POETRY TTHHEE BBEESSTT OOFF TTHHEE SSOONNNNEETTSS Read by David Tennant Juliet Stevenson Anton Lesser Maxine Peake Stella Gonet et al. Devised and directed by David Timson NA195612D 1 Sonnet 2: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow 1:01 Read by David Tennant 2 Sonnet 6: Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface 0:55 Read by Bertie Carvel 3 Sonnet 7: Lo! in the orient when the gracious light 0:53 Read by David Tennant 4 Sonnet 8: Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? 1:01 Read by Bertie Carvel 5 Sonnet 9: Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye 0:52 Read by David Tennant 6 Sonnet 10: For shame! deny that thou bear’st love to any 0:56 Read by Bertie Carvel 7 Sonnet 11: As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow’st 1:00 Read by David Tennant 8 Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time 0:57 Read by Bertie Carvel 9 Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck 0:55 Read by David Tennant 10 Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come 1:00 Read by David Tennant 2 11 Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? 0:58 Read by David Tennant 12 Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws 0:58 Read by Anne-Marie Piazza 13 Sonnet 20: A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted 1:04 Read by Hugh Ross 14 Sonnet 21: So is it not with me as with that Muse 1:00 Read by Hugh Ross 15 Sonnet 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old 0:58 Read by Hugh Ross 16 Sonnet 23: As an unperfect actor on the stage 0:59 Read by Anne-Marie Piazza 17 Sonnet 25: Let those who are in favour with their stars 0:54 Read by David Timson 18 Sonnet 26: Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage 1:02 Read by Anne-Marie Piazza 19 Sonnet 27: Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed 0:59 Read by Anne-Marie Piazza 20 Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes 1:00 Read by David Timson 3 21 Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 0:51 Read by Stella Gonet 22 Sonnet 31: Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts 0:51 Read by Stella Gonet 23 Sonnet 32: If thou survive my well-contented day 0:58 Read by David Timson 24 Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen 0:54 Read by Gunnar Cauthery 25 Sonnet 35: No more be griev’d at that which thou hast done 0:59 Read by Gunnar Cauthery 26 Sonnet 37: As a decrepit father takes delight 0:55 Read by Hugh Ross 27 Sonnet 38: How can my muse want subject to invent 0:54 Read by Hugh Ross 28 Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all 0:58 Read by Stella Gonet 29 Sonnet 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits 0:54 Read by Alex Jennings 30 Sonnet 42: That thou hast her it is not all my grief 1:03 Read by Alex Jennings 4 31 Sonnet 49: Against that time, if ever that time come 0:59 Read by David Timson 32 Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way 0:57 Read by Benjamin Soames 33 Sonnet 53: What is your substance, whereof are you made 0:53 Read by Stella Gonet 34 Sonnet 55: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 0:55 Read by Benjamin Soames 35 Sonnet 57: Being your slave what should I do but tend 0:55 Read by Benjamin Soames 36 Sonnet 61: Is it thy will, thy image should keep open 0:53 Read by Stella Gonet 37 Sonnet 63: Against my love shall be as I am now 0:52 Read by Anton Lesser 38 Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea 1:02 Read by Anton Lesser 39 Sonnet 69: Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view 1:01 Read by Benjamin Soames 40 Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead 0:46 Read by Juliet Stevenson 5 41 Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold 0:59 Read by Anton Lesser 42 Sonnet 80: O! how I faint when I of you do write 0:58 Read by Anton Lesser 43 Sonnet 83: I never saw that you did painting need 0:53 Read by Anton Lesser 44 Sonnet 86: Was it the proud full sail of his great verse 0:51 Read by Anton Lesser 45 Sonnet 87: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing 1:09 Read by David Timson 46 Sonnet 89: Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault 0:50 Read by David Timson 47 Sonnet 90: Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now 0:52 Read by Maxine Peake 48 Sonnet 91: Some glory in their birth, some in their skill 0:55 Read by Roy McMillan 49 Sonnet 92: But do thy worst to steal thyself away 0:50 Read by Roy McMillan 50 Sonnet 93: So shall I live, supposing thou art true 0:52 Read by Roy McMillan 6 51 Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt, and will do none 0:58 Read by Roy McMillan 52 Sonnet 97: How like a winter hath my absence been 0:50 Read by Maxine Peake 53 Sonnet 99: The forward violet thus did I chide 0:56 Read by Maxine Peake 54 Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old 0:58 Read by Juliet Stevenson 55 Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time 0:50 Read by Maxine Peake 56 Sonnet 109: O! never say that I was false of heart 0:56 Read by Trevor White 57 Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds 0:51 Read by Juliet Stevenson 58 Sonnet 120: That you were once unkind befriends me now 0:58 Read by Trevor White 59 Sonnet 121: ‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d 0:56 Read by Trevor White 60 Sonnet 127: In the old age black was not counted fair 0:59 Read by Jonathan Keeble 7 61 Sonnet 128: How oft when thou, my music, music play’st 0:57 Read by Gunnar Cauthery 62 Sonnet 129: The expense of spirit in a waste of shame 1:03 Read by Jonathan Keeble 63 Sonnet 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun 0:58 Read by Gunnar Cauthery 64 Sonnet 133: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan 0:54 Read by Tom Mison 65 Sonnet 134: So, now I have confess’d that he is thine 0:53 Read by Tom Mison 66 Sonnet 136: If thy soul check thee that I come so near 0:55 Read by Tom Mison 67 Sonnet 137: Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes 0:50 Read by Tom Mison 68 Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth 0:59 Read by Trevor White 69 Sonnet 140: Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press 0:53 Read by Maxine Peake 8 70 Sonnet 141: In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes 0:52 Read by Tom Mison 71 Sonnet 144: Two loves I have of comfort and despair 0:49 Read by Tom Mison 72 Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever longing still 0:50 Read by Maxine Peake 73 Sonnet 148: O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head 1:02 Read by Maxine Peake 74 Sonnet 149: Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not 0:55 Read by Tom Mison 75 Sonnet 154: The little Love-god lying once asleep 1:02 Read by David Tennant Total time: 1:15:28 9 From Shakespeare with love THE BEST OF THE SONNETS As with so many of the aspects of hour off from the composition of Lear to Shakespeare’s life, it’s not known exactly write a sonnet, the sonnet might not have when he wrote his sonnets, or for whom, or been in the style of Lear’. if they are in any way autobiographical. The sonnets were certainly in He may have begun writing them as existence by 1598, when a Cambridge early as 1593, at the same time as he schoolmaster, Francis Meres, compiling was writing his epic love-poem Venus and a book of celebrated English writers, Adonis. The eroticism found in this poem mentions Shakespeare’s ‘sugared sonnets’ is echoed in several sonnets, and such that had been circulating amongst the titillating verse was very popular at the author’s friends and colleagues. The time. These sonnets are youthful poems, following year, two of the ‘sugared but others are written from the perspective sonnets’ appeared in a collection called of middle age, and as the sonnets did The Passionate Pilgrim, but the remaining not appear in print until 1609, when 152 had to wait until their publication in Shakespeare was 45, he may well have 1609. been adding to the collection throughout Might Shakespeare have been his working life. However, it is debatable reluctant to have the sonnets printed whether they reflect Shakespeare’s later because they were so personal to him? poetic style as well as his earliest. The Some of the poems are very open about Irish writer and scholar C.S. Lewis once the poet’s love for another man. Did commented: ‘If Shakespeare had taken an Shakespeare think they were too explicit 111000