SpokenVerse | Sonnet 57 Being your slave, what should I do... by William Shakespeare (poetry reading) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded April 2012 | Updated October 2024, 10 hours ago.
If we take what he says at face value, then Will (note the pun, he was very fond of puns) tells his mistress that he is enslaved by his love for her, so when she goes out and leaves him alone for hours on end, he is willing to wait, devotedly and sadly, for her return without ever questioning or even thinking about what she has been doing.
There are such relationships: some men go even further and encourage their wives to be unfaithful.
It reminds me a French movie I saw a long time ago. I looked for it on the web without success - so if anybody can identify it I will be grateful. The story opens with a pretty young woman flirting and beginning a love affair which is followed through a final parting, all happening on the same day.
Then at the end, there's a scene which seems incongruous. A man, obviously a loving father, is making breakfast for his little girl; a boiled egg, with toast cut into strips he calls "soldiers" to dip into the yolk, telling her that it was Marshal Ney who called them soldiers because they were like the soldiers he used up in battle. My memory might have embroidered the details a little.
The woman arrives still wearing the same clothes from the previous day. She is obviously the little girl's mother and the man's wife. She seems distressed and ashamed - but the husband looks at her affectionately and he says, "You always look so pretty when you come home". He accepts her the way she is.
There are some people who say this sonnet isn't written to a woman at all but to his "Fair Lord" . It's a possible alternative, I suppose, there isn't any convincing evidence either way.
Paintings
Love by Gustav Klimt
Jealousy by Edvard Munch
Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your Will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.
If we take what he says at face value, then Will (note the pun, he was very fond of puns) tells his mistress that he is enslaved by his love for her, so when she goes out and leaves him alone for hours on end, he is willing to wait, devotedly and sadly, for her return without ever questioning or even thinking about what she has been doing.
There are such relationships: some men go even further and encourage their wives to be unfaithful.
It reminds me a French movie I saw a long time ago. I looked for it on the web without success - so if anybody can identify it I will be grateful. The story opens with a pretty young woman flirting and beginning a love affair which is followed through a final parting, all happening on the same day.
Then at the end, there's a scene which seems incongruous. A man, obviously a loving father, is making breakfast for his little girl; a boiled egg, with toast cut into strips he calls "soldiers" to dip into the yolk, telling her that it was Marshal Ney who called them soldiers because they were like the soldiers he used up in battle. My memory might have embroidered the details a little.
The woman arrives still wearing the same clothes from the previous day. She is obviously the little girl's mother and the man's wife. She seems distressed and ashamed - but the husband looks at her affectionately and he says, "You always look so pretty when you come home". He accepts her the way she is.
There are some people who say this sonnet isn't written to a woman at all but to his "Fair Lord" . It's a possible alternative, I suppose, there isn't any convincing evidence either way.
Paintings
Love by Gustav Klimt
Jealousy by Edvard Munch
Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your Will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.
