Sonnet 69
Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
reputation
appearance
virtue
criticism
Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds;
Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The solve is this, that thou dost common grow.
What It Means
The world praises the young man's outward appearance. Shakespeare agrees with that praise. But when people start thinking about his inner life — his actions, his behavior — they draw a different conclusion. The word 'common' in the final couplet suggests the young man is consorting with low company, and it's making his true worth look less than his face suggests. This is a more critical sonnet than it first appears: the praise in the first eight lines is undercut by the final six.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence. Sonnet 69 introduces a note of genuine criticism — the first suggestion that the young man's behavior doesn't match his appearance.
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