Sonnet Analysis

1. Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?/
(This line means happiness is shown through music, so why hear it sadly and ruin it?)
2. Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy/
(Happy people don't fight with other happy people and they delight in the company of others.)
3. Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,

(Why love someone if they don't love you back just as much?)
4. Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?/
(Do you enjoy something that pains you?)
5. If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,

(If the agreement of perfect people)
6. By unions married, do offend thine ear,
(When well tuned sounds are together, if it discomforts you.)
7. They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
(They will gently reprimand those who are offended.)
8. In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear./
(While you are single you are missing the parts you should play in a marriage.)
9. Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

(When two strings are played together on a string instrument it makes better harmony.)
10. Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;

(The strings strike each other in a pleasant order.)
11. Resembling sire and child and happy mother,/
(The strings making harmony together resemble a happy family of a mother, father, and child.)
12. Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:

(The happy family sings all together in harmony.)
13. Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,

(They aren't actually singing but them being together makes a song and they are in such great synchronization that it sounds like one person.)
14. Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'
(Being single means that you will never have a family producing harmony.)

I chose this sonnet because the word music in the first line caught my eye. Music is a commonly used metaphor and I wanted to see how this sonnet would use it. It ended up focusing on the harmony of a family together and how the sounds of strings (members of a happy family) mesh together to create beautiful sounds.