Which inward Sunne to heroicke mindes displaies.
Vertue of late with vertuous care to stir
Love of himselfe, takes Stellas shape, that hee
To mortal eyes might sweetly shine in her.
It is most true, for since I did her see,
Vertues great beautie in her face I prove,
And finde defect; for I doe burne in love.”
(xxv.)
Shakespeare is able to praise the beauty of the subject of his sonnets by identifying him with the absolute beauty of the Platonic philosophy, and by describing him in accordance with this notion. Thus he confesses that his argument is simply the fair, kind, and true, back of which statement may be inferred the theory upheld by Platonism that the good, the beautiful, and the true are but different phases of one reality. His love, he says, cannot be called idolatry because his songs are directed to this theme, for only in his friend are these three themes united into one.
“Let not my love be call’d idolatry,