Sonnet 84

Sonnet 84
Detail of old-spelling text
The first five lines of Sonnet 84 in the 1609 Quarto

Q1



Q2



Q3



C

Who is it that says most? Which can say more,
Than this rich praise: that you alone are you,
In whose confine immured is the store
Which should example where your equal grew?
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies his story.
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admired everywhere.
You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.




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—William Shakespeare[1]

Sonnet 84 is one of 154 sonnets published by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare in 1609. It's part of the Fair Youth sequence, and the seventh sonnet of the Rival Poet group.

  1. ^ Shakespeare, William. Duncan-Jones, Katherine. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Bloomsbury Arden 2010. p. 279 ISBN 9781408017975.