Sonnet 80
O, how I faint when I of you do write,
rivalry
confidence
worth
poetry
O, how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame!
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark inferior far to his
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building and of goodly pride:
Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this; my love was my decay.
What It Means
The rival poet is better than Shakespeare, or at least more confident. Shakespeare is a small boat; the rival is a great ship. They sail the same sea — the young man's favor — but the rival cuts through it with confidence Shakespeare can't match. Even if Shakespeare sinks, the young man's worth was what held him up. It's a strikingly self-deprecating sonnet from a writer who was, at this point, probably the best playwright in England.
Context
Part of the Rival Poet group (78–86). The humility is almost certainly rhetorical — designed to disarm and flatter.
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