William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 99 is a vibrant and complex expression of love, beauty, and the effects of love on nature. Like many of Shakespeare’s sonnets, it explores the themes of beauty, the passage of time, and the distortion of idealized love through metaphor and imagery. In this sonnet, Shakespeare uses the metaphor of flowers to examine the theft of beauty and the ways in which nature mirrors the human experience of love and desire. The following essay will analyze the poem’s structure, tone, and the progression of ideas throughout its lines, providing a deeper understanding of how Shakespeare employs language to explore the themes of love and loss.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 99
The forward violet thus did I chide:
“Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.”
The lily I condemnèd for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair;
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both,
And to his robb’ry had annexed thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker ate him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or color it had stol’n from thee.
The Structure and Tone of Sonnet 99
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 99 follows the traditional structure of the English sonnet, consisting of 14 lines written in iambic pentameter. It adheres to the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, which is characteristic of Shakespearean sonnets. The sonnet is divided into three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet, each quatrain developing a distinct part of the argument and building upon the previous one.
The tone of the poem can be described as a combination of longing, frustration, and playful reproach. Shakespeare’s voice seems to shift between admiration for his lover’s beauty and irritation at the way that beauty has been “stolen” by nature. The imagery of flowers, which are typically associated with beauty and purity, is employed here to evoke a sense of loss and to lament the diminishing or distortion of the speaker’s love. In this sense, the tone could be seen as a blend of tenderness for the lover’s beauty and an almost jealous frustration with the forces that alter or appropriate that beauty.
Analysis of Sonnet 99
Lines 1–4
The forward violet thus did I chide:
“Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells”
In the opening quatrain, the speaker directly addresses the violet, personifying the flower as a “sweet thief” who has stolen its fragrance from the speaker’s lover. The speaker uses “chide,” a word that indicates mild rebuke or reproach, suggesting a sense of playful jealousy. The “sweet that smells” is a direct reference to the perfume of the violet, which the speaker attributes to the breath of his lover. This establishes the theme of the theft of beauty. The violet’s “purple pride” is a metaphor for the complexion of the lover’s skin, with purple being a color often associated with nobility and richness, and here suggesting the richness of the lover’s beauty.
Lines 5–8
In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemnèd for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair;
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
In these lines, the speaker continues to complain about nature’s appropriation of his lover’s beauty. The “grossly dyed” violet now symbolizes a flower that has been overly saturated with the lover’s essence. The speaker then shifts to condemn other flowers: the lily, marjoram, and roses. The lily, traditionally a symbol of purity, is said to be “condemnèd for thy hand,” implying that its purity has been tainted by the lover’s touch. The buds of marjoram, known for their aromatic fragrance, are said to have stolen the lover’s hair, perhaps suggesting that the delicate and fragrant marjoram has taken on an undeserved beauty. The roses, often symbols of love and beauty, stand “fearfully on thorns,” representing an anxiety or shame about their own beauty in relation to the lover’s. This tension between beauty and corruption is a key theme of the sonnet.
Lines 9–12
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both,
And to his robb’ry had annexed thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
These lines continue the metaphor of the flowers taking different attributes from the lover. The first rose blushes in “shame,” while the second turns “white” with despair, possibly alluding to the idea that beauty is fleeting and can be marred by time or loss. The third rose, “neither red nor white,” symbolizes a hybrid, stealing from both the red of love and the white of purity, and annexing the lover’s breath. This line underscores the idea that the flowers have not merely taken physical attributes but also the essence or life force of the lover. The use of the word “robbery” heightens the sense of violation or loss, suggesting that something important has been taken.
Lines 13–14
A vengeful canker ate him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or color it had stol’n from thee.
In these concluding lines, Shakespeare brings the metaphor to its conclusion. The “vengeful canker” symbolizes a destructive force, possibly representing time or decay, that consumes the stolen beauty of the flowers. The “canker” is often associated with disease and rot, which leads to death, suggesting that the flowers that have taken from the lover’s essence are doomed to decay and destruction. The final line reaffirms the central idea that every flower the speaker observes has stolen something from his lover, whether it be sweetness or color, leaving the speaker with a sense of emptiness and loss.
Conclusion
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 99 uses the imagery of flowers to explore the themes of love, loss, and the appropriation of beauty. Through the metaphor of flowers “stealing” aspects of the lover’s beauty, Shakespeare emphasizes the fleeting and often corrupted nature of beauty in the world. The flowers’ theft of beauty is both a metaphor for the passage of time and an expression of the speaker’s possessive feelings toward the lover, revealing his jealousy and frustration. Despite the playful tone in parts of the poem, the imagery is ultimately tragic, as the flowers are consumed by a “vengeful canker,” signaling the inevitability of loss. The poem thus encapsulates the tension between admiration for beauty and the inevitability of its decay, offering a poignant meditation on love and mortality.
