Sonnet notes 8

Sonnet 17, Line 1: “Who will believe my verse”

In this sonnet, poets are added to the list of proverbial liars, along with pilgrims and old men. It’s a fleeting argument, a final attempt to convince the Young Man of the virtues of marriage and procreation. Just two sonnets earlier, his verse was opposed to Time’s decay, engrafting him anew; now it is no more than a tomb, his words deemed a stretched meter of an Antique song. We’ll hear more about poetic honesty later, but this is an important point. How do we know if a poet is telling the truth or lies, whether he is painting an honest portrait or merely flattering? We’ll also hear more about lies later. But we like lies sometimes, don’t we? The stories pilgrims and old men tell can be entertaining, especially so because they’re embellished. And who doesn’t like a little flattery? Throughout The Sonnets it’s important to ask, “what do we believe?”