Sonnet No. 30
The exact date of Shakespeare’s birth is not known but, by tradition, it is celebrated on 23rd April, St George’s Day. Today therefore marks the 450th anniversary of his birth.
This sonnet is clearly closely related to the one preceding it, No. 29, and is thought to have been written to the Earl of Southampton. I picked it for today not just because it’s beautiful, but also because it provides an example of how deeply embedded in our language certain phrases from Shakespeare have become; the standard English translation of Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu is entitled The Remembrance of Things Past, though I have never felt it was a very apt rendering. English oneupmanship, perhaps?
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
In the Dark 
April 23, 2014 at 6:01 pm
There are more than a few words in the Chambers dictionary which appear in Shakespeare and nowhere else. The same is also true of Spenser. Sometimes the meaning of these words is entirely obscure, which means they are favourite choices for crossword setters…