# Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by William Shakespeare.

## What happens

This collection of poems explores themes of love, betrayal, and the fickleness of fortune through various pastoral and courtly vignettes. It includes a tale of a lady torn between a master and a gallant knight, a lover's lament for an unattainable beloved, a shepherd's despair over lost love, advice on wooing women, an invitation to idyllic love, and a meditation on the nightingale's sorrow as a metaphor for human grief and false friendship.

## Themes in this chapter

### Love and Desire

Central to all poems, exploring unrequited love, the pain of rejection, and the pursuit of affection.

### Truth and Deception

Addressed through warnings about women's dissembling, false friends, and the contrast between appearance and reality.

### Beauty and Transience

Evident in the fleeting nature of love, youth, and fortune, as well as the nightingale's lament for lost joy.

## Character check-ins

### Love

Personified as a force that causes the lover's despair and is declared dead in the shepherd's lament.

### Fortune

Invoked as 'frowning Fortune, cursed, fickle dame' and later as 'fickle Fortune' who beguiles both the nightingale and the speaker.

### Poor Corydon

Mentioned as the shepherd who must live alone after losing his love.

### Jove

Referenced as a god who would swear Juno an Ethiope and turn mortal for love.

### Philomela

Implied through the nightingale's song 'Tereu, tereu!' referencing the myth of Philomela and Tereus.

### King Pandion

Mentioned as dead, leaving the nightingale without friends.

## Key lines

> It was a lording's daughter, the fairest one of three, That liked of her master as well as well might be, Till looking on an Englishman, the fair'st that eye could see, Her fancy fell a-turning.

A nobleman's daughter, the most beautiful of three sisters, was fond of her master until she saw an Englishman, the handsomest ever, and her affections shifted.

_Opens the first poem with a love triangle._

> O frowning Fortune, cursed, fickle dame! For now I see Inconstancy More in women than in men remain.

O scowling, unreliable Fortune! Now I realize that women are more inconstant than men.

_Expresses the shepherd's bitterness after losing his love._

> A woman's nay doth stand for nought?

A woman's refusal means nothing?

_Advice suggesting that women's rejections are not to be taken seriously._

> Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find.

Words come easily, like the wind, but true friends are rare.

_Reflection on the difficulty of finding genuine friendship._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/sonnets-to-sundry-notes-of-music
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_28_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters