The Final Couplet

By: Theo Cowan
  • Summary

  • Join me, Theo Cowan, as I desperately attempt to work out what the hell William Shakespeare was going on about in all those sonnets. Don't worry, I create stupid little stories to accompany each one so you don't get too bored.
    Theo Cowan
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Episodes
  • Shakespeare's Sonnet 75
    Sep 29 2024

    I don't know who gave Shakespeare relationship advice because this sonnet is all over the place! Someone help him!


    Our story continues with Shakespeare aboard a pirate ship.


    Sonnet 75

    So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
    Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
    And for the peace of you I hold such strife
    As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
    Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
    Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
    Now counting best to be with you alone,
    Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:
    Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
    And by and by clean starved for a look;
    Possessing or pursuing no delight
    Save what is had, or must from you be took.
    Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
    Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

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    20 mins
  • Shakespeare's Sonnet 74
    Sep 22 2024

    Shakespeare tells his lover not worry when he dies because he will always have his poetry to remember him by.


    Our story continues with Shakespeare getting into another dilemma on his way back to England.


    Sonnet 74

    But be contented when that fell arrest
    Without all bail shall carry me away,
    My life hath in this line some interest,
    Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
    When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
    The very part was consecrate to thee:
    The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
    My spirit is thine, the better part of me:
    So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
    The prey of worms, my body being dead;
    The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
    Too base of thee to be remembered.
    The worth of that is that which it contains,
    And that is this, and this with thee remains.

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    19 mins
  • Shakespeare's Sonnet 73
    Sep 15 2024

    Shakespeare continues harping on about getting old and how his young lover needs to forget him.


    Sonnet 73

    That time of year thou mayst in me behold
    When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
    Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
    Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
    In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
    As after sunset fadeth in the west;
    Which by and by black night doth take away,
    Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
    In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
    That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
    As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
    Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
    This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
    To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.


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    19 mins

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