Sonnet 89

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The first two lines of Sonnet 89 in the 1609 Quarto
Q1 Q2 Q3 C Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, And I will comment upon that offence; Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt, Against thy reasons making no defence. Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, To set a form upon desired change, As I’ll myself disgrace, knowing thy will; I will acquaintance strangle and look strange, Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell, Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong, And haply of our old acquaintance tell. For thee, against myself I’ll vow debate; For I must ne’er love him whom thou dost hate. 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare

Sonnet 89 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

Synopsis

The poet tells a youth that he can say he abandoned the poet for some fault and he will admit it. The poet will deliberately absent himself and stop discussing the youth, since he cannot even like himself if the youth no longer cares for him.

Structure

Sonnet 89 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, which has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It's rhyme scheme is, abab cdcd efef gg. It is composed in lines of iambic pentameter, a poetic metre based on five feet in each line, and two syllables in each foot accented weak/strong. Most of the lines are examples of regular iambic pentameter, including the 4th line:

 ×   /    ×  /   ×   /   ×   /  ×   / 
Against thy reasons making no defence. (89.4)

/ = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus.

The 1st line exhibits a common metrical variation, the initial reversal:

 /    ×    ×   /     ×  /    ×  /   ×    / 
Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, (89.1)

This variation is repeated in the 3rd line. A mid-line reversal occurs on "knowing" in line 7.

References

First edition and facsimile

• Shakespeare, William (1609). Shake-speares Sonnets: Never Before Imprinted. London: Thomas Thorpe.
• Lee, Sidney, ed. (1905). Shakespeares Sonnets: Being a reproduction in facsimile of the first edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OCLC 458829162.

Variorum editions

• Alden, Raymond Macdonald, ed. (1916). The Sonnets of Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. OCLC 234756.
• Rollins, Hyder Edward, ed. (1944). A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Sonnets [2 Volumes]. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. OCLC 6028485. — Volume I and Volume II at the Internet Archive

Modern critical editions

• Atkins, Carl D., ed. (2007). Shakespeare's Sonnets: With Three Hundred Years of Commentary. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-4163-7. OCLC 86090499.
• Booth, Stephen, ed. (2000) [1st ed. 1977]. Shakespeare's Sonnets (Rev. ed.). New Haven: Yale Nota Bene. ISBN 0-300-01959-9. OCLC 2968040.
• Burrow, Colin, ed. (2002). The Complete Sonnets and Poems. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192819338. OCLC 48532938.
• Duncan-Jones, Katherine, ed. (2010) [1st ed. 1997]. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Arden Shakespeare, third series (Rev. ed.). London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4080-1797-5. OCLC 755065951. — 1st edition at the Internet Archive
• Evans, G. Blakemore, ed. (1996). The Sonnets. The New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521294034. OCLC 32272082.
• Kerrigan, John, ed. (1995) [1st ed. 1986]. The Sonnets ; and, A Lover's Complaint. New Penguin Shakespeare (Rev. ed.). Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-070732-8. OCLC 15018446.
• Mowat, Barbara A.; Werstine, Paul, eds. (2006). Shakespeare's Sonnets & Poems. Folger Shakespeare Library. New York: Washington Square Press. ISBN 978-0743273282. OCLC 64594469.
• Orgel, Stephen, ed. (2001). The Sonnets. The Pelican Shakespeare (Rev. ed.). New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0140714531. OCLC 46683809.
• Vendler, Helen, ed. (1997). The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-63712-7. OCLC 36806589.