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A maid of Dian's this advantage found, And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep In a cold valley-fountain of that ground; Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love A dateless lively heat, still to endure, And grew a seething bath which men yet prove Against strange maladies a sovereign cure. But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new fir'd, The boy for trial needs would touch my breast. I, sick withal, the help of bath desir'd, And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest; But found no cure: the bath for my help lies Where Cupid got new fire-my mistress' eyes. This and the next sonnet both share the theme of love through Cupid. The conceit is not new, for it has been found in many poems. One example is from an epigram of Marianus Scholasticus from Henri Estienne's edition to which the theme is shared: "Under these plane trees Eros was resting, held in gentle sleep, having given his torch to the nymphs to take care of. 'What are we waiting for?' said the nymphs to one another. 'If only we could quench together with this same fire in human hearts!' But as the torch set the water also on fire, since then the love-nymphs pour hot water into the bath." Speculation remains as to whether Shakespeare is the author of these two sonnets, but it has never been proven successfully that he isn't. The source for these sonnets, whoever the author, still remains unknown, but I suppose the scholars who dispel Shakespeare's authorship do so on the grounds of it being fairly simple in context; that is, there is not the typical ambiguity quite common in Shakespeare's poems. Due to the simplicity, I will do a brief paraphrase of the three quatrains and the couplet. 1st: 'Cupid falls asleep and one of Diane's maids (known for her chastity) tried to extinquish Cupid's fire in a pool of water'; 2nd: 'The maid borrowed an endless, lusty fire, which still goes on to this day, and provided [to her dismay] a bath of healing properties [read: love heals all wounds]'; 3rd: '(Cupid) would curiously touch my heart (leading me to stray towards lust), unless I am in the sight of my lover, because of the "Love's brand" being newly fired [started]. I, indulging in the result, desired the help of the bath and started out to it as an unhappy visitor'; and the couplet, "But no cure was found, and the only place I can get help is from my mistress' eyes, which are where Cupid rekindled his fire". |
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