Notes for Shakespeare's Sonnet 86


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Shakespeare's
Sonnet
86

3. inhearse: bury.

4. Making their tomb the womb: —His "ripe thoughts" did not get written; instead, they were buried in the same place they were born.

6. pitch: height.

7. compeers: spirits, visiting and aiding the poet in his dreams. —I find the references to the "compeers by night" and the "affable familiar ghost" very strange. I can't see what real-life experience the metaphors are pointing to. Is it poetic inspiration? Pride? Competitiveness?

8. astonished: stunned; paralyzed; struck dumb.

9. ghost: spirit.

10. gulls: deceptively provides.   intelligence: breaking news; ideas.

13. your countenance fill'd up his line: your beauty became the subject of his verse.

14. matter: The substance of thought or expression as opposed to the manner in which it is stated or conveyed.