"Say that upon the altar of her beauty / You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart."
— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Work Title
Date
1590?, 1623
Metaphor
"Say that upon the altar of her beauty / You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart."
Metaphor in Context
PROTEUS
Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart.
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
Moist it again; and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity;
For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,
Visit by night your lady's chamber-window
With some sweet consort. To their instruments
Tune a deploring dump. The night's dead silence
Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.
This, or else nothing, will inherit her.
(III.ii.72-86)
Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart.
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
Moist it again; and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity;
For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,
Visit by night your lady's chamber-window
With some sweet consort. To their instruments
Tune a deploring dump. The night's dead silence
Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.
This, or else nothing, will inherit her.
(III.ii.72-86)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works. Oxford Shakespeare. Electronic Edition for the IBM PC. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, Editor.
Date of Entry
07/29/2003
Date of Review
10/23/2003
