Sonnet 93

Sonnet 93 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

Synopsis

Contrary to the previous sonnet, Sonnet 92, in which Shakespeare tries to question the young man's morals and character, he may now be fluctuant in his character without his own knowledge. Shakespeare also goes ahead and basically refutes what he had said in the previous sonnet, now saying that the young man is a good person with upstanding morals. He goes on to say, “For there can live no hatred in thine eye.” He is now refuting his previous statements and stating that the boy can not have bad morals or vice.

In the first quatrain of the sonnet, the poet says, “So shall I live, supposing thou art true”, illustrating the initial doubt in the young man's moral character. Gradually, he starts to reason that the youth's beauty outweighs his moral flaws, a sort of superficial and narcisstic belief that the poet had previously criticized in earlier sonnets. The poet goes on to speak about the young man's facial beauty, without considering the virtue of the young man. Shakespeare acknowledges this possibility by saying, “How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow", showing a connection to Adam and Eve, and how Eve's external beauty was countered by her internal moral lack of character.

William Shakespeare Plays Tragedies Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Julius Caesar King Lear Macbeth Othello Romeo and Juliet Sir Thomas More* Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus and Cressida Comedies All's Well That Ends Well As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Love's Labour's Lost Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night's Dream Much Ado About Nothing Pericles, Prince of Tyre* The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Two Noble Kinsmen* The Winter's Tale Cardenio* Love's Labour's Won Histories King John Edward III* Richard II 1 Henry IV 2 Henry IV Henry V 1 Henry VI 2 Henry VI 3 Henry VI Richard III Henry VIII* See also Problem plays Late romances Characters A–K L–Z Chronology Performances Quarto publications First Folio Second Folio Poems Shakespeare's Sonnets comparison Venus and Adonis The Rape of Lucrece The Phoenix and the Turtle The Passionate Pilgrim* A Lover's Complaint Life and works Birthplace and childhood home Apocrypha Bibliography Complete Works of William Shakespeare Translations Early editions Editors English Renaissance theatre Family Globe Theatre Handwriting Lord Chamberlain's Men The Theatre Curtain Theatre New Place home Portraits Religion Sexuality Spelling of his name Stratford-upon-Avon Style Legacy Attribution studies Authorship question Influence Memorials Screen adaptations Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Folger Shakespeare Library Shakespeare Quarterly Shakespeare's Globe (replica) Titles of works taken from Shakespeare * Shakespeare and other authors Lost Commons Wikibooks Wikiquote Wikisource texts