Why hear st thou music sadly

The speaker employs a metaphor of music in attempting to persuade the young man to realize that both marriage as well a music produce a lovely harmony. The speaker asks the young man about this gloomy expression, stating, "Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy. The speaker continues to query the lad about his response to the music by asking him if he would like to receive that which he was glad to have or if receiving what pleases him would disappoint him.

The speaker wishes for the young man to comprehend a harmonious life like musical melody is to be attained with a solid marriage; the metaphor of harmonious music seems to remain ineffectual because the young lad appears to have separated out individual parts of the music for pleasure instead hearing the sum of the harmonious parts, and the speaker hopes to make the young man realize that a harmonious marriage that produces beautiful offspring is as pleasing to the world as a piece of beautiful music, which has its various parts working together to produce the whole.

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Resembling sire and child and happy mother, Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:.

The speaker then compares the family of father, mother, and child to the strings that when played in the proper sequence result in the lovely song: "one pleasing note do sing.

The speaker is convinced that if the young man fails to pass on his pleasing features, he will have wasted his life. He also alludes to the mother of those beautiful offspring. If the young man marries and produces those lovely heirs, the union will also be adding to the world a "happy mother. The couplet finds the speaker, as usual, nearly begging the lad to understand that if he remains a bachelor, thus producing no family, no offspring, his life will have no music and will continue without the wonderful qualities of harmony and beauty.

The music metaphor, thus, has offered beauty as a goal as well as the peace and harmony that the speaker desires for the young man. Marine Biology. Electrical Engineering. Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy: Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly, Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Resembling sire and child and happy mother, Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing: Whose speechless song being many, seeming one, Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.

From the Latin confundere 'to pour together'. Being single you will be effectively nothing. The number one was considered proverbially to be equivalent to nothing perhaps in the context of very large numbers. As in Sonn In things of great receipt with ease we prove Among a number one is reckon'd none: There is also the meaning 'You will turn out to be neither song, nor note, nor harmony, nor happy family'. The theme of the youth's failure to marry and to have children is continued.

A lesson is drawn from his apparent sadness in listening to music. Music itself is concord and harmony, similar to that which reigns in the happy household of father, child and mother, as if they were separate strings in music which reverberate mutually. The young man is made sad by this harmony because he does not submit to it.

His love, perceiving how he is enrag'd, Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag'd. His testy master goeth about to take him; When lo! As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them, Out-stripping crows that strive to over-fly them. I prophesy they death, my living sorrow, If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow. William Shakespeare Three Songs Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,-- The wild waves whist-- Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.

Hark, hark! Bow, wow, The watch-dogs bark: Bow, wow. I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow! This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That does not bite so nigh As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered not. Academy of American Poets Educator Newsletter.

Teach This Poem. Compare The Merchant of Venice : The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted.

Sweets with sweets war not 2 : you are sweet, thus you should delight in things that are also sweet i. Why lovest thou The notes rebuke the young friend for not participating in life's harmony by remaining single. In singleness Most editors reference Dowden's annotation noting that the line is an allusion to the common saying "one is no number" see also Sonnet