Shakespeare’s speaker begins by wondering who could possibly say more than the simple, perfect truth: you are yourself. Any attempt to exaggerate or embellish that fact only reveals the writer’s poverty of imagination. True poetic skill, he argues, lies in faithfully mirroring the beloved’s natural excellence—not warping it with overblown flattery. The speaker’s tone is both admiring and gently exasperated. He clearly values the person’s beauty and uniqueness, yet he’s frustrated that this same person craves constant praise. That hunger, he warns in the final couplet, backfires: it ruins the very compliments it demands. The overall mood is one of clever, affectionate reproach. Rather than celebrating love with grand declarations, the sonnet turns inward, probing the uneasy relationship between genuine worth and the hollow words we often use to honor it.
Sonnet 84: Who is it that says most, which can say more — Summary
Who is it that says most, which can say more, Than this rich praise,--that you alone, are you? In whose confine immured is the store Which should example where your equal grew. Lean penury within that pen doth dwell That to his subject lends not some small glory; But he that writes of you, if he can tell That you are you, so dignifies his story, Let him but copy what in you is writ, Not making worse what nature made so clear, And such a counterpart shall fame his wit, Making his style admired every where. You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.