Sonnet 86

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The first eleven lines of Sonnet 86 in the 1609 Quarto
Q1 Q2 Q3 C 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 write Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? No, neither he, nor his compeers by night Giving him aid, my verse astonished. He, nor that affable familiar ghost Which 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 fill’d up his line, Then lack’d I matter; that enfeebled mine. 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare

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Q2



Q3



C

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 write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost
Which 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 fill’d up his line,
Then lack’d I matter; that enfeebled mine.

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8



12

14

Sonnet 86 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is the final poem of the Rival Poet subsection of the Fair Youth sonnets in which Shakespeare writes about an unnamed young man and a rival poet competing for the youth's attention. While the exact date of its composition is unknown, scholars generally agree that the Rival Poet series was written between 1598 and 1600 and published along with the rest of the sonnets in the 1609 Quarto.

Within the sonnet, the speaker contemplates his inability to articulate his admiration for the Fair Youth, a fault he attributes to his jealousy of the Fair Youth's appearance in the poems of the speaker's Rival Poet. Sonnet 86 is notable within the Rival Poet subsection of sonnets because it allegedly provides important clues as to the historical identity of this Rival Poet. The sonnet is written in the typical Shakespearean sonnet form, containing 14 lines of iambic pentameter and ending in a rhymed couplet.

The poem, in which the speaker rhetorically asks why he has lost his ability to write poetry, uses boating references while staying closely connected to the poetic structure of a sonnet.

Below is a paraphrase, written in contemporary English and in prose.

Was it his ambitious poetry, which was written to win you, that stopped my ability to think? Did it cause all of my ideas to die as soon as they were born? Was it his heaven given ability, writing which was blessed by the gods, that stopped me in my tracks? Neither he nor his companions who helped him were able to stop my poetic ability. Neither he nor the Muse which aids him each night can claim to have silenced me. For I am not afraid. However, when your beauty was gifted to him then I was lost and destroyed.