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# SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE
*Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty,*
reappears in heightened colour in Biron’s speech in *Love’s Labour’s Lost* (iv. 3. 221–8):—
> Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,
That like a rude and savage man of Inde,
At the first opening of *the gorgeous East*,
Bows not *his vassal head*, and strucken blind
Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?
What peremptory eagle-sighted eye
*Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,
That is not blinded by her majesty?*
Only here and in another early play—*Romeo and Juliet*—is the imagery of sun-worship brought by Shakespeare into the same relief.¹
Another conceit which Shakespeare develops persistently, in almost identical language, in both the sonnets and *Love’s Labour’s Lost*, is that the eye is the sole source of love, the exclusive home of beauty, the creator, too, of strange delusions in the minds of lovers.²
¹ Cf. *Romeo and Juliet*, l. i. 124–5:
*the worshiped sun*
Peer’d forth the golden window of the east.
² Cf. *Sonnet* xiv. 9:
*But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive.*
L. L. L. iv. 3. 350:
*From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive, &c.*
*Sonnet* xvii. 5–6:
*If I could write the beauty of your eyes*
*And in fresh numbers number all your graces.*
L. L. L. iv. 3. 322–3:
*Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes*
*Of beauty’s tutors have enriched you with.*
Cf. again *Sonnet* cxiv. 2–7 with L. L. L. v. 2. 770–5. For a curious parallel use of the law terms ‘several’ and ‘common’ see *Sonnet* cxxxvii. 9, 10, and L. L. L. ii. 1. 223.
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