Sonnet 81

The Rival Poet

Notes

TLN 1121archaic vocab
“live your epitaph to make”
An epitaph is an inscription composed for a gravestone or a formal tribute written after a person's death. The speaker imagines either outliving the youth and composing his lasting memorial, or dying first and being forgotten while the youth survives.
TLN 1127rhetorical device
“common grave, When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie”
A 'common grave' is an ordinary, unmarked burial plot with no monument — the fate of servants, the poor, and the unremembered. The poet contrasts his own anonymous burial with the youth's preservation 'entombed in men's eyes': alive in the sight (and minds) of readers, the youth will be more truly housed than any stone tomb could manage.
historical The sonnet form
TLN 1133archaic vocab
“such virtue hath my pen, Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men”
'Virtue' here means power or efficacy — the inherent capacity to produce an effect — not the modern sense of moral goodness. The poet says his pen has the power ('such virtue') to keep the youth alive in the most living medium there is: human breath and human speech.
historical The Fair Youth, the Dark Lady, and the Rival Poet