The Lack of Song in Love's Labor's Lost

Abstract

an object; Shakespeare says, Consum'd with that which. In addition, signification of impresa corresponds to innuendoes of third quatrain of Sonnet 73. To reader of Shakespeare's day who was acquainted with store of iconological literature which both revealed and concealed, aged or ruined condition of lover is metaphoric and symbolic. Only in third quatrain and couplet does causal relationship between lady and lover's condition become apparent. The couplet, This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong / To love that well which thou must leave ere long, reminds reader that sonnet is essentially a begging missive; it also suggests a kind of hysteron proteron in which effects (the lover's ruin) are described in quatrains and cause (the lady) is cited in couplet. In critical third quatrain Shakespeare juxtaposes youth and age, the glowing of such fire / That on ashes of his youth doth lie. Following sonnet tradition, he symbolizes love and passion through an image of fire; however, paradoxical predicament of lover in third quatrain is best explained by Daniel's commentary on impresa of down-turned torch. Shakespeare is not simply talking about age but also Alluding to a Lady, whose beautie did foster his [her faithful lover's] loue, and whose disdayne did endamage his life. The hortatory nature of couplet, pleading for a change in cause (the lady) and thereby a change in effects (the lover's condition), supports this symbolic interpretation. The sonnet, therefore, is symbol as well as metaphor, and Daniel's commentary on torch which nourishes and consumes is a probable source for critical third quatrain and informs structure and meaning of Sonnet 73. In this sonnet, as in Act I, scene ii of Pericles, Shakespeare owes a debt to his contemporary, Samuel Daniel.