Sonnet 46

Sonnet 35
Shakespeare
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.
Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Sonnet 46 Analysis
	Sonnet 46 by William Shakespeare is about the fight between the eye’s and the heart over love. It discusses the age old question of love and lust, and how infatuation is a battle of what we see on the outside, like the attractiveness of a face and body, and what we see on the inside of a person.  The focus of this sonnet is which is stronger; the love of beauty or the love of the person. In the first quitrent “Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, How to divide the conquest of thy sight;” Shakespeare is talking about how his eyes and heart are at war, and cannot divide the love between the two. In the next two lines he talks about how he’s unable to look upon her picture because he can’t look upon it with love, but only lust. In the same fashion, his heart tries to prevent his eyes from the right of seeing a picture. The second quitrent discusses that he wants her love to reside is his heart, and to be private and intimate without being pierced by the eyes. Unfortunately the eyes deny this and say that only her beauty lies in him. The third quitrent talks about that to decide the verdict of love or lust, it must be taken to court, but all the jury is made of thoughts from the heart. It is determined that to heart and eyes must be equal in their love, and the couplet sums up this decision, for the outward appearance is given to the eyes, and the inner love of the women is given to the heart. This sonnet uses law terms as an analogy to the battle between the heart and eyes, words like “verdict”, “plea”, “defendant”, and “empanelled” support this. It describes the fight between love and lust as a heated debate in a courtroom, with each side making good points, but unfortunately the jury is made up of thoughts that live in his heart, making the court ruling rather biased. This could explain why in the end the eyes are given the outward appearance, a rather shallow compensation compared to love of her heart, which is quite deep of reward.