Sonnet 47

The speaker's eye and heart make a truce: when one is starved for the beloved, the other comforts it—the eye shows the beloved's picture to the heart, the heart shows its love-thoughts to the eye.

Original

Modern

1 Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,

Between my eye and heart a treaty has been made,

'League' = alliance; the war of Sonnet 46 is resolved through agreement.

2 And each doth good turns now unto the other,

And each now does favors for the other,

3 When that mine eye is famished for a look,

When my eye is starving for a glimpse of you,

'Famished' emphasizes visual hunger; sight is food.

4 Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;

Or my heart, drowning in love, chokes on its own sighs,

'Smother' suggests the heart is suffocating in its own emotion.

5 With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast,

Then my eye gorges on your portrait,

The picture becomes a substitute feast for starved sight.

6 And to the painted banquet bids my heart:

And invites my heart to this painted feast,

'Painted banquet' is the portrait—an elaborate metaphor for image-as-nourishment.

7 Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest,

At other times my eye becomes my heart's guest,

The roles reverse: now the heart is the host, the eye the guest—suggesting reciprocal nourishment.

8 And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.

And partakes of the heart's loving thoughts,

The eye is refreshed by the heart's internal visions—a symmetrical exchange.

Volta The volta shifts from the eye-heart drama to a larger truth: the beloved's absence is bridged by picture and thought, making the beloved 'present still' despite being away.

9 So either by thy picture or my love,

So whether through your image or my love,

10 Thyself away, art present still with me,

The resolution of absence through paradoxical presence

You, though absent, remain present with me,

The volta's resolution: picture and thought overcome physical absence, making presence paradoxical.

11 For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,

For you cannot travel further than my thoughts can go,

12 And I am still with them, and they with thee.

And I remain with my thoughts, and my thoughts with you.

A chain of presence: speaker—thoughts—beloved. Thought becomes the eternal connector.

13 Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight

Or when my thoughts rest, your image before my eyes

14 Awakes my heart, to heart’s and eye’s delight.

Awakens my heart, to the joy of both heart and eye.

The couplet celebrates the picture as the medium of reunion, awakening both organs of love.

The Economics of Substitute Presence

Sonnet 47 establishes a careful economy: picture and thought are not the beloved, but they are the closest available substitutes. They are 'banquets' for starved appetite—adequate nourishment for hunger, though inferior to actual contact. The poem validates this substitute system: eye and heart learn to feed each other, creating a circuit of partial presence. This is the practical mechanism of the absence sonnets—how love survives when the beloved is inaccessible.

The Paradox of Mediated Presence

Lines 9–12 contain the sequence's boldest claim: through picture and thought, the beloved is 'present still' despite being absent. This is not self-deception but a sophisticated theory of love's immateriality. The beloved cannot escape the speaker's thoughts; thought-travel is faster than any physical distance. The picture keeps the beloved visible, the thought keeps them immanent. Mediation—picture and thought—becomes the truest form of presence.

If this happened today

A long-distance lover alternates between scrolling photos (eye feeding heart) and remembering intimate conversations (heart feeding eye). Neither is the beloved, but together they create a circuit of partial presence. The phone becomes the medium of truce between longing (heart) and seeing (eye).

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