look at lines 3 and 4.  What do the words and format want? “Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar, my heart mine eye the freedom of that right.”  The modern translation gives us a pretty clean answer if we imagine the characters through our structural lens.  “My eye wants to bar my heart from the image that it formed, while my heart wants to keep my eye away from its image.”  The words want to restrain the structure and the structure doesn’t want this to happen.  Or to use more formal legalese language, the words have sent in a cease and desist letter and the structure has filed a motion to dismiss.  

This legal framework isn’t just my invention.  It’s in the poem.  As such, the words are framed as the plaintiff and the structure is the defense.  However, Shakespeare the judge will immediately have them switch sides in his courtroom.  Line 5 is: “My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie.”  The implication is that the structure believes the poems are inherently a product of 4442.  Or put another way, if these poems weren’t sonnets, would we still be reading them?  This is a complicated question because the answer might be no.  It’s purely speculative, but it’s a topic Shakespeare struggled with and wrote about.  Most scholars who ignore the secret structure miss this topic, and they don’t realize that the poet debated this himself 400 years ago.

There is one problem though with line 5 and that’s the word him.  Typically, the structure is feminine.  However, this is a masculine pronoun.  So, is this problematic?  Maybe, but I don’t think it’s a deal breaker though for two reasons.  First, since we’re in the Young Man section, it would either be too confusing or too obvious to say quote “her.”  Either the poem wouldn’t make sense or the secret structure would stick out too much.  The second reason is that, with close reading, we can figure it out.  If these literary personifications can have genders, can’t they be transgendered too?  That's a modern idea, but Shakespeare did say “master mistress.”  If it makes sense, then it’s not a big deal.

Line 6 has two words that really stick out, and I don’t have a good explanation.  The words are “crystal” and “closet.”  This is the only time “crystal” and “closet” are used in the entire work.  I don’t really have a clean answer for what these words mean, but their choice seems deliberate.  Here’s the line: “A closet never pierced with crystal eyes.”  Let me tell you what I want “A closet never pierced with crystal eyes” to mean.  I want this to be a reference to the secret structure.  The “closet” is a dark hidden room with mysteries that no one has ever seen.  “Crystal eyes” are the average reader.  They see the poems, but they’re reading this work like they’re looking through a crystal.  It’s translucent.  They can see, but not really.  That’s what I want this line to mean, but I suspect it’s mostly wishful thinking.  Plus, I don’t have a better explanation.

Here’s Lines 7 and 8: “But the defendant doth that plea deny and says in him thy fair appearance lies.”

In this instance, the defendant is the eyes.  Shakespeare seemingly flipped the plaintiff and defendant, as I stated earlier.  The idea is that the “eye” believes that the beauty of the poems is created by the words.  So both sides think they are right, but here’s something interesting.  Look at the rhyme words for the second quatrain: “lie, eyes, deny, lies.”  Do you see a pattern?  The initial reading of lie and lies is that it means to place something.  Like, “the boy lies on his couch and reads a book” or “the girl is tired and wants to lie down.”  That meaning definitely makes sense as some variation of “to place” or “to put.”  However, there’s also a double meaning here.  How can we ignore the idea that this could refer to deception?  Or to be more specific: both sides are accusing the other of telling lies and not being truthful.  It’s a case of a he said/he said situation.  One side is saying, I’m right and you’re lying, and the other side is saying exactly the same thing. This is a really funny idea, and I believe this double meaning is valid, not just my imagination.  In warfare, both sides often accuse the other of lies, and that is the context of the poem.

Moving on, we’re now at the turn.  I’d like to look at quatrain 3 as a single idea and then zoom in on the interesting parts.  Before I read this stanza, I want to summarize the big idea, and it’s that: most wars don’t end in total victory.  Instead they typically end with a negotiated settlement that often reflects a bitter peace.  In continuation with the idea of a legal trial, in quatrain three, the poet enlists a panel of arbiters to decide who is right.  Their verdict is an equal split.  A truce might be a fair explanation, but the implication is that both sides get half of what they want.

Here’s the quatrain:

To 'cide 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:

The first topic I want to cover is obscure words.  “Impanneled” basically refers to a panel of judges and “moiety” is a different word for part.  Maybe you knew these words, but I didn’t.  

The line that really catches my attention is line 9: “A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart.”  This line has two parts and both fascinate me.  First off, what is: “a quest of thoughts?”  Seemingly, the quatrain is about legal arbitration.  So, what does “a quest of thoughts” have to do with that?  Moreover, what does “a quest of thoughts” mean?  I can give you a self-affirming guess, but that’s just me being convenient.  For example, as the prophet who’s preaching the secrets of The Sonnets, I am constantly on a quest to decode what I’m reading.  Would I describe this podcast as a quest of thoughts?  Well, I wouldn’t use that phrase, but it’s not an absurd description.  I am definitely on a quest for something.  

So then, what do we do with this phrase?  Did Shakespeare assume someday that a random reader in the future would crack the code and then go on a quest trying to decipher the finer points?  Maybe, but that’s very self-aggrandizing, and borders on delusional.  So, maybe we ignore it, but it clearly is meant to mean something.  My assertion is that it either represents a new idea or a continuation of another idea already present in the poem.  So, what?  Honestly, I can’t tell you with any certainty, but it's a fascinating four words.

And then, there’s the next five words: “all tenants to the heart.”  The word that sticks out is “tenants.”  “All tenants to the heart.”  A tenant is usually someone who rents a room in a house.  As a verb it means: to hold, but in a property/real estate sense.  This is a weird word, but that’s only part of it.  “All tenants to the heart” suggests that the heart is the winner.  This contradicts the rest of the poem in which both sides win.  So, maybe I’m misinterpreting it, which is possible, but how?  It’s confusing, but “all to the heart” suggests that Shakespeare is inserting an idea that’s about the heart, meaning the structure, moreso than words, is the winner of this mortal war.

If this is the interpretation, it’s strange to give all the credit to the sonnet format and the secret structure, especially as he’s breaking off from it.  Even then, that’s why I’m spotlighting this line.  Most readers would move on without giving it a second thought.  However: “A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart.”  Is there some secret meaning here?  Or not?  Regardless, I think it’s exactly the kind of easter egg that I’m always looking for even if I don’t have a clean answer.

And then there’s the couplet:

As thus: mine eye's due is thine outward part,

And my heart's right, thine inward love of heart.

This is basically a summary of what was decided at the end of quatrain 3.  Each side gets half.  The words or the eye get the outward part and the heart gets what’s inside.  

The loose idea of the couplet is an equal split.  Maybe not 50/50 exactly, but, if each side gets what we can metaphorically call half, then 50/50 isn’t ridiculous.  So, here’s my closing thought: how much has been locked up in the closet hidden behind a crystal prism?  Or, to be more accurate, how much meaning is unlocked by the secret structure?  How much new stuff can we get from these poems by having cracked the code?  It’s actually a fascinating idea.  Does it double the amount of things we can talk about?  Maybe.  I don’t know if it’s quantifiable with a number, but the point is, it’s a lot.

Lastly, I conclude with this disclaimer: at times, I definitely mix up the secret structure and the sonnet format.  For me, I always want to see the secret structure even if the sonnet format is just as good of an explanation.  So, for you dear listener.  It’s up to you to decide where one ends and the other begins.

Okay.  That’s all for today.  In the next episode, we’ll jump into part two of this pair.  Thanks for listening.