Question

Read Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130.”

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,—
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

What is the central idea of the second quatrain?

The speaker gives his mistress roses and perfume.
The speaker’s mistress is like a rose—beautiful and fragrant.
His mistress’s cheeks are not pink, and her breath is not sweet.
Roses do not look and smell as sweet as the speaker’s mistress.

Answer 1

His mistress’s cheeks are not pink, and her breath is not sweet.

Lines 5–8 state he has seen roses but does not see that color in her cheeks, and some perfumes are more pleasant than the smell of her breath—rejecting conventional flattering comparisons.