Return to Shakespeare's Sonnet 21 |
1.
Muse: i.e., poet.
2.
Stirr'd: inspired. a painted beauty: a person who uses cosmetics to appear beautiful; i.e., a false beauty.
4.
every fair with his fair doth rehearse: compares his fair lady with every fair thing.
5-6.
Making a couplement of proud compare, / With sun and moon: i.e., joining (his fair lady) in a proud comparison with the sun and moon. In the second quatrain (lines 5-8) Shakespeare uses overblown language to mock the overblown rhetoric of conventional poets.
8.
rondure: A fancy word for "sphere." hems: encompasses.
9.
but: only.
12.
those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air: i.e., stars. The comparison of a beautiful lady to a star was a convention of the love poetry of Shakespeare's time; Shakespeare himself does it in Romeo and Juliet.
13.
hearsay: conventional or trite expressions.
14.
I will not praise that purpose not to sell: since I don't intend to sell, I will not praise. I think this final line is a real stinger, because the poet seems to be saying that only pimps extravagantly praise their ladies.