rationalizes that it is this very praise which will immortalize the Fair Youth, "to make him much outlive a gilded tomb / and to be praised of ages yet to be" (Sonnet 101, 11-12). The contextual use of the phrase "gilded tomb" potentially refers to two different concepts, one being the meaningless decadence of expensive burial chambers, and the other being a tome as in a large volume of literature. As T. Walker Herbert notes, "tomb and tome could be spelled tombe in the seventeenth century." "Granted that the external evidence is permissive rather than conclusive, let it be supposed to Shakespeare's ear that tome and tomb were sounded enough alike for purposes of a pun." (Herbert, 236, 239) A third concept is suggested by William Empson (p. 138) interpreting "tombe" so that "tomb is formal praise as would be written on a tombstone, whereas real merits of a man are closely connected with his faults." In other words, the poet-speaker is telling the muse he has the power to save his reputation when his social enemies might be writing the elegy or epitaph for his popularity, or possibly that the inner truth which is the source of his outward beauty will outlive the end of that youthful idea of beauty, or even that by the Muse singing his praise, the youth might be encouraged to sustain his lineage, even though he himself may grow old and pass on. Empson suggests that multiple ambiguous readings like this "must all combine to give the line its beauty and there is a sort of ambiguity in not knowing which of them to hold most clearly in mind. Clearly this is involved in all such richness and heightening of effect, and the machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry." Couplet The poet ultimately declares to the Muses that he himself will show the Muse how to immortalize the Fair Youth. This is a significant change in attitude from the poet's previous prayers for inspiration in Sonnet 100, and even the poet's indignation at the beginning of Sonnet 101. The poet has gone from being passively inspired to a self-appointed leader of his own inspiration, which is a show of confidence that the poet does not necessarily maintain throughout the full body of sonnets. References Further reading British poems Sonnets by William Shakespeare