Ka note zir (Sonnet 154)

Sonnet 154

Shakespeare's sonnets are written predominantly in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.

There are fourteen lines in a Shakespearean sonnet. The first twelve lines are divided into three quatrains with four lines each. In the three quatrains the poet establishes a theme or problem and then resolves it in the final two lines, called the couplet. The rhyme scheme of the quatrains is abab cdcd efef. The couplet has the rhyme scheme gg.

Sonnet 153 and 154 are used as a statement to address the conflict within the love triangle. The Dark Lady is the object of desire from sonnet 127 to 152. The sonnets revolve around the love triangle between the poet and the Dark Lady who is in love with the young man. The young man may be pursued by the poet also.

Sonnets 153 and 154 use Greek mythology to portray the roles that the individuals have within the love triangle. Both sonnets involve Cupid, the god of love, and Diana, the virgin goddess of hunt. In Sonnet 154, Cupid falls asleep and the torch is taken by the most beautiful nymph who tries to put it out in a nearby well but does not succeed.

Sonnet 154 continues the main themes that were presented in Sonnet 153. In the first quatrain, the man wishes that his beauty be passed onto his heir. The second quatrain asks the question of how beauty can be maintained through time and poetry. Finally, the third ends with the woeful realization that the preservation of happiness is problematic in and of itself.

Shakespeare truly defines Cupid’s power in Sonnet 154.  While a vast majority of his sonnets were written for “a young man” or “The Dark Lady,” Shakespeare’s last two sonnets, including Sonnet 154, were written about Cupid and the power bestowed in his “heart-inflaming brand.”  

The sonnet is most certainly referring to Cupid due to Shakespeare reference to the “little Love-god” in line one.  Due to the fact that Cupid was sleeping, he laid his “heart-inflaming brand” by his side.  This may be closely resembled to the bow-and-arrow, which typically is thought to make two fall in love when hit, thus leaving a “heart-inflaming” mark.  

Nymphs are described as beautiful young women, and by having vowed to a “chaste life” as in line three, these women have chosen to remain virgins and pure.  In the next two lines of the sonnet, the most beautiful of the virgins “took up that fire” or took the flaming bow-and-arrow for herself and therefore held Cupid’s power of love, which had caused many pairs to fall in love. 

The next two lines of the sonnet are where the beautiful virgin chooses whom to use Cupid’s power on.  The “general of hot desire” was asleep when he was awoken by the virgin woman.  She took him to a well where she dipped Cupid’s torch into the water.  The water from the well then was hot forever more, all because of the power of love in Cupid’s torch.  These ideas are directly from lines nine and ten of the sonnet.

Shakespeare in the next lines describes the result of the woman dipping Cupid’s torch into the well.  She has created a remedy for someone to be bathed in the well, “for men diseased.”  Line twelve is when Shakespeare himself takes part in the sonnet; while he was under the enslaved powers of the beautiful woman, he came to the well for a cure.  But instead of a cure, he learned a powerful lesson, something he can “prove.”  The last line of the poem is where Shakespeare’s entire lesson and message of the sonnet is revealed; “Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.”

The Love-god Cupid holds immense power.  His torch can heat water forever, and make someone love another unendingly.  Shakespeare learned his lesson that the power of love only works one way.  If love can heat water so it is warm, shouldn’t water be able to cool, or lessen, love?  No, water cannot cool love.  Love cannot be controlled, determined, or ignored by an individual.  Only the power of the god Cupid determines the fate of love.