HAKESPEARE'S ONNETS
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OMMENTARY
SONNET 152 CLII
CLII 1. In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn, 2. But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing; 3. In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn, 4. In vowing new hate after new love bearing: 5. But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee, 6. When I break twenty? I am perjured most; 7. For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee, 8. And all my honest faith in thee is lost: 9. For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness, 10. Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy; 11. And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness, 12. Or made them swear against the thing they see; 13. For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured eye, 14. To swear against the truth so foul a lie! |
This concluding sonnet in the sequence to the dark lady fills the reader with a sense of unease. This is probably because, knowing that it is the last one, we expect a resolution in some way, a farewell sonnet, or a renunciation of bondage, or a hope that the love he has found, for all its imperfections, will live on forever, growing and maturing as the two grow older, or more infatuated, or more knowing. But no such denouement is to be found. We are left with the uncertainty of unknowing, and a resolution that is solved only by irresolution. The language of this
sonnet, more than any other,
leans heavily on the language of the law courts - 'Do you solemnly
swear
that the evidence you will give will be the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth?'. |
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The illustrations are from a stained glass panel, thought to be 15th century, but quite possibly later. It shows Morris dancers in traditional costume, a costume which did not change much over the centuries. Source: Old England. A Victorial Museum of National Antiquities. 1844. |
THE 1609 QUARTO VERSION
In vowing new hate after new loue bearing : But why of two othes breach doe I accuſe thee, When I breake twenty:I am periur'd moſt, For all my vowes are othes but to miſuſe thee: And all my honeſt faith in thee is loſt. For I haue ſworne deepe othes of thy deepe kindneſſe: Othes of thy loue,thy truth,thy conſtancie, And to inlighten thee gaue eyes to blindneſſe, Or made them ſwere againſt the thing they ſee. For I haue ſworne thee faire:more periurde eye, To ſwere againſt the truth ſo foule a lie. |
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1. In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn, |
1. In loving thee
= by loving you, through
the mere fact of loving you, when I make love to you. forsworn = perjured, guilty of breaking a promise. One automatically asks how she is to know that he is forsworn by loving her. Is it because a.) she knows he is married; b.) she knows he loves other women; c.) she knows he has pledged his heart to the fair youth; d.) she knows he does not love her; e.) she knows he lies to her, as sonnet 138 indicates (therefore I lie with her and she with me etc.)? Presumably she counts him forsworn for any one or more of these reasons. In line 6 he confesses to breaking 20 vows, probably only a wild number plucked from the air, but it still remains uncertain in what particular she is to know that he is forsworn. (See the note to line 6). An attentive reader of the sonnets would no doubt pick out reasons d and e above from the sonnets which precede, but would not be expected to know that the writer was married. Nor would it necessarily follow that the woman would know that the poet's heart was committed to the fair youth, nor that he did not love her, for in fact it seems that he does, and the poem starts by asserting the fact (In loving thee). This really only leaves a.) and e.) as possibilities, namely that she knows him to be married, therefore not entirely committed to her, and she knows also that he is not telling the truth. But there may be additional unspecified reasons for his being forsworn. |
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2. But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
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2. twice
forsworn = the two instances
are given in lines 3-4, although they are not easy to isolate. (See the
note). forsworn is frequently used in the context
of lovers' vows,
as in sonnet 88: to me love
swearing
= by swearing your love to me. I.e. the act of swearing love to me
involved
you in breaking two oaths, details of which are given in what follows. |
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3. In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
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3. In
act = by your action; by the
act of sex; in the enactment of your bed vow (you broke it), i.e. you
broke
it even while making it. The syntax is awkward, for one expects either You,
by your act, broke your bed vow, or By your act
your bed vow is broken.
And similarly one expects, your new faith is torn,
or, you tore
up your new (bond of) faith. The compression of the line
suggests both
these meanings, which amount to more or less the same thing. For act
as referring to the sexual act there are several instances in the
plays.
E.g. bed-vow = marriage
vow; promise made in bed. One assumes a vow of eternal fidelity, but it
might be a vow of less import, for example to tell no one else of the
relationship.
The speaker may be suggesting that sleeping together implies fidelity
and
trust, a vow sanctioned by the act of love. |
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4. In vowing new hate after new love bearing: |
4. In
vowing = by taking a vow. The twofold breach of
faith seems to be breaking
a marriage vow (or a lover's vow) by making a vow to one's illicit
lover;
and then breaking the vow to that lover by taking on yet another, and
neglecting
the one to whom the vow has already been made. Or it could simply be a
breach
of faith to the husband, by taking on a lover shortly after marriage,
and
thereby implying hatred of the husband she professed to love. |
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5. But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee, | 5. two oaths' breach = the breaking of two vows. See note to the previous line. | |
6. When I break twenty? I am perjured most; |
6.
When I break twenty - the exact number
is not important, and presumably twenty is used in the same vague way
as
'score' might be, as for example in the Tempest: Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, And I would call it, fair play. Tem.V.1.174-5 Compare also Venus and Adonis: Ay me!' she cries, and twenty times 'Woe, woe!' And twenty echoes twenty times cry so. VA.833-4. 'Twenty' is used 160 times in Shakespeare, far more than the necessity of reporting precise numbers ever requires. Nevertheless, in the context of numbered sonnets, one suspects that the use of the number does have some cryptic significance. It may be worth pointing out that this sonnet, like sonnet 20, has a preponderance of feminine rhymes, and perhaps we are being invited to make a comparison between the two loves. This one alternates masculine and feminine rhymes, perhaps in reference to the act of love, whereas 20 is the only sonnet with exclusively feminine rhymes. |
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7. For all my vows are
oaths but to misuse thee, |
7. but to = only to, merely to. misuse = misreport, slander, demean. Abuse you sexually. The first meanings seem more probable because of lines 10 and 13. It is not clear in what circumstances an oath to misuse his mistress might be taken. The confusion is no doubt deliberate, and indicates that he does not know what he swears to, but discovers subsequently that the oaths he has sworn he does not believe in or adhere to. |
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8. And all my honest faith
in thee is lost: |
8. All my natural integrity is destroyed because of you. I.e. I have given myself up as lost, because I have committed myself to you, even though I know it is an unworthy love. Seeing the truth, and yet unable to act according to it, has destroyed my faith in myself as a reasonable, honest and trusting person. | |
9. For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness, |
9.
deep oaths = oaths of great import;
solemn oaths. deep kindness = the repetition of deep suggests mimicry and undermines the solemnity of the reported oaths. There may also be a bawdy innuendo, equivalent to 'deep vagina', in that her kindness is that of woman kind, she is like a woman and her sexuality is that of a woman, and she does the deed of kind. Compare for example: ..........................the ewes, being rank, In the end of autumn turned to the rams, And, when the work of generation was Between these woolly breeders in the act, The skilful shepherd peel'd me certain wands, And, in the doing of the deed of kind, He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes, Who then conceiving did in eaning time Fall parti-colour'd lambs, and those were Jacob's. MV.I.3.77-85. The passage, with its use of 'in the act', also reflects line 3 'in act thy bed vow broke'. |
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10. Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy; |
10.
Oaths of thy love = vows that I believe
your love, truth etc.? The word oaths is used four
times in this
sonnet, and not at all in any of the others. The language of the law
courts
is perhaps being summoned to play its part, with oaths, swearing, vows,
and perjury being continually brought into the foreground. It appears
that
the poet is putting on trial, in the court of his own conscience, his
love
for this woman, and he finds that all his best efforts to reach a fair
verdict
are hampered by his willingness to swear false oaths and to corrupt the
truth. Oaths also are being cited because of the
repetition of the
O sound, 'the O of thy love' having a sexual meaning. (See note to
sonnets
148 line 9 and 150
line 11). |
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11. And, to enlighten thee,
gave eyes to blindness, |
11.
to enlighten thee = to make you appear
bright. gave eyes to blindness = made myself blind (by giving my eyes over to blindness). Or, made my eyes, which were blinded with love, see with love's false sight and distorted vision. |
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12. Or made them swear
against the thing they see; |
12.
them = my eyes. Compare sonnets 141
& 148, where the eyes both see and do not see. swear against = deny that they had seen (what they had in reality seen). |
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13. For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured eye,
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13.
This is a repetition of the opening of the
final couplet of sonnet 147 For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. The conclusion here is not much different, although GBE, for example, sees a change of emphasis, with the poet here noting his own moral culpabitility, rather than that of his mistress. HV also finds the sonnet more self-accusatory than the preceding ones. more perjured = more forsworn than you are; more untruthful than if I had simply sworn my love for you (and admitted that you were not fair). eye - since Malone this has usually been emended to I, but editors of modern editions think that the emendation is unnecessary. The word puns on I and ay and probably also includes the innuendo of female genitalia, as in sonnet 148. |
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14. To swear against the
truth so foul a lie! |
14. Foul and fair have been the themes of most of the sonnets addressed to the dark lady. To bring the sequence to a conclusion with these two words seems appropriate. Note also the three uses of swear, sworn, swear in these last three lines. Presumably they are some of the examples of being forsworn with which the sonnet opened. Swearing against the truth is the ultimate sin, a denial of the truth of the Holy Spirit, a crime for which, in Christain theology, there is no redemption. The sonnet ends with the witness perjuring himself again in the witness box. | |
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First line index | Title page and Thorpe's Dedication | Some Introductory Notes to the Sonnets | Sonnets as plain text 1-154 | Text facsimiles | Other related texts of the period |
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London Bridge as it was in Shakespeare's day, circa 1600. | Views of London as it was in 1616. | Views of Cheapside London, from a print of 1639. | The Carrier's Cosmography. A guide to all the Carriers in London. As given by John Taylor in 1637. | Oxquarry Books Ltd | |
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