leylandandgoding
Last updated: December 22, 2019
Sonnet 104
The clock at Hampton Court Palace (installed 1540)
A 24-hour clockface overlaid on the Dedication grid.
The target of the arrowhead would seem to be the I at (y,x) coordinates 10-4, Sonnet 104. Stephen Booth notes both that Sonnet 104 refers explicity to a dyall hand, which Booth takes to refer to the hand of watch or a clock; and, Sonnet 104 refers explicitly to the numeral or “figure” on a clock face.
We might then ask, what number on the clock would the dial hand point to? On the grandest clock of the age, the 24-hour clock at Hampton Court Palace this would be the number III .
Sonnet 104 plays on III (eye I eyed) and emphasises the number three.
Sonnet 104
To me, faire friend, you never can be olde,
For as you were when first your eye I ey’d,
Such seemes your beautie still: Three Winters colde,
Have from the forrests shooke three Summers pride,(4)
Three beautious springs to yellow Autumne turn’d,
In processe of the seasons have I seene,
Three Aprill perfumes in three hot Iunes burn’d,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are greene.(8)
Ah yet doth beauty like a Dyall hand,
Steale from his figure and no pace perceived,
So your sweete hew, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceaved.(12)
For feare of which, heare this thou age unbred,
Ere you were borne was beauties summer dead.
Line notes
1 Is Hunnis the fair friend who never can be old?
2 Eye I eyed III is the numeral on the 24-hour clock to which the hand points.
3-6 Three, Three, Three, Three, Three,
9 Like a Dial hand - the hand of a clock or watch (as noted by Booth).
10 Steal is a homophone for steel meaning to engrave. The dial hand acts in the same way as Time doth transfix the flourish and delves the parallels in Sonnet 60. Booth glosses this phrase as:
The dial’s hand (time) takes beauty from the beloved’s appearance”.
9 figure Booth makes the following comment:
figure (1) number (i.e. character denoting a number on the clock face)