108

  MODERN TEXT

  What could I possibly write that I haven’t written already to show you how constant and faithful my soul is? What else is there to say, what new thing can I invent, that would express either my love or your value? There’s nothing, sweet boy. And yet, just as with prayers to God, I have to keep saying the same thing over and over again each day, without thinking that these old praises are old. You’re mine, I’m yours, just like when I first honored your name in writing. My love for you, which is everlasting, doesn’t care about the effects of age, nor does it acknowledge your wrinkles, but always inspires me to describe my feelings as if they were still young. I see in you the original source of my love for you, even though your age and appearance would suggest that the reason for that love is dead.

  109

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  O never say that I was false of heart,

  Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.

  As easy might I from myself depart

  As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie.

  That is my home of love; if I have ranged,

  Like him that travels I return again,

  Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,

  So that myself bring water for my stain.

  Never believe, though in my nature reigned

  All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,

  That it could so preposterously be stained

  To leave for nothing all thy sum of good.

  For nothing this wide universe I call,

  Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

  109

  MODERN TEXT

  Oh, never say that I was unfaithful to you in my heart, even though my absence from you suggested that my love had weakened. I can’t separate myself from my feelings for you anymore than I can separate myself from myself. You are my home, and if I strayed away from you, like a traveler I have returned again, right at the appointed time, with my feelings unchanged, so I’m making up for my misdeed. Even though I have the same weaknesses in my nature as everyone made of flesh and blood, don’t ever believe that I could be so morally compromised as to leave someone as good as you in exchange for something worthless. The entire universe except for you, my love, means nothing to me. You’re everything to me.

  110

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  Alas ’tis true, I have gone here and there,

  And made myself a motley to the view,

  Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

  Made old offenses of affections new.

  Most true it is that I have looked on truth

  Askance and strangely; but by all above,

  These blenches gave my heart another youth,

  And worse essays proved thee my best of love.

  Now all is done, save what shall have no end;

  Mine appetite I never more will grind

  On newer proof, to try an older friend,

  A god in love, to whom I am confined.

  Then give me welcome, next my heav’n the best,

  Ev’n to thy pure and most most loving breast.

  110

  MODERN TEXT

  Alas, it’s true, I have gone here and there, and made myself look foolish, and allowed my thoughts to be divided, and acted as if the most valuable thing were worthless, and used my new friends to commit the old infidelities I’ve committed before. It’s very true that I’ve treated true love strangely and with disdain. But I swear by heaven, these moments when I’ve swerved aside have made my heart young again, and by trying out other people I’ve proved to myself that you’re the best person I love. Now I’ve finished with everything except for our love, which will have no end. I will no longer whet my appetite for new lovers, causing suffering to my old friend, the god of love to whom I’m now limiting myself. So welcome me back into your pure and loving heart; to me, you’re the next best thing to heaven.

  111

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

  The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

  That did not better for my life provide

  Than public means which public manners breeds.

  Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

  And almost thence my nature is subdued

  To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:

  Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,

  Whilst like a willing patient I will drink

  Potions of eisel ’gainst my strong infection;

  No bitterness that I will bitter think,

  Nor double penance, to correct correction.

  Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,

  Ev’n that your pity is enough to cure me.

  111

  MODERN TEXT

  I know you curse my bad luck for having no better way to make a living than in front of the public, which has had a bad effect on my morals and behavior. This is why I have a bad name, and coming into contact with the public so much has polluted my very nature, just like a cloth-dyer’s hand becomes stained with his dye. So take pity on me and hope that I can go back to being the way I would have been if I hadn’t been contaminated by the public; meanwhile, I’ll drink bitter medicines made of vinegar to cure myself of this infection. I won’t think that the medicine’s bitter no matter how bitter it is, nor will I protest at having to do double penance to try to undo the bad influence. So pity me, dear friend, and I assure you: Your pity alone is enough to cure me.

  The speaker’s reference to his public profession is usually interpreted as referring to Shakespeare’s profession as an actor.

  112

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  Your love and pity doth th’ impression fill

  Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;

  For what care I who calls me well or ill,

  So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow?

  You are my all the world, and I must strive

  To know my shames and praises from your tongue;

  None else to me, nor I to none alive,

  That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.

  In so profound abysm I throw all care

  Of others’ voices, that my adder’s sense

  To critic and to flatt’rer stoppèd are.

  Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:

  You are so strongly in my purpose bred

  That all the world besides methinks y’are dead.

  112

  MODERN TEXT

  (Continuing from Sonnet 111) Your love and pity make up for the damage popular opinion has done to my reputation, since what do I care who calls me good or bad as long as you gloss over what’s bad about me and acknowledge my good? You’re the entire world to me, and I have to strive to learn what’s good or bad about me from what you say. No one else matters to me, and I matter to no one else alive. Your opinion is so powerful with me that it determines what’s right and wrong. I care so little about what other people say that it’s as if I threw their voices into a bottomless pit—that’s how deaf I am to their flattery and criticism. Notice how I disregard the fact that the rest of the world neglects me. You matter so much to me that you’re dead to the rest of the world.

  Editors are unsure what line 8 actually means. The italicized translation represents this editor’s best guess.

  113

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,

  And that which governs me to go about

  Doth part his function, and is partly blind,

  Seems seeing, but effectually is out;

  For it no form delivers to the heart

  Of bird, of flow’r, or shape which it doth latch.

  Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,

  Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;

  For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,

  The most sweet favor or deformèd’st creature,

  The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night,

  The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.

  Incapable of more, replete with you,

  My most true mind thus makes mine untrue.

  113

  MODERN TEXT

  Since I left you, I’m so absorbed in my own thoughts that I partly see where I’m going and partly don’t. For my vision doesn’t focus on the shapes of birds or flowers or anything else it lands on. My mind simply isn’t on the living things that my eyes show it, nor do I remember the things I see. For whether I see the rudest or gentlest sight, the sweetest-looking or the most deformed creature, the mountain or the sea, the day or the night, the crow or the dove, my vision shapes them so they look like you. Incapable of seeing anything else and filled with your image, my faithfulness to you is making me see everything wrongly.

  114

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you,

  Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery?

  Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,

  And that your love taught it this alchemy,

  To make of monsters and things indigest

  Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,

  Creating every bad a perfect best

  As fast as objects to his beams assemble?

  O ’tis the first; ’tis flattery in my seeing,

  And my great mind most kingly drinks it up.

  Mine eye well knows what with his gust is greeing,

  And to his palate doth prepare the cup.

  If it be poisoned, ’tis the lesser sin

  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

  114

  MODERN TEXT

  (Continuing from Sonnet 113) Is it the case that my mind, flattered by your love, has become susceptible to pleasurable delusions? Or is it the case that my eyes are seeing accurately, and my love for you has given me magical powers to turn monsters and shapeless things into angels that look like your sweet self, transforming every bad sight into the best and most perfect thing as fast as it comes into my field of vision? Oh, the first is true: My eyes are deluded, and my mind accepts these delusions like a king accepts flattery. My eye knows perfectly well what I like to see, and it shows me what it knows I’ll enjoy. Though its visions are poisoned by falsehood, my eye can be partially excused by the fact that it likes these false visions too and consumes them first, like a servant who tastes the king’s food to see if it’s poisoned.

  115

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

  Ev’n those that said I could not love you dearer.

  Yet then my judgment knew no reason why

  My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.

  But reck’ning time, whose millioned accidents

  Creep in ’twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,

  Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,

  Divert strong minds to the course of alt’ring things.

  Alas, why, fearing of time’s tyranny,

  Might I not then say, “Now I love you best,”

  When I was certain o’er incertainty,

  Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?

  Love is a babe; then might I not say so,

  To give full growth to that which still doth grow?

  115

  MODERN TEXT

  I lied in those poems I wrote before where I said I couldn’t love you any more than I did already. Back then I had no reason to think that my love, which was already burning intensely, could burn any brighter. Instead, I was depending on the fact that the passage of time—together with the millions of unexpected events that can come between lovers’ promises and change even the decrees of kings—might darken a lover’s sacred beauty, take the edge off of a lover’s keenest intentions, and force the strongest minds to adapt to changing circumstances. Alas, why didn’t I say back then, when I was worried about time’s destructive power, “I love you best now”? I was so certain of my feelings despite the uncertainty, and I was ready to say my present happiness was complete, though I had doubts about everything to come. Love itself is a baby, so wouldn’t it have been natural for me to have said that my love for you was fully grown, though it keeps growing?

  “Love itself is a baby”: Cupid, the god of love, was traditionally depicted as a baby boy.

  116

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  Let me not to the marriage of true minds

  Admit impediments. Love is not love

  Which alters when it alteration finds,

  Or bends with the remover to remove.

  O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark

  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

  It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

  Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

  Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

  Within his bending sickle’s compass come:

  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

  But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

  If this be error and upon me proved,

  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

  116

  MODERN TEXT

  I hope I may never acknowledge any reason why minds that truly love each other shouldn’t be joined together. Love isn’t really love if it changes when it sees the beloved change or if it disappears when the beloved leaves. Oh no, love is a constant and unchanging light that shines on storms without being shaken; it is the star that guides every wandering boat. And like a star, its value is beyond measure, though its height can be measured. Love is not under time’s power, though time has the power to destroy rosy lips and cheeks. Love does not alter with the passage of brief hours and weeks, but lasts until Doomsday. If I’m wrong about this and can be proven wrong, I never wrote, and no man ever loved.

  117

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all

  Wherein I should your great deserts repay,

  Forgot upon your dearest love to call,

  Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

  That I have frequent been with unknown minds,

  And giv’n to time your own dear purchased right;

  That I have hoisted sail to all the winds

  Which should transport me farthest from your sight.

  Book both my willfulness and errors down,

  And on just proof surmise accumulate.

  Bring me within the level of your frown,

  But shoot not at me in your wakened hate,

  Since my appeal says I did strive to prove

  The constancy and virtue of your love.

  117

  MODERN TEXT

  Accuse me like this: Say that I’ve neglected every opportunity to repay the great obligation I owe you; that I’ve forgotten to invoke your precious love, though every day I’m more and more bound to you. Say that I’ve spent too much time with strangers, giving away the time that you have a right to spend with me. Say that I’ve let every wind blow me as far away as possible from you. Write a list of all the stubborn and wrong things I’ve done, and put together a lot of speculations about my other misdeeds based on what you already know. Get ready to frown at me, but don’t frown at me because of what I’ve done to awaken new hatred in you, since I did it all to test the constancy and strength of your love.

  118

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  Like as to make our appetites more keen

  With eager compounds we our palate urge;

  As, to prevent our maladies unseen,

  We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;

  Ev’n so, being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness,

  To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;

  And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness

  To be diseased ere that there was true needing.

  Thus policy in love, t’ anticipate

  The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,

  And brought to medicine a healthful state

  Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured;

  But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,

  Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

  118

  MODERN TEXT

  Just as we like to sharpen our appetites by eating pungent combinations of food or make ourselves vomit in order to ward off future illness, so, in the same way, because I was so full of your sweetness (not that it’s ever cloying), I decided to switch from you to a more bitter diet. And because I was tired of being so healthy, I decided it would be good to make myself sick, using other people to keep from getting sick of you. With this wise relationship strategy, which I adopted in anticipation of problems that didn’t exist, I actually became used to cheating on you. I applied medicine to a relationship that was healthy to begin with, attempting to cure something totally good by applying evil to it. But I learned from this—and I think what I learned is true—that the drugs I used are poisonous to me, since I’m so lovesick over you.

  This is a reference to the Renaissance practice of “purging,” which was thought to be healthy.

  119

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  What potions have I drunk of siren tears,

  Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,

  Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,

  Still losing when I saw myself to win!

  What wretched errors hath my heart committed,

  Whilst it hath thought itself so blessèd never!

  How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted

  In the distraction of this madding fever!