Sonnet 101

Constancy and the Muse

1 O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
2 For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?
3 Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
4 So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
5 Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
6 'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;
7 Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
8 But best is best, if never intermix'd'?
9 Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
10 Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee
11 To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
12 And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.
13 Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
14 To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

Notes

TLN 1402archaic vocab
“O truant Muse what shall be thy amends”
'Truant' means one who shirks a duty or deserts a post without leave. The poet addresses his own Muse as a defaulting pupil who owes reparation ('amends'). The schoolroom reproach reverses the usual convention in which the poet humbly petitions the Muse for help; here the poet is her judge.
TLN 1403wordplay
“truth in beauty dy'd”
'Dy'd' is the past tense of 'to dye' -- to color by steeping -- not of 'to die.' Truth has been dyed into beauty: the beloved is a living fusion in which truth takes a beautiful outward form, and beauty is given inward substance by truth. The 16th-century spellings of 'dye' and 'die' overlapped, so the shadow of mortal dying quietly presses on the image.
TLN 1407wordplay
“Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd; Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay”
'Colour' carries two meanings: the natural hue already in the beloved, and rhetorical embellishment -- the verbal 'colours' a poet applies. 'Pencil' is a painter's fine brush (not a writing implement), and 'to lay' means to apply pigment to a surface. The Muse's imagined excuse is that perfect natural beauty needs no cosmetic paint and no poetic ornamentation, because truth is already 'fix'd' (permanently stained) in the beloved.
TLN 1411cultural context
“for't lies in thee To make him much outlive a gilded tomb”
A 'gilded tomb' is a stone monument covered in gold leaf -- the most expensive memorial the Elizabethan wealthy could commission. The speaker argues that verse outlasts even these imposing physical structures. The claim echoes Sonnet 55 ('Not marble, nor the gilded monuments / Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rime') and goes back to the classical boast that poetry is more permanent than bronze.
TLN 1414archaic vocab
“Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how To make him seem long hence as he shows now”
'Office' means the specific duty attached to one's role or station -- not a room (OED s.v. 'office', n., sense 5). 'Long hence' means far in the future. The couplet inverts the usual poet-Muse relationship: instead of begging for inspiration the poet declares he will instruct the Muse. Her task is not to praise the beloved but to preserve his exact present appearance across time.