Theme: Love is Blind
Content: The author questions what is wrong with his relentless devotion to the mistress that causes her to neglect him and continue to love others.
Canst thou, O cruel, say
I love thee not
When I
against myself
with thee partake?
Do I
not think on thee when I
forgot
Am of myself,
all-tyrant, for thy sake?
- An overwhelming defence of the author's case with 10 instances of the ego-enforcing I.
Who hateth thee that
I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that
I do fawn upon?
Nay, if thou lour'st
on me, do I
not spend
Revenge upon myself
with present moan?
What merit do I
in myself respect
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy
defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
- thy defect perhaps means the woman's black complexion that Shakespeare's adversaries do not count as "fair".
- The author's 10 I's are no match for the mistress's singular eyes.
But, love, hate on; for now I
know thy mind.
Those that can see thou lov'st,
and I am blind.
- Paradox between the woman loving those that can see and remark on her lack of fairness, and the author who is blind to seeing any defect in her and who is loyal in loving her.
- Resolution to the author's questions in I know and I am.
- The mistress lour'st on me (who is blind) but lov'st those that can see, showing the author to be at the other extreme of the type of person that the mistress loves.
- After repeated iterances of myself in the quatrains the author's own self is absent in the couplet.
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net