Shakespeare's Sonnet Sunday: Sonnet 8

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'

1. Why is it that, when there is music to listen to, you are saddened by it?
2. Happy music should result in happiness.
3. Why do you pretend to love what you don't really want?
4. And receive with pleasure what clearly annoys you?
5. If the uniting sounds
6. Played together in harmony offend you,
7. If they bother you when together
8. But played alone you can bear it
9. Look at how the strings, played together on the Lute (popular in Shakespeare's day)
10. The strings reverberate against each other in appropriate order.
11. Like a happy family with husband, child and mother
12. Who together make a happy sound.
13. Though made up of many components are actually one.
14. And one string played alone will actually be nothing.

This sonnet can have two meanings...

1) The one above or...

2) The idea of marriage with it's responsibilities to wife and bearing children may seem tiresome. Being single is like playing only one string of an instrument or one instrument of an orchestra... it's really nothing.

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Sidenote: Going to the USA/Mexico border today... if you don't hear from me in a few days... well. Not to worry you, I'll probably be fine. It's an adventure... right?

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