WHO IS SILVIA Interpretation

Quote:

Originally Posted by rockky

What does this phrase mean exactly???

Love doth to her eyes repair, to help him of his blindness,
And, being help'd, inhabits there.

HERE'S THE COMPLETE SONG:

Who is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her, that she might admired be.

Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair, to help him of his blindness,
And, being help'd, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing, that Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

rockky, you're probably long gone by now, but this was a nice exercise (and I'm currently reading Two Gentlemen of Verona), so I'll post my thoughts on this:

The first 3 lines of the song assert that Silvia is holy, fair, and wise, and is admired for these things. This is the given, no mystery.

The 1st line of the middle part wonders if Silvia is as kind as she is fair...this is important because being kind (or showing her swain kindness) would make her beautiful (to the swain). The contrary implication is that if Silvia is unkind (to the swain), then what good is her fairness (physical beauty) to him?

The next line:

Quote:

Love doth to her eyes repair, to help him of his blindness,

Contains a little grammatical trickery, where the verb is placed after its object. Semantically, read it like this:

Quote:

Love doth repair her eyes, to help him of his blindness,

In other words Silvia is in love with the swain, and this repairs (softens) her eyes with love (for the swain), which helps the swain to see that Silvia is kind (to him, and thus beautiful).

The next line:

Quote:

And, being help'd, inhabits there.

Depicts the swain living in Silvia's kindness.