In another sonnet one phase of this argument is given a detailed treatment, and the poet’s object is to praise the beauty of his friend by describing its contrast with the beauty of earth, just as if he were speaking of absolute beauty. In this sonnet he uses the Platonic phraseology of the substance and the shadow, by which he means first, the reality that makes a thing what it is, the substance, not the matter or stuff of which it is made; and second, the reflection of that reality in the objective world, the shadow of the substance, not the obscuration of light.[10] He thus writes of his friend’s beauty as if it were the substance of beauty, beauty absolute, of which all other beauty is but a reflection. “What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend? Since every one hath, every one, one shade, And you, but one, can every shadow lend. Describe _Adonis_, and the counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you; On _Helen’s_ cheek all art of beauty set, And you in _Grecian_ tires are painted new: Speak of the spring and foison of the year, The one doth shadow of your beauty show, The other as your bounty doth appear; And you in every blesséd shape we know, In all external grace you have some part, But you like none, none you, for constant heart.” (liii.) Spenser, too, praises his beloved by conceiving her as absolute beauty, of which all other objects are but shadows. In the light of her beauty all the glory of the world appears but a vain show. “My hungry eyes through greedy covetize, still to behold the object of their paine: with no contentment can themselves suffize. but having pine and having not complaine. For lacking it they cannot lyfe sustayne, and having it they gaze on it the more: in their amazement lyke _Narcissus_ vaine whose eyes him starv’d: so plenty makes me poore. Yet are mine eyes so filled with the store of that faire sight, that nothing else they brooke, but lothe the things which they did like before, and can no more endure on them to looke. All this worlds glory seemeth vayne to me, and all their showes but shadowes saving she.” (xxxv.) In George Daniel the idea of the substance and shadow again occurs. He says that it is enough for him if he may behold his mistress’s face, although others may boast of her favors; for in contemplating her glories he sees how all other forms are but empty shadows of her perfection.