Shakespeare’s Sonnet #108 “What’s in the brain that ink may character”

Sonnet 108

What’s in the brain that ink may character
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
What’s new to speak, what new to register,
That may express my love or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must each day say o’er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love’s fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page,
Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would show it dead.

Reading of Sonnet 108

The images in the YouTube video are from an original 1609 edition of Shake-speares Sonnets held by the British Library.  It is one of only thirteen copies in existence.  Images courtesy of the Octavo Corporation.  

Text from Original 1609 Quarto

Transcription courtesy of University of Virginia Library:

What’s in the braine that Inck may character,
Which hath not figur’d to thee my true spirit,
What’s new to speake, what now¹ to register,
That may expresse my loue, or thy deare merit?
Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers diuine,
I must each day say ore the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Euen as when first I hallowed thy faire name.
So that eternall loue in loues fresh case,
Waighes not the dust and iniury of age,
Nor giues to necessary wrinckles place,
But makes antiquitie for aye his page,
Finding the first conceit of loue there bred,
Where time and outward forme would shew it dead,

 

Wording differences between the text and the reading are noted with a superscript:

¹ new (either way OK)