Theme: Lust
Content: A complex, powerful and graphic sonnet that turns the sensuality of Sonnet 128 into outright lust and post-coital guilt, charged by the swirling torrent of emotions that lust can generate.
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,
- Line 1 is strikingly similar to the line "The ejaculation of semen is the casting away of part of the soul" in the only surviving work, called De medicina, of Aulus Celsus, a Roman encyclopedist.
- As well as the physical dimension, the reference to expense may also allude to lust satiated via a paid prostitute.
- Dual meaning of spirit as in the human emotional will and bodily fluid.
- Pun on waste as in something that is wasted and a person's waist.
- A powerful series of emotions is conveyed in lines 3 & 4 on the multifarious feelings that lust generates before it is actually enjoyed: perjured runs into murd'rous, bloody runs into full and blame, rude runs into cruel and trust, though no apparent connection between Savage and extreme though extreme is repeated in Q3.
- The tension of emotions generated in this sonnet is augmented by the oscillation between the different tenses, in this quatrain present and future: in action...till action.
- The pneumatic nature of lust is represented in lust...action...action...lust.
- There is an abundance of words that contain the letter p in the quatrains that appear to be deliberately suggestive of the word "penis", especially words such as expense and despised.
- There is also an abundance of words that echo the word lust by containing the letter u as pronounced in lust.
Enjoyed no sooner
but despised
straight,
Past reason hunted,
and no sooner had
Past reason hated
as a swallowed
bait
On purpose
laid to make
the taker mad;
- The tenses here again switch between past and present and augment the contrasting dynamic of emotions experienced: Enjoyed...despised...hunted...hated...mad.
- Alliteration and rhyme abounds and adds to the dynamism: sooner...straight...hunted...had...hated...bait...make...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.
- Juxtaposition of the two occurrences of mad reinforces the mad feelings of emotion.
- Had, having...to have convey the omnipresent past, present and future desire as the sonnet continues its dynamic, tight oscillation between the tenses: proof...proved...Before...behind.
- Lust, initially represented as something to be ashamed of is now celebrated as A bliss in proof...a joy...a dream.
All
this the world well knows,
yet none knows well
To shun
the heaven
that
leads men to this hell.
- Counterpoint between the reversal of well knows into knows well.
- Possible phallic pun in knows well of "no swell"
- The sonnet ends on the word hell, anticipated by other words containing ll: till...full...swallowed...All...well...well.
- The 3 planes are covered in the couplet: world, heaven and hell.
Sir Philip Sidney's (1554-1586) “Thou blind man’s mark” has a similar theme:
Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen
snare,
Fond Fancy's scum and dregs of scattered thought,
Band of evils, cradle of causeless care,
Thou web of will whose end is never wrought:
Desire! desire, I have too dearly bought
With price of mangled mind thy worthless ware;
Too long, too long asleep thou hast me brought,
Who should my mind to higher things prepare.
But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought,
In vain thou mad'st me to vain things aspire,
In vain thou kindlest all thy smoky fire.
For virtue hath this better lesson taught:
Within myself to seek my only hire,
Desiring nought but how to kill desire.
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net