Sonnet 46, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
A closet never pierced with crystal eyes,
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To 'cide this title is impannelled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part:
      As thus: mine eye's due is thine outward part,
      And my heart's right, thine inward love of heart.

Sonnet 46, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

Shakespeare plays out that mortal war quite deftly, and interestingly an adjudication is necessary to settle it.  In Freudian terms, the heart is the id (the repository of impulse and desire); the eye (perhaps) the ego (the executor between self and reality); and in the courts sits the superego (the overseer, the judge, the arbitrator).  It's delightful acting and recitation by pretty Sydney Lucas, whose smile has a sly look and tone to it, as if the object of both her eyes and heart is hers and will always be hers.

Sonnet 97, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness everywhere!
And yet this time removed was summer's time;
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:
Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute:
      Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,
      That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

Sonnet 97, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

I've lived in Chicago nearly all of my life, and as a poet there is lyricism to the passage of seasons here.  It doesn't matter which one, they're all ripe with metaphor.  They all resonate with something in me, which poetry puts its particular language to.  So this sonnet resonates with something in me, then.  Notice how its volta is actually situated at the start of the third quatrain, as if perhaps the sonnet really could not sustain summer pleasures or teeming autumn for any length of time.  The final couplet doesn't reverse the mood, but simply seals with a kind of nail to the coffin. 

Sonnet 109, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

O! never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,
As easy might I from my self depart
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels, I return again;
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe though in my nature reigned,
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
     For nothing this wide universe I call,
     Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

Sonnet 109, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

What a delightful interpretation of this sonnet, one that I imagine many millennial couples can relate to.  I suppose All's Well That Ends Well could be its title.  But then again maybe not.  

Sonnet 100, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make Time's spoils despised every where.
     Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
     So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.

Sonnet 100, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

Wow, what a beautiful short film and a reverberating score.  Shakespeare deftly personifies the Muse, as the writer at once criticizes him (or her) for misjudgment and neglect, yet pleads for his or her return and salvation.  The director situates the writer in a kind of prison, a solitary and sparing sort, who struggles against anonymity and irrelevance.  He suggests that at the end of it all, however, it is too late: Time has wasted life.  Or has it?  Perhaps, too, the Muse managed to come back in the end, and the writer is forever enshrined in the library.  

Sonnet 116, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
     If this be error and upon me proved,
     I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet 116, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

Although in former times this sonnet was almost universally read as a paean to ideal and eternal love, with which all readers could easily identify, adding their own dream of perfection to what they found within it, modern criticism makes it possible to look beneath the idealism and to see some hints of a world which is perhaps slightly more disturbed than the poet pretends. In the first place it is important to see that the sonnet belongs in this place, sandwiched between three which discuss the philosophical question of how love deceives both eye and mind and judgement, and is then followed by four others which attempt to excuse the poet's own unfaithfulness and betrayal of the beloved. Set in such a context it does of course make it appear even more like a battered sea-mark which nevetheless rises above the waves of destruction, for it confronts all the vicissitudes that have afflicted the course of the love described in these sonnets, and declares that, in the final analysis, they are of no account.

This analysis from Shakespeare's Sonnets makes sense to me, but I don't fully agree with it.  Less about ideal or eternal love, this sonnet seems more about endurance, and patience, and determination.  The speaker does seem to have done wrong to her beloved, and this is an impediment she dare not admit.  But while she is not perfect, and neither is her love, her willingness to stick it out with her chosen partner is nothing short of laudable: She bears it out even to the edge of doom.  Quite well-acted and recited by Virginia Donohoe.

Sonnet 127, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on Nature's power,
Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:
     Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
     That every tongue says beauty should look so.

Sonnet 127, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

In a year where racism is very much alive, I wonder how a contemporary audience might respond to this sonnet.  Shakespeare is as much a product of his era and geography, as any artist inevitably is.  In `A Midsummer Night's Dream, for example, he has the two battling young ladies insult each other repeatedly, one calling the other Ethiope.  So, yes, as he meditates in this sonnet, black is not commonly associated with beauty.  In fact, black is slandered, and profaned, and disgraced.  But the speaker's lover is Black, and it shakes his shibboleths.

This is a complex subject, and the structure of the sonnet is altered by the need for two voltas, the first to start the third quatrain: Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black...  Whether purely by reasoning or with some admixture of observation, the speaker comes around to see that black is beautiful.  People who are fair complexioned seem to mourn their lack of beauty and their need to create false esteem to make themselves beautiful.  Reference, for instance, White Americans' obsession with tanning.  The second volta cinches the turnaround in the speaker's notions of beauty.

A powerful sonnet, a powerful recitation by Isaiah Johnson.

Sonnet 67, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve,
And lace itself with his society?
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeming of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins?
For she hath no exchequer now but his,
And proud of many, lives upon his gains.
     O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had
     In days long since, before these last so bad.

Sonnet 67, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

The film captures rather well the pathos in the sonnet.  The speaker wonders quite a bit why he continues to live the high life, after all that he has done to her.  She doesn't seem to have much to begin with, and even then he has it all.  There is much more, however, to the unfairness she has experienced.  It isn't just despair, but also bitterness, that overcome her.  Whether art, or beauty, or Nature, none seems to have escaped his plundering bent.  Leigh Williams acts this sonnet rather well, and with her own voice over, she portrays the silence-cum-introspection that the lover has left her with.  Brilliant effort, all around.

Sonnet 135, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in over-plus;
More than enough am I that vexed thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store;
So thou, being rich in Will, add to thy Will
One will of mine, to make thy large will more.
     Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;
     Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

Sonnet 135,  from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

This is a very curious short film, because instead of just reciting the sonnet, the two character dialogue with one another.  After I am Many does his first pass, Kalae Nouveau responds back with text that I am not familiar with and which is certainly not part of Sonnet 135.  In the credits, there is a reference to original text by Valerie Politis, so I think she wrote a playful sonnet for her film.  

In their analysis, the NY Shakespeare Exchange wrote:

This sonnet is just filthy! “Will” is a colloquial term for both the male and female genitalia, and so the poem can also be understood sexually in any number of ways. The lady is rich in Will (either sexual appetite, sexual partners, or in her own genitalia). He wants to hide his will in her will (…self explanatory). And so forth.

Shakespeare can definitely be quite the bawdy sort, and speak in the language and milieu of Falstaff & Co.  His bawdiness may be couched in ways that modern day audience may not pick up.  That said, the gentleman makes an earnest plea for her to let him join the ranks of her lovers.  Clearly her body, and her desire, are as large as the sea, so it ought not be a problem to receive him and bring him in.

That said, the second recitation of the sonnet suggests two things: (a) that he managed to persuade her, but perhaps in more friendly (i.e., platonic) manner.  The cutaways to signs that she flashes suggest they're a couple, again maybe more as friends than lovers.  He isn't quite happy, but her charm seems to win him over. (b) In this second go, I am Many speaks to us directly as the audience.  While I will definitely buy the analysis that this is a filthy-ass sonnet, the filmmaking frames it in a charming and affectionate, which very much engages us.

In both Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare makes a plea to the audience via his characters to be patient, understanding, and accepting and moreover to draw on our imagination.  Then whatever flaws or mistakes there are in the play, or its staging, are not so terrible in the least.  We are taken, affectionately so, by Shakespeare, and in so doing, Shakespeare asks us to accept him and only him.

Whew a superb superb effort on both sonnet-maker and film-maker.

Sonnet 32, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,
And though they be outstripped by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
To march in ranks of better equipage:
     But since he died and poets better prove,
     Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.

Sonnet 32, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

A rotary phone, a typewriter, and a videocassette for a video camera, all in a boxy luggage, are easily markers for the past.  Even the address book, photo album, and fax transmission all point to the past.  But the filmmaker takes a more complex view on time.  The lady seems to live in the present, and perhaps she never quite let go of outdated tools and devices.  But when she videotapes herself, it's as though we slid into the past.  The light, the color, the composition of the Red Cube in the background (rf. Instagram) suggest that she had somehow videotaped a message from the past.  

Now, the sonnet suggests that the speaker meant for her lover to hear her message ("These poor rude lines") after she had died.  But the creepy thing, if I've understood correctly, is that her lover ("my friend") apparently had died already.  At first I thought the Muse was she herself, but the Muse must've simply been his inspiration, who of course died along with him.  He was a poet, while she will (continue to) read other poets, it is more of an academic reading ("for their style"), whereas she will (continue to) read him for the love they had together.  So, you see, it is deft artistry from both Shakespeare and the filmmaker to roll past, present and future into one little sonnet and film.

Sonnet 24, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath steeled,
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
And perspective that is best painter's art.
For through the painter must you see his skill,
To find where your true image pictured lies,
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
     Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
     They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

Sonnet 24, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

It is about how the eyes are an instrument of desire, fashioning a lover and infusing oneself with that very lover.  Not just her image, but also her body.  Shakespeare weaves a rather rich tapestry, that is about what art does.  What imagination, and fantasy, and dream are.  The desire is so strong that what we see looks, and feels, positively real.  Alas, though, it is not.  Actor Colin Ryan plays it all well.

Sonnet 69, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;
But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;
Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
     But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
     The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.

Sonnet 69, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

It's a cute move to make the subject of the sonnet a dog.  But this reminds of Prince Hal, in Henry IV (Part 1 and Part 2), who belies, and defies, his royal upbringing by frequenting the neighboring taverns with Falstaff & Co.  I imagine King Henry, the Prince's father, chiding his son for his behavior and company.  I imagine the King referring to Falstaff, in particular, who knows who Prince Hal actually is, but who leads his royal friend into "the rank smell of weeds" and the common soil of villagers.  If I recall correctly, Falstaff bitterly complains of Prince Hal, now King Henry V after the death of Henry IV, treating him like a dog.

Sonnet 139, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

O! call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue:
Use power with power, and slay me not by art,
Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:
What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might
Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?
Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
     Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,
     Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.

Sonnet 139, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

It's a brilliant capture of the agonizing, ambivalent nature of Romantic love.  The speaker would prefer to be rejected with words, rather than outright with looks.  But in the end we can imagine him or her finding means to meet the lover one last time and demanding to finish off the rejection, straightaway face-to-face.  Drawing on kinetic poetry is also a brilliant move by the Shakespeare Exchange, as it portrays perfectly the theme of the sonnet (i.e., words, not looks).  Actress Lauren Sowa stumbles upon the letter, and the kinetic poetry conveys the emotion behind the words rather well.

Sonnet 138, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told:
     Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
     And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

Sonnet 138, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

In Western culture, we pay such lip service to truth, and honesty, and openness, coming thus across as naive in the reality of life.  A couple in love may choose to dispense with the truth of age - frank wrinkles, lackluster hair - in order to forge their romance.  Interestingly, while there is a striking difference in age between the two, even the younger of the two is evidently conscious, albeit privately, of her age.  Finally, a tour de force of a pun around "lie" is perfect for the sexual denouement in the couplet.  

Sonnet 65, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
     O! none, unless this miracle have might,
     That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Sonnet 65, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

The setting of the Berlin Wall puts political weight to a sonnet so full of weight already from stone, and earth, and steel.  Even the meter is laden with heaviness, that is, from such spondees as "strong hand," "black ink," and "shine bright."  It is about the power of time to overcome and erode all of this, however.  There is a glimmer of hope in the final couplet, which, though subjunctive, is as definitive of statement than anything in the sonnet that precedes it.  

Sonnet 134, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

So now I have confessed that he is thine,
And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous, and he is kind;
He learned but surety-like to write for me,
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer, that put'st forth all to use,
And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
     Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:
     He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

Sonnet 134, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

This is really good.  I wouldn't have seen this sonnet as one about giving up a baby for adoption.  But as it is, it is painful, and real, and apropos for the kind of life event (I imagine) a young, disadvantaged city woman is likely to face.

Sonnet 141, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
     Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
     That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

Sonnet 141, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

I wondered if Carlo Alban, as the tortured lover, would jump from that hill.  No, that would've been out-of-keeping with the sonnet.  The point is Romantic pain, and for it to be Romantic, it must keep on.  It must live.

Sonnet 2, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a totter'd weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
     This were to be new made when thou art old,
     And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

Sonnet 2, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

It is purely by accident - rather, what I call synchronicity - that this sonnet follows the same theme of life and aging from the previous sonnet.  What was implicit, though, is made explicit in this piece.  It is the prowess of Shakespeare to turn the commonplace passing of the generations into uncommon poetry.

Sonnet 7, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract, and look another way:
     So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon
     Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.

Sonnet 7, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

It's a very curious sonnet.  What happens in a given day is a lifetime.  From a coming of age, to a reeling from all that age.  But what sustains us, literally, is our progeny.  Our progeny comes only from a relationship, without which we do not simply die: We cease to exist.

Sonnet 107, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:
     And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
     When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

Sonnet 107, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

This one reminds me of WB Yeats' `Sailing to Byzantium, particularly the last stanza:

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

True, the Irish poet speaks about mortality vis-a-vis immortality, while the English sonnet master dwells on life and death in particular.  Still, the outcome seems the same: John Kinsherf fashions himself into monument, much as Yeats' old man longs to be a statue.  

Sonnet 151, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
     No want of conscience hold it that I call
     Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

Sonnet 151, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

This is the classic Romantic battle between the mind (conscience) and the heart (love) and between the soul and the body.  Shakespeare weaves it all in 14 lines of poetry, as Richard Price, seemingly longing for her from afar, finally gives in to his desire for... uhm... the Coney Island hot dog.  There is comic relief, after all, in the midst of high Romanticism.