Shakespeare’s Sonnet 46: Putting Things in the Right Order

Is it our hearts or eyes that should have the greater say in matters of love? A detail from a portrait of Eleanor of Lauderdale," circa 1780-81, by Angelica Kauffman. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Public Domain

Great literature, while seeming to highlight one important insight, often seems to be about much, much more. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 46 is an example:

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, How to divide the conquest of thy sight; Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar, My heart mine eye the freedom of that right. My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie, A closet never pierced with crystal eyes, But the defendant doth that plea deny, And says in him thy fair appearance lies. To ’cide this title is impannelled A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart; And by their verdict is determined The clear eye’s moiety, and the dear heart’s part: As thus: mine eye’s due is thine outward part, And my heart’s right, thine inward love of heart.

The poem first tells us about human love: There is a rivalry between physical attraction on one hand and, on the other, love for the inner qualities and virtues of the beloved. Shakespeare then explains how the rivalry is resolved in such a way that both kinds of desire remain in balance.

However, Shakespeare describes this rivalry and resolution within the individual in a way that also applies to groups of human beings and makes implicit claims about how hierarchies work.

Idealized portrait of William Shakespeare, 1775, by Angelica Kauffman. Public Domain

These themes arise from the very first line of the poem. While the poet is an individual human being, within himself he finds two parts: his eye and heart, which seem to have conflicting desires and interests. He describes this discord as a “war,” which by definition typically involves large numbers of humans, not just one. As Shakespeare moves on, he will compare himself to a body of warriors, and then to a body of jurors.

Order Within Oneself

The first eight lines might seem farfetched and fanciful, but they are important, mortally so, according to the Bard. We all know people who have let their eyes win the war and keep away or “bar” the heart from any deeper relationship, such as mismatched lovers who are only concerned with the physical pleasure they get out of each other, or family members who make friends solely based on appearances and then get betrayed.

But we also know that, as human beings with bodies, the appearances and physical presence of our friends and family are necessary for loving them. Old married couples started their love with that spark of attraction and have kept it glowing. Life separates us from our high school and college friends, but those friendships usually only stay as strong as we keep them with phone calls and reunions. If our hearts kept our love in a “closet” away from “crystal eyes,” ears, and the senses in general, it would be a museum piece, not true love.

As the poem continues, Shakespeare transfers the dispute to the courtroom by characterizing the fight between heart and eye as a legal proceeding, with each party stating its case. Happily, for the human being, the jury comes up with a decision that allows each to flourish and coexist:

But the defendant doth that plea deny, And says in him thy fair appearance lies. To ’cide this title is impannelled A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart; And by their verdict is determined

This satisfactory ending can almost seem too satisfactory; boring, even trite: Everyone wins a prize. However, that would be to ignore one crucial thing: what Shakespeare says about the membership of the jury. Shakespeare skillfully uses juridical language in the ninth line: The “title,” or decision of the court, is to be decided by a “panel,” that is, a jury. The makeup of this jury is described in the next line: “thoughts” that are “tenants of the heart.”

A portrait of Eleanor of Lauderdale, circa 1780-81, by Angelica Kauffman. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Public Domain

When we consider these lines, we are faced with a striking statement: The jury is made up entirely of members who favor one side of the dispute. This would be considered utterly unjust in a normal courtroom. Rather than address this obvious impropriety, Shakespeare arrives at the “verdict.” We would expect the utter annihilation of the eye; yet, the eye receives exactly what it delights in and is able to appreciate: “the outward part.”

Shakespeare therefore is not just indicating that both kinds of love, heart and eye, need to be given their proper due. More profoundly, he is pointing out that the heart’s direction is needed in order for both heart and eye to have what they need.

This is not fair in the sense that the heart and eye do not have an equal say; it is just that the heart, along with the intellect, has the good of the whole person in mind.

Order in an Army

This observation applies not only to an individual lover, but to certain groups of human beings. (I say “certain,” because there are places where the analogy clearly doesn’t work—for example, actual courtrooms.) Shakespeare is saying first that an individual must properly order his love by fulfilling the needs of both body and heart. But most importantly, this fulfillment must be directed by the heart, not the body.

In the same way, there are also organizations and bodies of human beings in which not everyone gets an equal say, but where good leaders are tasked with fulfilling the needs of everyone, both themselves and others. For example, in an army (which is not a “community,” but an organization for defense), which is the first thing Shakespeare compares the human being to in this sonnet. He sets up the battle between heart and eye with a startling comparison: Imagine a general and common soldier fighting over “how to divide the conquest” like the eye and heart do in the second line.

The comparison is not only startling, but ends up being extremely precise. Just as neither heart nor eye can love by itself, nor can a general win a war without common soldiers, and vice versa. The general without the soldiers is a plan without its execution. The soldiers without the general are directionless and are unable to unite their individual forces into something greater. They must work together.

Then the question becomes: How they will work together? There are two options: The soldiers will control the general, or the general will direct the soldiers. The former doesn’t work at all, and the latter works very well—if the general is a good one.

Neither wins without the other, and when they work together, the soldiers obtain the “outward part” of the victory because they physically perform the action, while the general gains the “inward” glory, the glory of being the soul animating his men toward victory. Just as the eyes are only able to have the pleasure of beholding a beloved because of the heart, the soldiers conquer only because they have been deployed well by the general.

Order in a Family

Shakespeare’s insights may also be applied to a family’s hierarchy. The family is not a free association of individuals, although it begins from the free association of man and woman in the union of marriage. The children have no say in being brought into the world, and little say in how they are raised in the first few years of their lives. The “panel,” the “jury” of household decisions, is the father and mother, tenants of each other’s hearts.

If just decisions could only be made when power is equally distributed, it would seem patently outrageous to expect just and good decisions regarding the children, the most dispossessed stakeholders imaginable, because their membership is without consent.

The irony of these considerations reveals the wisdom of Shakespeare. Just as in the rightly ordered human being, the heart is master of the senses and at the same their true benefactor, so in the rightly ordered family, the heads of the household serve the happiness of the children. Similarly, just as the heart enjoys a deeper happiness than the eye, because a deeper happiness is proper to it, so with parents and children.

It is a truth that children discover when they become parents. The joy, however mixed with pain, that they have in raising their children is above and beyond the joy they experienced from their own parents’ love when they were growing up. Of course, it then makes them better able to appreciate their parents.

A person, an army, a family: They all require a hierarchy of their higher and lower part, and the higher part must seek the higher good of the whole, including the lower parts. It is not a fair arrangement in terms of power, but it is just. It’s not just one way, it’s the only way that individuals, armies, and families can achieve the welfare of all their members.

The well-being of a family depends on the wisdom of its leaders: the mother and father. "The Family of the Earl of Gower," 1772, by Angelica Kaufmann. National Museum of Women in the Arts. Public Domain

All of these insights—and surely, many, many more—lie beneath the surface of Sonnet 46. This is just another example of the reward in store for anyone who ponders great poetry, especially that of Shakespeare.