"Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind, / And that which governs me to go about, / Doth part his function, and is partly blind"
— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Thomas Thorpe
Date
1609
Metaphor
"Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind, / And that which governs me to go about, / Doth part his function, and is partly blind"
Metaphor in Context
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about,
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out:
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.
And that which governs me to go about,
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out:
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.
Categories
Provenance
Reading Alwin Thaler's "In My Mind's Eye, Horatio." Shakespeare Quarterly. Vol. 7, No. 4 (Autumn, 1965), p. 351-2.
Citation
See Shake-speares Sonnets. Neuer Before Imprinted. (London: By G. Eld for T. T., 1609. <Link to Folger copy in EEBO-TCP> <Link to Huntington copy in EEBO-TCP>
Reading Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 1997).
Reading Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 1997).
Theme
Mind's Eye
Date of Entry
04/18/2006
