Sonnet 10 claims that a man who will not provide for his own future loves no one at all, and then, for the first time in the sequence, the speaker speaks of himself: have a child, he says, “for love of me.”
Sonnet 10: Full Poem
For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any,
Who for thyself art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lov’st is most evident;
For thou art so possessed with murd’rous hate
That ’gainst thyself thou stick’st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
Make thee another self, for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.
Text from the 1609 Quarto, with spelling and punctuation lightly modernized.
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about Sonnet 10 for quick reference.
What Sonnet 10 Means
Sonnet 10 continues the harsh charge of Sonnet 9, then changes direction halfway through.
The first quatrain is an accusation. For shame, the speaker says, admit that you love no one, since you take so little care of your own future. Granted, if you like, many people love you. But it is plain that you love none of them.
The second quatrain explains why. You are so full of murderous hatred that you do not hesitate to plot against yourself, trying to bring down the beautiful house, meaning your body and your family line, that you ought to want most to keep in good repair.
The third quatrain turns. Change your mind, the speaker pleads, so that I can change my opinion of you. Should hatred have a lovelier home than gentle love? Be as gracious and kind as you look, or at least be kind to yourself.
The couplet makes a new request. Make another self, a child, for love of me, so that your beauty may live on, in your child or in you.
Sonnet 10 Line by Line
Each line, with the sense of it in plain English.
Themes
Sonnet 10 is the hinge of the Procreation Sonnets, and its themes move from judgment to feeling.
Self-Neglect as Hatred
The young man might think of his refusal to marry as mere carelessness. The poem calls it “murd’rous hate” and a conspiracy against himself, language drawn from treason. A man who can do that to himself, it argues, cannot honestly claim to love anyone else.
The House That Should Be Repaired
The “beauteous roof” is both the young man’s body and his family, the house in the sense of a noble line. He is letting it fall when he should be repairing it. Sonnet 13 returns to the image, asking who would let “so fair a house fall to decay.”
The Speaker’s Own Love
Until now, the reasons to have a child have come from outside: nature, the world, the future. Sonnet 10 adds a new one, “for love of me.” The argument that began as the world’s demand becomes a request from the speaker himself, and the sequence is never quite impersonal again.
Form and Language
Sonnet 10 moves from the language of crime to the language of home, and its most important words are its pronouns.
Meter and Rhyme
The poem is a Shakespearean sonnet in iambic pentameter, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The first and third lines end with an extra unstressed syllable, “any” and “many,” and the rhyme sets the many who love him against the none he loves.
The Language of Treason
“Murd’rous hate,” “conspire,” and “ruinate” turn self-neglect into a plot. The words pick up the “murd’rous shame” at the end of Sonnet 9, and the poem even opens with that sonnet’s last idea: “For shame.”
“Fairer Lodged”
Line 10 asks whether hate should be “fairer lodged than gentle love”: should hatred live in a more beautiful house? The young man’s beauty is the lodging, and hatred has moved in. The question extends the house image from the body to the heart.
“Thine or Thee”
The last line hopes beauty will live “in thine or thee,” in the young man’s children or in himself. The “or” matters: without a child, the only place left for his beauty is his own aging body, which the earlier sonnets have shown cannot hold it.
A Closer Reading
Line 9 of Sonnet 10 is the first time in the entire sequence that the speaker says “I,” and it changes what the Procreation Sonnets are about.
For nine poems, the speaker has kept himself out of view. Sonnet 1 speaks as “we.” The others speak of nature, the world, time, and widows. The only “mine” before now, in Sonnet 2, belongs to the young man’s imagined future voice. The speaker has argued, praised, and accused, but never said a word about himself.
Then: “O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!” The line is a bargain between two people. If you change, I will change too. The speaker is no longer the world’s spokesman; he has an opinion of the young man, and it can be won. Four lines later he goes further: “Make thee another self, for love of me.” The reason to have a child is now the speaker’s own affection.
That arrival is quietly paradoxical. The poem’s charge is that the young man loves no one. Its answer is to offer him someone to love: the speaker himself, who has just stepped into the poem to be loved. From here on, the sonnets are less about heirs than about the two people in them, and within a few poems the speaker will stop asking for a child at all and start preserving the young man in verse, in Sonnet 15 and beyond.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Sonnet 10, answered briefly.
Who Is Sonnet 10 Addressed To?
The young man of the Fair Youth sonnets, the same unnamed figure the Procreation Sonnets urge to marry and have children.
What Does “For Love of Me” Mean?
For my sake, because you love me. It is the first time in the sequence that the speaker gives his own feelings as a reason for the young man to have a child.
What Is the “Beauteous Roof”?
The young man’s body, and also his family or noble house. By refusing to have children, he is letting that house fall into ruin when he should be repairing it.
Is the Last Line “Thine or Thee” or “Thine and Thee”?
“Thine or thee.” The 1609 Quarto reads “That beauty still may live in thine or thee,” meaning in your children or in you.
How Is Sonnet 10 Connected to Sonnet 9?
Sonnet 9 ends by accusing the young man of “murd’rous shame.” Sonnet 10 opens with “For shame” and soon calls him “possessed with murd’rous hate,” picking up both words.
Related Sonnets
Three sonnets frame Sonnet 10’s turn from accusation to love.