# Newsletters > Shakespeare's Sonnet-a-Day >  Sonnet #8

## Admin

Sonnet #8

VIII.

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'

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## dramasnot6

This sonnet is seriously contextually loaded! Willy is preaching some heavy cultural prescriptions about how to live one's life, this almost reminds me of many messages I have seen conveyed in Chinese literature about the importance of community,family and kinship. 
The content of this sonnet is also historically fascinating, considering how individualistic Western society has presented itself to be in modern day.

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