Sonnet 146

The first eleven lines of Sonnet 146 in the 1609 Quarto

Q1 Q2 Q3 C	Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, ……… these rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end? Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss, And let that pine to aggravate thy store; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; Within be fed, without be rich no more: So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.	4 8 12 14
	—William Shakespeare

Q1

Q2

Q3

C

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
……… these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.

4

8

12

14

Sonnet 146, which William Shakespeare addresses to his soul, his "sinful earth", is a pleading appeal to himself to value inner qualities and satisfaction rather than outward appearance.

Q1 The speaker addresses his soul, which he pictures as a poor or empty interior, as opposed to his body, a gaudy exterior. Q2 He questions the soul's "large cost" lavished on a body which will shortly die. Q3 Continuing his financial metaphor, he urges the soul to turn the body's inevitable loss into the soul's gain. C Thus as death feeds on men, the soul can feed on death, rendering the soul immortal.

Sonnet 146 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 14th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

The 4th line begins with a common metrical variant, the initial reversal:

An initial reversal also occurs in line 3, and potentially in lines 6, 8, 9, and 13. A mid-line reversal occurs in line 5. The metrical interpretations of the beginnings of lines 5 and 9 are especially dependent upon the rhetorical emphasis chosen. In line 5, any of the first three syllables could potentially take the first ictus. In line 9 any of four readings is rhetorically possible:

...
Wikipedia