On Thanksgiving

Having just finished the last of the leftovers, I was reminded (as I always am around Thanksgiving) of Sonnet 52:

So am I as the rich whose blessèd key

Can bring him to his sweet up-lockèd treasure,

The which he will not every hour survey,

For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.

Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,

Since seldom coming in the long year set,

Like stones of worth they thinly placèd are,

Or captain Jewels in the carconet.

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,

Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,

To make some special instant special blest,

By new unfolding his imprison’d pride.

     Blessèd are you whose worthiness gives scope,

     Being had to triumph, being lack’d to hope.

This beautiful sonnet celebrates the value of special moments—if they become too common, it would “blunt the fine point of seldom pleasure.” In the context of the story being told in The Sonnets, however, it’s a bit more complicated. Here’s an extract from my book about that:

‘Taken on its own, this sonnet might read as an excuse for W. [the writer] being unable to spend as much time as he would like with Y.M. [the Young Man]. Without the previous references to being physically apart, the impression is of a need to share Y.M.’s time with others. Also ignoring the sonnets about the breach in the relationship, the impression I get is of a busy man of state, or perhaps a popular gentleman. But in the context of this sonnet sequence, having just been reading about the physical separation of W. from Y.M., the simple statement of the couplet is, “When I am with you I triumph, when we are apart, I hope I will see you again soon.” But still, that breach is there in the background. And we are reminded of it by those two sonnets with darker tones (48 and 49) that raised questions of rumors and suspicions. Does that change the way we read the couplet? Is there some anxiety in that word hope? “I hope I will see you again soon…[will I ever]?” Sometimes I feel it changes the tenor of the whole sonnet. Is W. like an anxious miser, a stingy host, a frugal jeweler, each treasuring what he has but fearing he will lose it? How do we think Y.M. would read this sonnet? Does he read only the compliment or does he also sense some anxiety?’

Shakespeare's Sonnets Among His Private Friends, p. 103