Theme: Betrayal
Content: Questioning the fidelity of his subject and how he can live with their love or die, but can't survive infidelity.
But do thy worst
to steal thyself away,
For term of life
thou
art assured mine;
- "Do what you can to leave me but you're mine for life."
- Effectively portrays the subject as a thief in stealing themselves away from the author.
- This is a life / love sonnet, repeatedly using those 2 words and echoing their sound in others: life...mine.
And life no longer
than
thy
love
will
stay,
For it depends upon that love
of
thine.
- "My life will only last as long as I have you though."
- His lover is his for life but his life will only last as long as his lover loves him: mutual inclusivity.
- Start of the sonnet's negative emphasis in no.
- Counterpoint in the rhymes of away with stay and mine with thine.
- life / love usage and assonance continues: life...longer...love...love...thine.
Then need I not
to
fear the worst of wrongs,
When in the least
of
them my life
hath
end;
- "Why should I worry about the baddest of things when the least of them all is that my life will end."
- Continuation of the negativity in: not.
- life / love usage and assonance continues: least...life.
I see a better state to me belongs
Than that which on thy humour doth depend.
- "Death looks appealing compared to being at the mercy of your whims."
Thou canst not
vex
me with inconstant mind,
Since that my life
on
thy revolt doth lie.
- "You can't upset me with your thoughts of infidelity because I'd just die if you committed them."
- The defiant sentiments of "Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind" is reinforced by the fact that canst not is an anagram of "constant" which challenges the vexation and inconstant mind that the subject threatens to cause.
- Continuation of the negativity in: not.
- Possible pun on lie as in "liar" and "depends upon".
- Also, pairing of lie with life as in the subject's lie is within his life.
- life / love usage and assonance continues: mind...life..lie.
O, what a happy
title
do I find,
Happy to have thy
love,
happy
to
die!
- "I'm happy to have you love me or to die."
- Ironic happy…happy…happy change of tone to the sonnet's previous negativity.
- Rhyme of lie with die denotes the subject's lie being the cause of his death.
- life / love usage continues and ceases here: love.
- This first reference to die counters the repeated references to life in each of the quatrains.
But what's so
blessed fair that
fears
no
blot?
Thou mayst be false,
and yet I know it
not.
- "How could someone so beautiful not fear a blemish on their character? It's possible that you've cheated on me but I (prefer to believe that I) don't know for sure."
- This sentiment is echoed in other sonnets, famously in 138. His love is partially blind in that he worries at the prospect of infidelity but prefers to believe/pretend that his subject is true.
- But… echoes that in line 1.
- Fair phonetically and alliteratively coupled with fear and then on to false combines the subject, emotion and problem.
- Conclusion of the sonnet's negativity in: no, know (phonetically) and not, as well as false.
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net