What does Shakespeares Sonnet 66 really mean?
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplac’d, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d, And strength by limping sway disabled And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly–doctor-like–controlling skill, And simple truth miscall’d simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill: Tir’d with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. Shakespeare’s sonnets are filled with indeterminate pronouns, and in Sonnet #66 our focus naturally falls upon determining precisely what the narrator is referring to by “all these.” In the next eleven lines, our interest is only partially satisfied. The narrator produces a roster of injustices that are apparently common to the age in which he lives. During his life, the narrator asserts, that what is trivial is held in high est
