Poetry Friday 42

Last Saturday, I mentioned watching the David Tennant/Catherine Tate sketch from the Comic Relief TV marathon - it featured Catherine Tate's character Lauren the annoying schoolgirl reciting - at almost breakneck speed - Shakespeare's Sonnet 130. Because of the pace of its delivery (and Lauren's accent), I had trouble making out all of the verse, so I Googled it afterwards (I caught "damask'd, red and white" so I knew that was a good place to start). It's an interesting choice from someone (Catherine Tate ? Someone else ?) because it's not a conventional love sonnet, in fact it could almost be called an anti-love sonnet with its pragmatic, far from flowery descriptions:


Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, - yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks, treads on the ground;
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

William Shakespeare

If you're interested in a commentary on this sonnet, you'll find one here.