Sonnet 84: Who Is it That Says Most, Which Can Say More
Who is it that says most, which can say more
Than this rich praise: that you alone are you, In whose confine immured is the store Which should example where your equal grew. Lean penury within that pen doth dwell That to his subject lends not some small glory, But he that writes of you, if he can tell That you are you, so dignifies his story. Let him but copy what in you is writ, Not making worse what nature made so clear, And such a counterpart shall fame his wit, Making his style admired everywhere. You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse. |
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Who is it that says most, which can say more
Than this rich praise: that you alone are you, |
The poem further develops the argument from the two previous Sonnets, 82 and 83, and now, those having established that the young man does not need 'painting in words', meaning elaborate, flattering praise, drills down to the question of what constitutes 'good' or genuine praise:
Who – as in which poet, or even what kind of poet – is it that says most – as in most truthfully talks about you – and which poet or also which poetry can say more about you and can therefore present you better than a poet or poetry that offers you this rich – and also, as it happens, straightforward – praise: that you alone are you: you are unique and unequalled. As I am about to explain. |
In whose confine immured is the store
Which should example where your equal grew. |
You are uniquely you and within the boundary of your being is enclosed everything – all the qualities, all the characteristics, in a physical sense what we today would call the DNA – which should and therefore would serve as an example or as the prototype to the world for anyone who could conceivably be your equal. Or put differently: Only someone who is entirely modelled on you could possibly come close to being as wonderful as you are.
'Immured' on its own would – as several editors note – suggest a form of imprisonment, but with the verb 'grew' at the end of the quatrain, it more helpfully alludes to a walled garden, where this 'store' of qualities can be nurtured and cultivated. An interesting reference – possibly intended, possibly accidental – lies in the word 'store'. We have come across it several times before, first in the Procreation Sequence, where Shakespeare tells the young man in Sonnet 11: Let those whom nature hath not made for store, Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish, And then in Sonnet 14: But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, And, constant stars, in them I read such art As truth and beauty shall together thrive If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert; In each of these cases, 'store' carries a meaning of the young man's qualities being deposited in, and thus passed on, in his offspring, almost literally as his DNA. In Sonnet 37, Shakespeare sees the young man's "beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit" as the 'store' to which he will make his love 'engrafted', and Sonnets 67 & 68 have nature itself treat the young man's beauty and qualities as the store for generations to come. It's a through line that further points towards a continuity in these poems and that seems to support our thesis that they are, indeed, all addressed to or about the same young man. |
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory, |
It is a poor poet who does not lend his subject at least some sort of glory.
The 'lean penury' purposely contrasts the great abundance conjured by the 'store' above, and pen here as elsewhere simply stands for the poet using that pen. In other words: if you are a poet writing about someone, then the very least that is expected of you is that you make this person sound and look moderately good. |
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies his story. |
But the poet who writes of you, if he can express you in his poetry as you are, if he can bring out your essence, your uniqueness that I mentioned earlier, then in doing so he adds dignity and credibility and substance to his writing.
'Story' here refers to the poet's output generally, it does not necessarily require a structured narrative, and as we noted on previous occasions, the fact that Shakespeare here is talking about a male poet is largely congruent with the culture of the day when the vast majority of published poets are men, and also of course he has one particular poet in mind: his rival, who is clearly a man. |
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear, |
Let this poet – any poet – who writes of you simply present you as you are: copy you word for word, so to speak, simply and plainly note what nature has bestowed on you and write this down as truthfully and faithfully as he can, and let him not through his inadequate writing make worse something that nature itself has set out and formulated so clearly in you.
This strongly echoes and enforces the claim of Sonnet 83: For I impair not beauty, being mute, When others would give life and bring a tomb. I do not make worse what nature herself made so clear in you, because I do not attempt to improve on this perfection of yours by splurging excessive verbiage on you. |
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admired everywhere. |
And such a representation of you, a piece of writing that portrays you in this way as you are, no more and no less, will make this poet's wit, here meaning his skill, his adeptness in his art, famous and his writing style admired everywhere.
This turns out to be the case: while we don't know who this other poet is, we can say with absolute certainty that he is nowhere near as celebrated, as famous, as admired as Shakespeare who, by saying almost nothing descriptive about the young man, still manages to paint a fairly clear picture of him in our minds. |
You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse. |
You add a curse to your beautiful blessings by being fond of praise which actually diminishes it.
The 'beauteous blessings' are of course the young man's beauty, but as we have seen on numerous occasions, these are meant to be accompanied by an internal beauty, and they are roundly augmented by the young man's birth, meaning his status in society, his wealth, and his wit, meaning his intelligence and education: the young man – of this we need to have little doubt – pretty much has it all, but to these many and fulsome blessings of his he adds a curse by being so needy, so keen on and so fond of praise. In other words, his vanity wrecks his character. The relative clause "which makes your praises worse" works on several levels and that – again as so very often – is surely entirely intentional. It can mean, most obviously: a) The fact in itself that you are so fond of praise makes any praise of you worse because it diminishes the sincerity and validity of any praise offered, since you so indiscriminately seek and accept it. b) You are fond of the kind of praise which diminishes itself in value because it is hyperbolic and insincere. But also, less immediately obvious: c) This fondness you have of praise makes any praise that you give – such as to your poet for their writing – worse, because you hand it out indiscriminately. Whereby it is worth noting that this latter meaning, which positions the young man as the giver of praise, may or may not be fully intended, since Sonnet 85 continues to use 'your praise' to mean strictly the praise others give to you, not the praise you offer in return. In fact, not since Sonnet 79 has Shakespeare concerned himself with what thanks or praise the young man may have for his poet, and there he discouraged him from even handing it out: Then thank him not for that which he doth say, For what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay. |