Tired with All These, for Restful Death I Cry is the first line of Sonnet 66 by the great English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare’s sonnets were printed in 1609, when the poet was already a well-established playwright. The dates of the poems are unknown. Shakespeare probably wrote the sonnets over a period of years. There are 154 sonnets in the sequence, though some scholars believe that a different author may have written Sonnets 153 and 154, which focus on Cupid, the god of love in Roman mythology. Only two of the sonnets appeared before 1609, in a book of poetry called The Passionate Pilgrim (1599). See Shakespeare, William.
Like almost all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Sonnet 66 consists of three quatrains (four-line units) followed by a concluding couplet (two-line unit). Each quatrain has a rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, efef, with the final couplet a rhyming one (gg).
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry: As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, And simple truth miscalled simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill. Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.
Sonnet 66 is one of the most melancholy and pessimistic sonnets in the sequence. Critics have compared its weary, resigned tone to Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, “To be or not to be…” (Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1). In both, the speaker contemplates the release of death, as compared to the petty toils of mortal life. In this sonnet, the speaker constructs a building argument and reaches a defiant, if grim, conclusion. The temptations of death are set up as a contrast to love, the force that keeps him alive.
Sonnet 66 is unique in its use of anaphora, or repetition, to emphasize its argument. Ten successive lines begin with the word “And,” thereby detracting from the usual organization of theme by quatrains. The poem is essentially a catalog of bitter complaints, with its opening line preparing the reader for the list that follows. “Tired with all these” (that is, the things he is about to describe), the poet longs for death. The sonnet’s examples include faith abandoned, honor misplaced, virtue falsely accused of vice, and genuine (“right”) perfection disgraced.
At another level, the life the poet condemns is not just his private sphere, but an entire corrupt society. The reference in line 8 to “limping sway,” or unsteady authority, hints at ineffectual leadership. Art made “tongue-tied by authority” suggests control over creative expression, perhaps indicating official censorship. Meanwhile, the real value of things goes unrecognized. “Simple,” or honest, truth, is misunderstood for “simplicity” (as in naïve or simplistic attitudes). Goodness, a captive, is a servant to “captain ill,” or an evil worldly authority. Like Hamlet, the poet seems to bear the sorrows of the world upon his shoulders.
Twelve lines of argument prepare the way for the concluding couplet. The poet employs the device of repetition to echo the sonnet’s opening phrase, “Tired with all these…”. He reiterates that his fatigue with the world would make him happy to depart, except that “to die, I leave my love alone.” Interestingly, the poet does not fear leaving his love, but the idea of leaving that love “alone” in the world. This is the ultimate gesture of selfless love, though there is also the suggestion that the speaker possesses a special protective power. He chooses to remain with the loved one in the unhappy world he despises, despite his desire to depart.
For more information about Shakespeare’s sonnets, see Shakespeare, William (Shakespeare’s poems).
