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The Final Couplet

The Final Couplet

By: Theo Cowan
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Join me, Theo Cowan, as I desperately attempt to work out what the hell William Shakespeare was going on about in all those sonnets. Don't worry, I create stupid little stories to accompany each one so you don't get too bored.Theo Cowan Art
Episodes
  • Shakespeare's Sonnet 125
    Oct 19 2025

    Shakespeare's penultimate sonnet to the fair youth!


    Sonnet 125

    Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
    With my extern the outward honouring,
    Or laid great bases for eternity,
    Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
    Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
    Lose all and more by paying too much rent
    For compound sweet, forgoing simple savour,
    Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
    No; let me be obsequious in thy heart,
    And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
    Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
    But mutual render, only me for thee.
    Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul
    When most impeached stands least in thy control.

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    20 mins
  • Shakespeare's Sonnet 124
    Oct 12 2025

    Shakespeare aims for a strong a steady relationship that isn't swayed by the fashions of the time.


    Sonnet 124

    If my dear love were but the child of state,
    It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,
    As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,
    Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
    No, it was builded far from accident;
    It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
    Under the blow of thralled discontent,
    Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:
    It fears not policy, that heretic,
    Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,
    But all alone stands hugely politic,
    That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
    To this I witness call the fools of time,
    Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

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    18 mins
  • Shakespeare's Sonnet 123
    Oct 5 2025

    Shakespeare returns to his age old habit of talking directly to time itself.


    Sonnet 123

    No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
    Thy pyramids built up with newer might
    To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
    They are but dressings of a former sight.
    Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
    What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
    And rather make them born to our desire
    Than think that we before have heard them told.
    Thy registers and thee I both defy,
    Not wondering at the present nor the past,
    For thy records and what we see doth lie,
    Made more or less by thy continual haste.
    This I do vow and this shall ever be;
    I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.

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    18 mins
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