The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 142

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: Pity
Content: The author still can't reach his mistress and defends himself by reproaching her wooing of others.

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin grounded on sinful loving.
O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;

Love is turned into a sin whilst hate is turned into a virtue.

Or if it do, not from those lips of thine
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents.

scarlet ornaments may be inspired by 2 Samuel 1:24: “Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel”.

The financial terminology (bonds, revenues, rents) may allude to the mistress being a prostitute.

Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee.
Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.

The author proposes he loves her as she loves others and she pity him so she can herself be pitied.

"Thy pity may deserve to pitied be" is the only instance in the entire works of Shakespeare where he uses a split infinitive, and only to achieve the rhyme with "thee".

If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self example mayst thou be denied!

Love is represented in each of the quatrains but is absent in the concluding couplet, but so is hate.