Survey of English and American Literature
LED 65
1st Semester SY 2020-2021
LESSON 3
Activity 4. Reading Skills: Paraphrasing for Sonnets 57 and 116. Restate
the ideas expressed in each quatrain and couplet of Sonnets 57 and 116 in the
chart below. Also, note where you find each sonnet’s message.
(Deadline: September 29, 2020)
Sonnet 57
Paraphrase:
Being your slave, what do I
need to do
First quatrain
Whenever you desire for
something?
I have no significant things
to spend my time with;
Nor services to attain, until
you ask me.
Paraphrase:
Nor do I dare to hate the
world for its slow hours,
Second quatrain
While I watch the clock
strikes for you,
Nor do I dare think bitterly
with your absence,
When you have bid your
slave goodbye;
Paraphrase:
Nor do I dare question my
jealous thought
Where you may be, or what
Third quatrain you are supposed to do,
But like a sad slave, I wait
for you and think of nothing
But how happy are those
who are with you at the
moment.
Sonnet 116
Paraphrase:
Let me not speak any
thoughts about couples
Who finds hindrance in their
affair. Love is not true love
If changes when things get
bad,
Or tolerates unacceptable
unfaithfulness.
Paraphrase:
It is not love. Love is like a
lighthouse
That even when storm
comes, it’s never shaken;
It is the star of every
wandering ship,
Has an immeasurable value,
but is used by sailors to
guide them.
Paraphrase:
Love is not fooled by time,
though physical beauty
May come to disappear in
time
Love doesn’t change even
after hours and weeks.
Instead, it holds on until the
last breathe.
 Paraphrase:
Love is fool that it bounds by
limitless will
Final couplet
That whatever you do, he will
think no less of you.
Just from the title itself;
the poem is about love
with unequal power.
Poem’s Message The poet defines love as
a fool (line 13). That this
love of the poet for a
young man is making
him a sad slave of love
(11). The poem tells us
how love can make as a
slave. Love can make us
a slave of our lover’s
desire (2), time (5-6),
presence (7), and affairs
(12). With this foolish
love, your world would
then revolve just around
him (3-4). Succeeding,
you’ll forget that there is
much in the world to
enjoy life. Because of
the idea that you’re just
a slave, then you have
no rights on getting
jealous of his
whereabouts (9). Since
you are just a slave of
love, then all you’ll ever
do No matter how bad
that lover of yours is
doing into you, you
wouldn’t mind it as long
as he always comes
Paraphrase:
If these words may prove
wrong,
Then I never wrote this
poem, and no one has ever
loved.
The title itself that the
poem is about romantic
love because it talks
about marriage. It
conveys the message
that love is not true if it
does not endure
through the obstacles in
every relationship (line
2). Love knows no limit
even as their hair grows
white (lines 10-11).
Couples who surpass
every storm in their
relationship, remains
faithful to the pledged
love and never changes
in the end, has both
offered pure love (lines
6, 3, and 4). Love is
immeasurable (8). It
does not harm you, but
guides to the light (7).
Love only ends when
death parts the lovers
away (12).
The poet was able write
this kind of poem
because he himself is
also a lover. If proved
wrong, then he has
never loved. (final
back in your arms. couplet)
However, the final
couplet is whispering
me that we must not let
ourselves be drowned
with foolishness in love.