The passionate fervour of this friendship on the Platonic model is accompanied in Shakespeare, as in Michael Angelo, by a submissiveness on the part of the elder friend towards the younger, which, in these two supreme geniuses, affects the modern reader painfully. Each had put off every shred of pride in relation to his idolised young friend. How strange it seems to find Shakespeare calling himself young Herbert's "slave," and assuring him that his time, more precious than that of any other man then living, is of no value, so that his friend may let him wait or summon him to his side as his caprice and fancy dictate. In Sonnet lviii. he speaks of "that God who made me first your slave." Sonnet lvii. runs thus:-- "Being _your slave_, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend, Nor services to do, till you require. Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour, Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, Nor think the bitterness of absence sour, When you have bid your servant once adieu; Nor dare I question with my jealous thought, Where you may be, or your affairs suppose; But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought, Save, where you are how happy you make those." Just as Michael Angelo spoke to Cavalieri of his works as though they were scarcely worth his friend's notice, so does Shakespeare sometimes speak of his verses. In Sonnet xxxii. he begs his friends to "re-survey" them when he is dead:-- "And though they be outstripp'd by every pen, Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, Exceeded by the height of happier men." This humility becomes quite despicable when a breach is threatened between the friends. Shakespeare then repeatedly promises so to blacken himself that his friend shall reap, not shame, but honour, from his faithlessness. In Sonnet lxxxviii.:-- "With mine own weakness being best acquainted, Upon thy part I can set down a story Of faults concealed wherein I am attainted, That thou, in losing me, shalt win much glory." Sonnet lxxxix. is still more strongly worded:-- "Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, To set a form upon desirèd change, As I'll myself disgrace: knowing thy will, I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange; Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue Thy sweet-belovèd name no more shall dwell, Lest I (too much profane) should do it wrong, And haply of our old acquaintance tell. For thee, against myself I'll vow debate, For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate."