Sonnet 119: What Potions Have I Drunk of Siren Tears
What potions have I drunk of siren tears,
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within, Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears, Still losing when I saw myself to win. What wretched errors hath my heart committed Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never; How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted In the distraction of this madding fever. O benefit of ill, now I find true That better is by evil still made better, And ruined love when it is built anew Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. So I return rebuked to my content And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent. |
What potions have I drunk of siren tears,
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within, |
The sonnet connects to the closing line of the previous one, which spoke of drugs that turn out to be poisonous, and now characterises these potions that Shakespeare suggests he has metaphorically taken by spending his time with other lovers: they were made of 'siren tears' which themselves had been distilled from alembics that contain a liquid as repulsive as hell, whereby 'foul' at the time also has a strong moral connotation, as in 'murder most foul'.
If ever a metaphor came along mixed, this is surely it. Shakespeare either wittingly or – we can't rule this out as a possibility – haphazardly piles on top of each other multiple images and with them possible avenues for interpretation, starting with the potions, which clearly relate back to the drugs and 'eager compounds' of Sonnet 118, and which are here given an even more resolutely chemist connotation by being "distilled from limbecks." 'Limbeck' is a variant term for 'alembic', which in turn goes back to the Arabic al-anbīq, meaning 'the still', hence 'the lembic', which without the article then transmutes into 'limbeck'. A still, in case your knowledge of chemical apparatus is a little hazy, is a "gourd shape container" (Oxford Languages) used to heat up liquids and funnel their steam into a cooling vessel, thus literally dis-stilling from it. The fact that the liquid from which these 'siren tears' are distilled is 'foul as hell' tells us a lot about Shakespeare's current feeling towards the kind of encounters he is alluding to, but fascinating in itself is the expression 'siren tears'. It is not – as one might get the impression – proverbial or common, even at the time. Fake or false tears then as now are usually associated with crocodiles, whereas the Sirens are mythical creatures who first appear in Homer's Odyssey. They tempt passing sailors to their island with their 'siren song' there to devour them and pile up their bones in a heap of rotting carcasses. Odysseus heeds the warning he receives from the goddess Circe and plugs his sailors' ears with wax while having himself tied hand and foot upright to the mast of the ship so he can listen to the Sirens without being able to do anything stupid, such as jumping off ship and swimming to their island, as he would be unable to resist doing otherwise. Whilst Homer provided no physical description of the Sirens but had them dwell on a meadow on their island, another Greek poet, Apollonius of Rhodes, five hundred years later, in the 3rd century BCE, gives them the appearance of half woman half bird, which is why over the centuries and by the time Shakespeare gets to use the term 'Syren', they often become conflated with mermaids, who are half woman half fish. Katherine Duncan-Jones in her Arden edition of The Sonnets points out that Shakespeare's contemporary John Dickenson in his short narrative Greene in Conceipt, published in 1598, closely associates siren song with crocodile tears, and although we don't know whether Shakespeare had read this work, it suggests that the two concepts were at the time 'common currency', if we may call it that, in tandem. The relevant passage in Dickenson speaks of the personified vices of Gluttony and Lechery and how they ensnare their victim: They hauing Sirens tongues and Crocodiles teares, thereby entic'd him to in∣tangle him, and preuailed: for as the Hemlocke of Attica tempered with wine, is of all compounded poysons the most deadly: so of all enticements that is most dangerous, where wit and beautie lodg'd both in one subiect, are so employed. (p. 48) Noteworthy about this is that it not only places siren tongues and crocodile tears right next to each other and in the possession of Gluttony and Lechery, but that it also mentions 'compounded poisons', which further hints at Shakespeare possibly having been consciously or subconsciously influenced by Dickenson. The long and the short of it all being that these potions carried the essence of being false, deceptive, and seductive, yes, but also of being destructive. |
Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win. |
And in doing so, I was applying – as one would apply an ointment or healing agent to a wound or a sore – my fears to my hopes and equally my hopes to my fears, effectively trying to cure one with the other, but never succeeding. Instead, when all the while I thought I was winning, I was in fact losing all the time.
This is a tremendously compact and insightful couple of lines: it sums up in 17 words and twenty syllables what it feels like to be chasing a fantasy. Here the fantasy is of better love elsewhere, but the same could be said of virtually any pursuit of the unattainable: you invest your hopes to overcome your fears only to then find your fears to have been fully justified and therefore now to be newly crushing your hopes, whence the cycle starts over, and each time you think you're winning, surely, at last, you are still forever losing, because it is, after all, just a fantasy that you are pursuing. 'Still' here as so often means 'always'. |
What wretched errors hath my heart committed
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never; |
What terrible mistakes has my heart made at these times and in these moments and on these occasions, when it thought of itself as more blessed – luckier, more fortunate, more privileged – than it had ever been before.
This – as so very much in Shakespeare – loses somewhat in translation, because 'making a mistake' is one thing, but 'committing an error' is really quite another. It evokes much more the conscious act of committing a sin or a crime, and it further strongly suggests what in the context of a marriage would be adulterous acts. And with Shakespeare's and the young man's, as Sonnet 116 told us, being a 'marriage of true minds', an equivalence would therefore appear to be directly implied. PRONUNCIATION: Note that blessed here has two syllables: bles-sèd. |
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever. |
How my eyes have popped during and because of the distraction caused by this fever or illness that drove me crazy, for which read my attraction to these other people.
'Fitted' here has the meaning of eyes being forced out of their sockets by fits or paroxysms of madness, the madness again being the love or lust of which the poet was at the time possessed, and this invokes both the image of a raving lunatic whose eyes are popping out of their skull in an insane rage, and also that of a person who is utterly smitten and whose eyes pop because of what they see, madness and love then as now, and particularly in Shakespeare, being closely and often humorously, but with appreciable grains of truth, associated. 'Spheres', meanwhile, here clearly refers to the eyes' sockets, but Shakespeare also compares eyes to stars, for example in Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck | ...| But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, | And constant stars, in them I read such art... and here he almost certainly is also referencing the celestial spheres: the orbits on which, according to ancient astronomy, all objects in the sky circle around the earth. |
O benefit of ill, now I find true
That better is by evil still made better, |
O there is a benefit or an upside or a positive aspect to ill, meaning not only my metaphorical 'sickness' of having been attracted to these other people and 'committed errors' with them, but also that which is generally bad or indeed, as the next line suggests, evil. And now I find it to be true that that which is good, as in morally sound and virtuous, is by the trials and tribulations of evil, for which here in turn read also quite generally that which is challenging and problematic, made even better, perhaps a bit as we colloquially today might say: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Whereby the 'better' which is by evil made even better may refer not only to Shakespeare himself, who thus would be describing himself as essentially a good person, but also to his younger lover who through these 'evils' experienced by Shakespeare turns out to be even more worthy of his love, or indeed the love itself, as the following couple of lines also imply. The way this realisation is formulated suggests that this is a generally recognised truth which Shakespeare here is latching on to. |
And ruined love when it is built anew
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. |
And love which has been ruined or wrecked or damaged, when it is newly restored turns out to be even more beautiful, stronger and far greater than it had been before this calamity fell upon it.
Taken directly from the world of physical buildings and construction, this is borne out to this day. As a recent example we may point to being the magnificent restoration of Notre Dame de Paris, or, a little further back and by some margin less well known, the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, which was entirely destroyed by a fire on New Year's Eve 1921/22 and then rebuilt between 1924 and 1928 as a much larger, uniquely shaped and at the time revolutionary cast concrete structure that stands firm and strong to this day. |
So I return rebuked to my content
And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent. |
And so I return to my state of contentment and overall wellbeing rebuked or chastised but strengthened and find that I have therefore actually gained three times more by my errors, my mistakes, the bad things that I have done and that have as a result also happened to me, than I have spent, for which read than it has cost me in emotional upset and damage.
With its echo of Sonnet 109, 'my content' may also have a layered meaning of that which gives me contentment, that which I really need and want, which is you: That is my home of love, if I have ranged, Like him that travels I return again, because of course the 'ills' here referred to are still, as in Sonnets 109, and 110, and most directly, and similarly using the 'sickness' metaphor, as in Sonnet 118, my philandering ways, my infidelities, my sexual escapades with other people. |
With Sonnet 119, William Shakespeare further elaborates on his metaphor, introduced in Sonnet 118, of having taken bitter medicines to prevent himself from ever getting sick of his young lover, these potions having been affairs, encounters, or even relationships of sorts with other people. Who these other people were he still doesn't tell us, but he here makes it even clearer that they were fundamentally bad for him, their principal, if not sole, redeeming feature being that their experience has ultimately strengthened him and cemented his love for his young man.
The sonnet is the third of three sonnets which all attempt to explain and to some extent excuse Shakespeare's infidelities of the past, and they all do so in the wake, directly, of Sonnet 116 which famously and categorically posited a "marriage of true minds" to which "no impediments" may be admitted.
Immediately noteworthy about this poem are three things. Firstly, the forcefulness of its tone. The vocabulary Shakespeare employs here is not subtle and not hesitant: 'foul as hell', 'wretched errors', 'madding fever', 'evil', 'ruined love'. This is not, now, after the initial admission of Sonnet 110, "Alas tis true, I have gone here and there," someone saying, 'and this may be so, but these frolics didn't matter, they were but trifles, mere distractions'.
The entire argument, since the 'marriage of true minds' of Sonnet 116, has unfolded from 'I have been neglectful of and absent from you, but this was really my way of testing the constancy and quality of your love for me, or possibly also of my love for you', to 'I have taken other lovers to whet and sharpen my appetite for you and to avoid getting sick and tired of you', to 'actually these other lovers were – at least in hindsight – truly awful, in the sense that they really poisoned me. But I've come through it all and the one thing I can say about it now is that it made me a better, stronger, person, more capable of loving you'.
The confession, such as it is, thus is complete. And Shakespeare is now truly done with it. Sonnet 120, which is sometimes considered to be a part of this extended apologia, actually does something entirely different: it draws a final line under the matter and simply states both a hope and a request that these transgressions of mine now be considered 'paid' and settled, much as yours are in my book. After this, Shakespeare says 'sorry' no more.
Secondly: this sonnet is not addressed to anyone. It obviously and clearly connects to Sonnet 118, and so undoubtedly must be read in its context, its context undoubtedly being the context of Sonnet 117; and so we need not consider this a great uncertainty or mystery: whatever relationship requires of Shakespeare an apology is also the relationship that gives rise to this sonnet.
But this sonnet has no 'you' or 'thou' and 'thee' in it, no 'your' or 'thine'. And nor does it speak about a lover. No 'he' or 'his' or 'him'. This, as on several other occasions, prompts some scholars to argue that Sonnet 119 could be written about any relationship, that 'my content' here could be a man, a woman, his wife, some other person we don't know about.
But reading this sonnet out of context is like looking at the statute of David by Michelangelo and taking into consideration his frown and concluding from this that he must be wondering whether he's switched off the oven or not. It is, frankly, absurd. And poor scholarly practice: of course, look at the detail, go in close, examine, and allow for, all possibilities, but then take a step back again, look at the whole thing and take in the stance, the sling in his hand, and the name of the man, and your conclusion becomes a single and obvious one that may not be spectacular, revolutionary, radically new, but sane and sound: it is the David of David and Goliath, the biblical figure, at the moment of intense concentration before his audacious act of slaying the giant with brain and skill, rather than mere force and brawn.
The context of this sonnet, the whole picture, yields no pointer, no sign, no indication, that it fundamentally is about anything other than Shakespeare's principal relationship with anyone other than his principal young man.
Thirdly, the 'siren tears' and the sonnet's proximity, in tone, in allusions, in the evocation of desire as a disease, to Sonnet 147. This offers two further, so as not to say subsidiary, thoughts for consideration.
One, that Shakespeare with these other sexual relationships that he is referring to has in mind one or several women, because the Sirens are traditionally thought of and depicted as female. Although there is some debate as to whether or not Sirens could also have been male or been, at some point, thought of as chthonic deities, meaning ones related to the underworld, possibly with an ability to prophesy, it is more than a little unlikely that Shakespeare would have been aware of this, and so an inference of female sexual partners is not unreasonable.
Two, and leading on from this directly, that Shakespeare may be referring to none other than the Dark Lady of the sonnets that in the 1609 collection are now just about to follow. Many scholars believe – and this too is not an unreasonable assumption to make – that although the Dark Lady Sonnets are grouped together after the Fair Youth Sonnets, they actually dovetail with the ones that deal with the relationship with the Fair Youth.
We know for certain that there is at least some overlap between the Fair Youth relationship and at least one woman, because Sonnets 34 and 35, and then 40, 41, and 42 make this clear beyond reasonable doubt, with Sonnet 42 actually spelling out:
That thou hast her, it is not all my grief
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Sonnet 144, which belongs firmly in the Dark Lady sequence, will be as explicit, if not indeed more, and although we can't know whether or not it refers to the same period in Shakespeare's life and therefore to the same person, it leaves zero doubt about the fact that Shakespeare at that time, whatever that time is, finds himself involved with two people, a man and a woman, because:
Two loves I have of comfort and despair
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
We will, of course, come to the Dark Lady Sonnets, and really quite soon, but since we are talking about context and underlining its importance to our exploration, let's have a sneak preview also of Sonnet 147 which carries more than a passing echo of this sonnet here.
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th'uncertain sickly appetite to please.
And we shall leave it at that, because to go further would require us to delve into the detail here, and for this, as certain as anything in this uncertain universe can be, there will be time and opportunity in an episode devoted to Sonnet 147.
What we know and learn then from Sonnet 119, not in isolation, because for such isolation to be maintained were utter folly, but in context – I have used the word here for the eighth time and not by accident or for no reason – is that Shakespeare is, with these three sonnets and following his declaration of and unimpeachable 'marriage of true minds', drawing a line under such other sexual adventures, temptations, relations as have clearly agitated him; and it opens up, more tantalising still for its implications, a real possibility that these other adventures, temptations, relations were not, or not only, an assortment of – as perhaps some of the previous sonnets suggested – random casual encounters, but that they entail the one other principal relationship this whole collection of sonnets concerns itself with: the one with the Dark Lady...
The sonnet is the third of three sonnets which all attempt to explain and to some extent excuse Shakespeare's infidelities of the past, and they all do so in the wake, directly, of Sonnet 116 which famously and categorically posited a "marriage of true minds" to which "no impediments" may be admitted.
Immediately noteworthy about this poem are three things. Firstly, the forcefulness of its tone. The vocabulary Shakespeare employs here is not subtle and not hesitant: 'foul as hell', 'wretched errors', 'madding fever', 'evil', 'ruined love'. This is not, now, after the initial admission of Sonnet 110, "Alas tis true, I have gone here and there," someone saying, 'and this may be so, but these frolics didn't matter, they were but trifles, mere distractions'.
The entire argument, since the 'marriage of true minds' of Sonnet 116, has unfolded from 'I have been neglectful of and absent from you, but this was really my way of testing the constancy and quality of your love for me, or possibly also of my love for you', to 'I have taken other lovers to whet and sharpen my appetite for you and to avoid getting sick and tired of you', to 'actually these other lovers were – at least in hindsight – truly awful, in the sense that they really poisoned me. But I've come through it all and the one thing I can say about it now is that it made me a better, stronger, person, more capable of loving you'.
The confession, such as it is, thus is complete. And Shakespeare is now truly done with it. Sonnet 120, which is sometimes considered to be a part of this extended apologia, actually does something entirely different: it draws a final line under the matter and simply states both a hope and a request that these transgressions of mine now be considered 'paid' and settled, much as yours are in my book. After this, Shakespeare says 'sorry' no more.
Secondly: this sonnet is not addressed to anyone. It obviously and clearly connects to Sonnet 118, and so undoubtedly must be read in its context, its context undoubtedly being the context of Sonnet 117; and so we need not consider this a great uncertainty or mystery: whatever relationship requires of Shakespeare an apology is also the relationship that gives rise to this sonnet.
But this sonnet has no 'you' or 'thou' and 'thee' in it, no 'your' or 'thine'. And nor does it speak about a lover. No 'he' or 'his' or 'him'. This, as on several other occasions, prompts some scholars to argue that Sonnet 119 could be written about any relationship, that 'my content' here could be a man, a woman, his wife, some other person we don't know about.
But reading this sonnet out of context is like looking at the statute of David by Michelangelo and taking into consideration his frown and concluding from this that he must be wondering whether he's switched off the oven or not. It is, frankly, absurd. And poor scholarly practice: of course, look at the detail, go in close, examine, and allow for, all possibilities, but then take a step back again, look at the whole thing and take in the stance, the sling in his hand, and the name of the man, and your conclusion becomes a single and obvious one that may not be spectacular, revolutionary, radically new, but sane and sound: it is the David of David and Goliath, the biblical figure, at the moment of intense concentration before his audacious act of slaying the giant with brain and skill, rather than mere force and brawn.
The context of this sonnet, the whole picture, yields no pointer, no sign, no indication, that it fundamentally is about anything other than Shakespeare's principal relationship with anyone other than his principal young man.
Thirdly, the 'siren tears' and the sonnet's proximity, in tone, in allusions, in the evocation of desire as a disease, to Sonnet 147. This offers two further, so as not to say subsidiary, thoughts for consideration.
One, that Shakespeare with these other sexual relationships that he is referring to has in mind one or several women, because the Sirens are traditionally thought of and depicted as female. Although there is some debate as to whether or not Sirens could also have been male or been, at some point, thought of as chthonic deities, meaning ones related to the underworld, possibly with an ability to prophesy, it is more than a little unlikely that Shakespeare would have been aware of this, and so an inference of female sexual partners is not unreasonable.
Two, and leading on from this directly, that Shakespeare may be referring to none other than the Dark Lady of the sonnets that in the 1609 collection are now just about to follow. Many scholars believe – and this too is not an unreasonable assumption to make – that although the Dark Lady Sonnets are grouped together after the Fair Youth Sonnets, they actually dovetail with the ones that deal with the relationship with the Fair Youth.
We know for certain that there is at least some overlap between the Fair Youth relationship and at least one woman, because Sonnets 34 and 35, and then 40, 41, and 42 make this clear beyond reasonable doubt, with Sonnet 42 actually spelling out:
That thou hast her, it is not all my grief
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Sonnet 144, which belongs firmly in the Dark Lady sequence, will be as explicit, if not indeed more, and although we can't know whether or not it refers to the same period in Shakespeare's life and therefore to the same person, it leaves zero doubt about the fact that Shakespeare at that time, whatever that time is, finds himself involved with two people, a man and a woman, because:
Two loves I have of comfort and despair
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
We will, of course, come to the Dark Lady Sonnets, and really quite soon, but since we are talking about context and underlining its importance to our exploration, let's have a sneak preview also of Sonnet 147 which carries more than a passing echo of this sonnet here.
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th'uncertain sickly appetite to please.
And we shall leave it at that, because to go further would require us to delve into the detail here, and for this, as certain as anything in this uncertain universe can be, there will be time and opportunity in an episode devoted to Sonnet 147.
What we know and learn then from Sonnet 119, not in isolation, because for such isolation to be maintained were utter folly, but in context – I have used the word here for the eighth time and not by accident or for no reason – is that Shakespeare is, with these three sonnets and following his declaration of and unimpeachable 'marriage of true minds', drawing a line under such other sexual adventures, temptations, relations as have clearly agitated him; and it opens up, more tantalising still for its implications, a real possibility that these other adventures, temptations, relations were not, or not only, an assortment of – as perhaps some of the previous sonnets suggested – random casual encounters, but that they entail the one other principal relationship this whole collection of sonnets concerns itself with: the one with the Dark Lady...
This project and its website are a work in progress.
If you spot a mistake or if you have any comments or suggestions, please use the contact page to get in touch.
To be kept informed of developments, please subscribe to the email list.
If you would like to donate, you can do so here. Thank you!
If you spot a mistake or if you have any comments or suggestions, please use the contact page to get in touch.
To be kept informed of developments, please subscribe to the email list.
If you would like to donate, you can do so here. Thank you!