The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 151

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: Betrayal
Content: Following on from the sentiments of Sonnet 150, another sexually graphic sonnet where the mistress's betrayal causes graphic arousal in the author.

Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.

gentle cheater refers to the mistress's promiscuity and betrayal most graphically referenced in Sonnet 150 where she was identified as a whore.

Possible reference to female genitalia (cunt) in conscience.

For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason.
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,

Possible allusion to "strumpet" in Triumph.

try is Elizabethan slang for sexual intercourse as per "She told the youngling how god Mars did try her, And as he fell to her, so fell she to him" from The Passionate Pilgrim. try is alluded to in betraying, betray, treason, Triumph, But rising, triumphant and via assonance in thy, thy, thy, thy, thy and prize, pride.

But rising at thy name doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize; proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

rising at thy name, point out thee, stand in thy affairs and fall by thy side describe graphic sexual arousal in the author.

The p words of this sonnet (possibly alluding to penis) climax in this quatrain and then recede.

Probable allusion to ride (Elizabethan slang for sexual intercourse) in pride.

Pun on cunt in contented.

drudge refers to the author's sexual organ, now poor having previously been proud.

stand in thy affairs probably refers to the author's arousal by the mistress's affairs with other men as well as being a graphic description of the sexual act.

No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her "love" for whose dear love I rise and fall.

Possible final reference to cunt in conscience.

it is a further euphemism for the male sexual organ.

I rise and fall is a further graphic reference to the author's sexual arousal and satiation as well as showing that the author socially falls as a result of his affair with the woman.

Possible allusion to "whore" in whose, more especially the Quarto printing where the s more resembles an r.

The cyclical nature of the author's and mistress's relationship is summed up in this couplet.