O benefit of ill, now I find true

  That better is by evil still made better;

  And ruined love when it is built anew

  Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.

  So I return rebuked to my content,

  And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.

  119

  MODERN TEXT

  (Continuing from Sonnet 118) I’ve given myself medicines that seemed seductively sweet but in reality were foul as hell. I forced myself to doubt the things I was hopeful about and to be hopeful about what I should have worried about, always losing just when I expected myself to win! My heart committed wretched errors right at the moment when I thought I had never been more blessed! My eyes have popped out of their sockets in the delirium of this fever! But, oh, the benefits that evil brings! Now I see it’s true that good things can be made even better through evil, and that when you ruin love and then rebuild it, it grows more beautiful than it was at first, as well as stronger and greater. So, having been rebuked for my mistake, I return to the person who makes me happy, and because of my evil deeds I get back three times what I spent.

  120

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  That you were once unkind befriends me now,

  And for that sorrow which I then did feel

  Needs must I under my transgression bow,

  Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.

  For if you were by my unkindness shaken,

  As I by yours, you’ve passed a hell of time,

  And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

  To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.

  O that our night of woe might have rememb’red

  My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,

  And soon to you as you to me then tendered

  The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits!

  But that your trespass now becomes a fee;

  Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

  120

  MODERN TEXT

  The fact that you were once cruel to me helps me now. Because of the sorrow that you made me feel then, I would have to be made of steel not to be bowed down to the ground with guilt over how I’ve hurt you. For if you’ve felt my unkindness to you the way I felt yours to me, you’ve endured a time in hell and I’ve acted like a cruel tyrant, never taking the time to think about how I once suffered when you committed the same crime against me. Oh, how I wish that your earlier sorrow had reminded me of how hard true sorrow hits, so that I would have apologized to you as fast as you apologized to me, giving you the medicine that an injured heart needs most! But your earlier offense against me can now compensate you for what I’ve just done. My offense cancels out yours, and yours must cancel out mine.

  121

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  ’Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,

  When not to be receives reproach of being,

  And the just pleasure lost which is so deemed

  Not by our feeling but by others’ seeing.

  For why should others’ false adulterate eyes

  Give salutation to my sportive blood?

  Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

  Which in their wills count bad what I think good?

  No, I am that I am, and they that level

  At my abuses reckon up their own;

  I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel.

  By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown,

  Unless this general evil they maintain:

  All men are bad, and in their badness reign.

  121

  MODERN TEXT

  It’s better to be vile than to have people think you’re vile, especially when they accuse you of being vile and you’re really not, and then you don’t even get to enjoy doing the thing that people say is vile but that you don’t think is. For why should people who are corrupt themselves get to wink knowingly at my lustful inclinations? And why should people who are even weaker than I pry into my weaknesses, deciding that what I think is good is bad? No, I am what I am, and the people who accuse me are only revealing their own corruptions. Maybe I’m straight, and they’re the ones who are crooked; you can’t measure my actions by their foul thoughts, unless they’re willing to believe that all men are bad and thrive in their badness.

  122

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

  Full charactered with lasting memory,

  Which shall above that idle rank remain

  Beyond all date, ev’n to eternity;

  Or at the least, so long as brain and heart

  Have faculty by nature to subsist;

  Till each to razed oblivion yield his part

  Of thee, thy record never can be missed.

  That poor retention could not so much hold,

  Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;

  Therefore to give them from me was I bold,

  To trust those tables that receive thee more;

  To keep an adjunct to remember thee

  Were to import forgetfulness in me.

  122

  MODERN TEXT

  In my mind, I’ve already filled up the blank book you gave me with words that will remain in my memory longer than they would in that flimsy little book. In my memory, what I wrote about you will outlast any date, even to eternity. Or at least this record of you won’t be lost as long as my brain and heart survive—until each of them is forced to give up its part of you and pass into oblivion. That poor little notebook couldn’t hold as much as my memory can, and I have no need to keep notes to remember how much I love you. Therefore I was bold enough to give away your notebook, trusting in my own memory to keep a better record of you. For me to use an aid to remember you would imply that I’m forgetful.

  This sonnet can be read two ways: either the speaker was given a notebook in which the addressee had already written, or he was given a completely blank book. (This translation adopts the second reading.)

  123

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change.

  Thy pyramids built up with newer might

  To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;

  They are but dressings of a former sight.

  Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire

  What thou dost foist upon us that is old,

  And rather make them born to our desire

  Than think that we before have heard them told.

  Thy registers and thee I both defy,

  Not wond’ring at the present nor the past;

  For thy recórds and what we see doth lie,

  Made more or less by thy continual haste.

  This I do vow and this shall ever be:

  I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.

  123

  MODERN TEXT

  No! Time, you’re not going to boast that I change. These new enormous buildings that are being erected don’t seem novel or strange to me at all—they’re just replicas of what’s existed before. Our lives are brief, and therefore we admire whatever is old, acting like it was made just for us rather than admitting we’ve heard it described before. I defy you and your records. I’m not interested in the present or the past, because both your records and the things we see around us lie. They are raised up and destroyed by your continual swift passage. I make this vow, and it shall always be true: I will be faithful despite you and your destructive power.

  124

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  If my dear love were but the child of state,

  It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered,

  As subject to time’s love or to time’s hate,

  Weeds among weeds, or flow’rs with flowers gathered.

  No, it was builded far from accident;

  It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls

  Under the blow of thrallèd discontent,

  Whereto th’ inviting time our fashion calls.

  It fears not policy, that heretic,

  Which works on leases of short numb’red hours.

  But all alone stands hugely politic,

  That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with showers.

  To this I witness call the fools of time,

  Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

  124

  MODERN TEXT

  If my great love for you had simply been created by circumstances, it might be rejected as illegitimate because changing circumstances could destroy it. It would be subject to whatever’s in fashion at the moment, rejected with worthless things or plucked up with other fashionable flowers. No, my love was created where it can’t be touched by the unpredictability of events. It’s not helped by the approval of authority, nor is it crushed along with the malcontents who resist authority, as these times tempt us to do. My love isn’t afraid of the political scheming and conniving engaged in by immoral people, which only has a short term effect, but stands by itself, independent and enormously wise, neither growing during times of pleasure nor killed by misfortune. To attest to what I’m saying, I call as witnesses all those fools who died repentant and seeking goodness after living lives dedicated to crime.

  125

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  Were’t ought to me I bore the canopy,

  With my extern the outward honoring,

  Or laid great bases for eternity,

  Which prove more short than waste or ruining?

  Have I not seen dwellers on form and favor

  Lose all and more by paying too much rent,

  For compound sweet forgoing simple savor,

  Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?

  No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,

  And take thou my oblation, poor but free,

  Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,

  But mutual render, only me for thee.

  Hence, thou suborned informer! A true soul

  When most impeached stands least in thy control.

  125

  MODERN TEXT

  Would it matter at all to me to carry the ceremonial canopy of a monarch in a procession, honoring the display of power with my appearance? Or would I think it worthwhile to lay the foundations of supposedly eternal monuments, which actually last only as long as decay or ruin permit? Haven’t I seen those who focus on appearances and covet the favors of the powerful lose everything, and more than everything, by spending too much on their obsessions? Such pitiful strivers give up simple pleasures for the sake of lavish meals, using up all their resources on their fickle desires. No, I shall be obedient and faithful to you only, and you shall accept my offering. It is simple but freely given, contains nothing second-rate, no unnecessary additions, only mutual surrender: myself for yourself. Get out of here, you paid spy: When a faithful person like I am is accused, someone like you has no power over them.

  The “suborned informer” (paid spy) whom the speaker addresses in the last sentence is mysterious. Editors are unsure whom this figure is supposed to represent.

  126

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy pow’r

  Dost hold time’s fickle glass, his sickle hour,

  Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st

  Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st—

  If nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,

  As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,

  She keeps thee to this purpose: that her skill

  May time disgrace, and wretched minute kill.

  Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure;

  She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure.

  Her audit, though delayed, answered must be,

  And her quietus is to render thee.

  ( )

  ( )

  126

  MODERN TEXT

  Oh, my lovely boy, you seem to have power over time itself, immune to its capacity to cut things down. You’ve only grown more beautiful as you’ve aged, revealing in the process how withered I, your lover, have become. If nature, which has power over destruction, has chosen to hold you back from decay, she’s doing so for this reason: to disgrace time and kill its effects. Yet in spite of this, you should fear her, though you’re nature’s best-loved pet. She can preserve you for a time, but she can’t keep you, her treasure, always. Nature will eventually be called to offer her accounts, and though she can delay this, she has to do it, and the way she’ll pay her debt to time is with you.

  ()

  ()

  The parentheses appear in the original printed edition of the Sonnets, perhaps indicating silence where we would expect the final couplet.

  127

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  In the old age black was not counted fair,

  Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name.

  But now is black beauty’s successive heir,

  And beauty slandered with a bastard shame.

  For since each hand hath put on nature’s pow’r,

  Fairing the foul with art’s false borrowed face,

  Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bow’r,

  But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.

  Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black,

  Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem

  At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,

  Sland’ring creation with a false esteem.

  Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,

  That every tongue says beauty should look so.

  127

  MODERN TEXT

  In the olden days, dark complexions weren’t considered attractive or, if they were, no one called them beautiful. But now darkness is officially accepted as beautiful, and the fair complexions that used to be called beautiful have gotten a bad reputation. For since everyone has seized the power to make themselves beautiful (which used to belong to nature), and ugly people can be beautiful by artificial means, no one can legitimately be called beautiful. Beauty has no special home but is commonplace or even lives in disgrace. Therefore my mistress’s eyes are as black as a raven, well suited to today’s fashion, and in their blackness they seem to be lamenting those people who were born ugly but make themselves beautiful, giving beauty a bad name by faking it. But her black eyes lament so beautifully that everyone now says all beautiful eyes should look like hers.

  128

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  How oft when thou, my music, music play’st

  Upon that blessèd wood whose motion sounds

  With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway’st

  The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,

  Do I envy´ those jacks that nimble leap

  To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,

  Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,

  At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand.

  To be so tickled they would change their state

  And situation with those dancing chips,

  O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,

  Making dead wood more blest than living lips.

  Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,

  Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

  128

  MODERN TEXT

  Very often, when you (my greatest source of delight) play music by moving those wooden keys on the keyboard of the virginal with your sweet fingers, confusing my ear with the harmony of those plucked strings, I envy the keys. They leap up and kiss the tender underside of your hands, while my poor lips, who ought to be doing the kissing, stand by, blushing at the boldness of the keys. To be tickled like those keys are, my lips would gladly be transformed into wood and change places with the keys, over which your fingers gently walk, blessing the dead wood more than my living lips. Since the keys are so happy to touch your fingers, let them have the fingers, but give me your lips to kiss.

  The virginal is a keyboard instrument similar to a harpsichord.

  129

  ORIGINAL TEXT

  Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame

  Is lust in action, and till action, lust

  Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,

  Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,

  Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,

  Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,

  Past reason hated as a swallowed bait

  On purpose laid to make the taker mad;

  Mad in pursuit, and in possession so,

  Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;

  A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;

  Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.

  All this the world well knows, yet none knows well

  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

  129

  MODERN TEXT

  Sex is a way of squandering vital energy while incurring shame. In anticipation of sex, lust makes people murderous, violent, blameworthy, savage, extreme, rude, cruel, and untrustworthy. No sooner do people enjoy sex than they immediately despise it. They go to absurd lengths in its pursuit only to hate it out of all proportion once they’ve had it, insisting it was put in their path on purpose to make them crazy. They’re extreme when they’re pursuing sex, extreme when they’re having it, and extreme once they’ve had it. It’s blissful while you’re doing it and, once you’re done, a true sorrow. While you’re anticipating it, it seems like a joy; afterward, like a bad dream. The world knows all this very well, yet no one knows enough to avoid the heavenly experience that leads us to this hell.

  130

  ORIGINAL TEXT