IMPRISONED PRIDE

As I mentioned in my last post, I believe that Shakespeare’s sexuality rose beyond human convention and intimately adapted itself to his emotional genius. Another Sonnet that highlights this ‘metasexuality’ is Sonnet 52, in which he attempts to find solace when his “Fair Youth” is away from him. Although the two men are apart, Shakespeare considers (or creates) a positive aspect to the separation by telling himself that the youth’s absence means that the poet will enjoy the pleasure of anticipation for his return.  

So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasureThe which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.

The fourth line here has an evident sexual significance. He is basically saying that waiting in anticipation for his young friend will fill him with more sexual desire and therefore will not to blunt “the fine point of pleasure”. Here  the poet is ostensibly portraying a phallic image.
He then lists positive examples of anticipation and arrival, like holidays which we look forward to during the year because they are not frequent as rich gems spread sparingly, or the expensive jewels set in a necklace.

Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,

Since, seldom coming in the long year set,

Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,

Or captain jewels in the carcanet.

In the final sestet the erotic punning is also intense. It doesn’t take much to interpret “the wardrobe which the robe doth hide” or the “unfolding” of “his imprisoned pride”. The Elizabethans, when being vulgar, used the word 'pride' to refer to an erect penis. 

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,

Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,

To make some special instant special-blest,

By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.

Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,

Being had, to triumph, being lacked, to hope.

 The final couplet ends this sexually charged sonnet with a romantic, almost nostalgic note, by saying that the Fair Youth is truly blessed, because when someone is with him, that person would feel he has triumphed, and when someone is away from him, he would then live in hope, in anticipation of being with the youth again. 

So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,

Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,

The which he will not every hour survey,

For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.

Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,

Since, seldom coming in the long year set,

Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,

Or captain jewels in the carcanet.

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,

Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,

To make some special instant special-blest,

By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.

Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,

Being had, to triumph, being lacked, to hope.