- description
- # The plea for marriage.
## Overview
This section, titled "The plea for marriage," is an analytical text discussing the themes within Shakespeare's sonnets. It focuses on the first seventeen sonnets, which urge a young man to marry and preserve his beauty for future generations. The section notes the close association of these themes with Shakespeare's poem *Venus and Adonis* and plays composed around the same period.
## Context
This section is part of the [FACSIMILE OF THE EDITION OF 1609](arke:01KG6S4GWQC7KPJ59BAYCY3HXR), which is itself contained within the [PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y) collection. It was extracted from the text file [pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA). Preceding this section is "[II Date of the sonnets.](arke:01KG6S5PV3CV7WZ4E50ZK50CHC)," which discusses the dating of Shakespeare's sonnets. Following this section is "SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE](arke:01KG6S5PV3M2TZXX99MAF5AJCR)," likely introducing the sonnets themselves.
## Contents
The content explores the recurring motif of urging a beautiful youth to marry in Shakespeare's early sonnets. It draws parallels between this theme and the sentiments expressed in *Venus and Adonis* and other contemporary plays. The text also includes a footnote that discusses linguistic parallels between the sonnets and Shakespeare's plays like *Henry IV* and *Hamlet*, specifically mentioning the words "Quietus" and "My prophetic soul."
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- The plea for marriage.
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- text
- **The plea for marriage.**
Two leading themes of the sonnets are very closely associated with Shakespeare’s poem of *Venus and Adonis* and the plays that were composed about the same date. The first seventeen poems, in which the poet urges a beautiful youth to marry, and to bequeath his beauty to posterity, repeat with somewhat greater exuberance, but with no variation of sentiment, the plea that Venus thrice fervently
¹ Almost every play of Shakespeare offers some parallels to expressions in the sonnets. Canon Beeching (pp. xxv–xxvii) has collected several (which are of great interest) from *Henry IV* and *Hamlet*, but they are not numerous enough to justify any very large conclusion. It does not seem to have been noticed that the words ‘Quietus’ (*Hamlet*, iii. 1. 75, and *Sonnet* CXXVI. 12) and ‘My prophetic soul’ (*Hamlet*, i. 5. 40, and *Sonnet* CVII. 1) come in *Hamlet* and the sonnets, and nowhere else. The sonnets in which they occur may be of comparatively late date, but the evidence is not conclusive in itself.
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- title
- The plea for marriage.