Sonnet 132: Thine Eyes I love, and They, as Pitying Me
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Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, Have put on black, and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. And truly, not the morning sun of heaven Better becomes the grey cheeks of the East, Nor that full star that ushers in the even Doth half that glory to the sober West, As those two mourning eyes become thy face: O let it then as well beseem thy heart To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace, And suit thy pity like in every part. Then will I swear beauty herself is black, And all they foul that thy complexion lack. |
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Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, Have put on black, and loving mourners be, |
I love your eyes and your eyes, as if pitying me because they know how your heart torments me with its disdain for me, have put on black attire and taken on the appearance or indeed role of loving mourners...
The sonnet picks up the theme introduced in Sonnet 127 and played on in Sonnet 130 of this mistress's eyes being "raven black" and therefore "nothing like the sun." In Sonnet 127, the eyes seem to mourn for those people who, lacking natural beauty, attempt to beautify themselves by artificial means, such as cosmetics. Here, by contrast, these eyes mourn for our poet, sympathising with his suffering under the lady's 'disdain'. This in itself, as we saw in the previous sonnet, is a poetic commonplace and indeed also a social imperative: the beautiful lady who treats her admirers with an aloof disdain bordering on contempt features in the poetry of the day not least because if a beautiful woman were to readily yield to her lovers she would instantly be dismissed, condemned, and quite likely ostracised as 'loose' and 'immoral'. Being 'tormented with disdain' is thus par for the course for a male lover and therefore a recurring theme in sonnets at the time, and implied in this contrast between the look in the loving lady's eyes and her attitude is a notion – or hope – that the eyes betray a true emotion, while her cool rejection of his advances conform with the demands of socially acceptable standards of behaviour. The last line of the first quatrain makes this near explicit: |
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Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
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These eyes in their mourners' garb and disposition look upon my pain with a pretty, as in charming, or becoming, compassion; in other words: this ruth or pity that your eyes have for me and my pain makes them and therefore you look beautiful, and in this way provide further reason for me to love them.
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And truly, not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the East, |
And indeed, the morning sun in the sky does not better become or suit or more beautifully adorn the grey clouds that accompany it when it rises in the east...
The image is one of the morning sun that is flanked, as often it would be on a small island such as Great Britain, where Shakespeare finds himself, by grey clouds on either side, which thus look a bit like its cheeks. Some editors, notably Katherine Duncan-Jones in her Arden edition of the Sonnets, read into 'grey cheeks' an allusion to the mistress's 'dun complexion', and this may in fact be intentional. Though whether it then amounts to what she calls "the sonnet's misogynistic taunts" I rather feel inclined to question: the sonnet plays on the conceit of the woman's literally dark eyes giving her otherwise as we just saw by necessity aloof appearance a warm, soft, even loving look, whereas the sun in the sky is literally bright and accompanied by literally grey clouds, with the pun resting on 'morning' which then as now sounds exactly like 'mourning', and so I think that the connection between 'grey' clouds and the 'dun' skin tone – which as it happens, in Sonnet 130 we also were able to read as a light brown – is, if not truly incidental, then almost certainly not intentionally disparaging. The comparison continues: |
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Nor that full star that ushers in the even
Doth half that glory to the sober West, |
Nor does the evening star – Venus, in Greek mythology personified as Hesperus – lend half as much glory, as in beauty, splendour, or grace, to the subdued, dim light of dusk when the sun has set in the west...
The 'even' here is, of course, 'evening', as it is in Sonnet 28: So flatter I the swart-complexioned night, When sparkling stars twire not: 'thou gildst the even'. |
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As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
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Neither the sun nor the evening star can do for the clouds in the morning or the dim light of the evening what your two mourning eyes do for your face: make it look beautiful because they suit it so well.
'Become' as a verb and 'becoming' as an adjective are in their subtlety a bit lost on us: If something becomes you, it makes you look good, attractive, and on the rare occasions that we may still use the term we may think of it as 'fetching' or 'dapper', but there is a strong sense in Early Modern English of it also meaning appropriate and therefore suitable. And so the suggestion here certainly is not only that this lady's mourning eyes make her look beautiful – which they do – but also that they do so appropriately, in a sense rightly, as they should, because much as the clouds in the morning or the fading light in the evening, her scornful or disdainful face without them would lack something it needs, at least as far as the poet is concerned, which is a glow of pity or compassion. |
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O let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace, |
Oh that being the case, allow it to also then in this way become your heart to mourn for me, seeing that mourning makes you beautiful and graceful and generally favours you in the way it does...
'Beseem' has the same meaning as 'become' in the sense just encountered, though John Kerrigan in his Penguin edition of the Sonnets points out that by the 1590s its use was rare and that therefore "readers will have found the word archaic, 'poetic' in resonance." If that is the case, it is in itself quite significant, because that would lend the line a subtly ironic, or certainly heightened, quality, which in turn will colour our understanding in a moment of the closing couplet. |
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And suit thy pity like in every part.
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And – the plea with his mistress continues and concludes – in this way suit, as in align or match, your pity equally to every part of you, not just your eyes.
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Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack. |
Then, if you do that – and by implication only then – will I swear that beauty itself is black with what that black stands for, which is a pity for me, and in consequence all those people – by implication here other women – who do not have your complexion are ugly; whereby editors tend to agree that complexion here stands for both an outward appearance or 'hue' and for your disposition towards me.
Colin Burrow in the Oxford edition of the Sonnets also cites a definition by the Oxford English Dictionary of 'complexion' to mean "the combination of the four 'humours' of the body in a certain proportion," referencing the four classical 'humours' or principal character and mental constitutions, which we have discussed on several occasions, most recently when looking at Sonnet 118. To briefly recap: according to the humoral theory, which dates back to ancient Greece, the human body was governed by four humours or fluids – blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, which relate directly to the four classical elements air, water, fire, and earth – and for a person to be healthy, these should all be kept in a harmonious balance with each other. The composition or complexion then, of these humours, would determine someone's general disposition or character. And such a secondary or parallel meaning of 'complexion' to mean the mistress's attitude, disposition, or even general emotional characteristic, is certainly significant here, because she, like everybody else, cannot actually change her physical complexion or the natural colour of her eyes, but what is to some degree in her power is how she relates to her admirer, our poet, not least because in the literary convention of the time, for a lady to take pity on her lover would imply, as Katherine Duncan-Jones puts it, to "acquiesce sexually," and once that layer is taken into consideration, the closing couplet does take on a somewhat more direct meaning, as it would then suggest: if you allow your heart to take pity on me, and therefore have sex with me, then will I swear that beauty herself is 'black' as in showing pity and therefore allowing a sexual relation to happen, whereas all those who do not do so, because they lack your disposition towards me, are, to me at any rate, ugly. And such a reading would, indeed, require a pinch of salt or, as we might also call it, subtle irony. |
With Sonnet 132, William Shakespeare suspends the charge brought against his mistress at the end of the previous sonnet that she is 'black' in nothing so much as in her deeds, and instead pleads with her to have pity on him as he suffers under her disdain for him. At first glance and in isolation it might seem, then, that such 'black' deeds as were mentioned in the closing couplet of Sonnet 131 are nothing but this attitude of hers towards him, but as we saw then and also discuss here, this is unlikely to be the case since a 'ladylike' level of decorum requires a woman at the time to be quite unapproachable and at least apparently aloof, and Sonnet 133 will confirm in no uncertain terms that the deeds in question are of a different nature altogether.
The sonnet thus stands in a long tradition of poetry that has a male lover pine for his unattainable and/or contemptuous mistress, and while on the surface it appears to express itself in positively chaste tones – certainly when compared to the exceptionally explicit Sonnet 129 – it still carries some subtle but nonetheless perfectly evident sexual undertones which it combines, so we get the impression, with just a tinge of irony.
The positioning of Sonnet 132 is curious. It bears an obvious resemblance to, and borrows themes from, Sonnet 127, the first of the Dark Lady Sonnets, and unless we were to – wildly, I warrant, and unwisely – speculate that Shakespeare had several dark eyed, black haired, tan skinned mistresses, it is obviously addressed to the same woman that Sonnet 127 talks about.
Sonnet 128 says nothing about her appearance, but nor does it offer any new or different type of characterisation, and with it we felt that it might be addressed to, as well as written by, almost anyone, but that it appears to express an as yet unmet desire for physical proximity with the lady therein portrayed.
Sonnet 129 does nothing of the sort. It too gives no clue as to whom, if anyone specific, it is about, but it offers plenty of rason to think that it was composed post-consummation of whatever the relationship is, and it also leaves no serious doubt that that relationship is with a woman.
Sonnet 130 more than anything mocks the poetry of other lovers in their cliched praise for their mistresses and contrasts Shakespeare's mistress with others' in terms that make her undoubtedly the same woman again as Sonnet 127 and the sonnets that then follow, 131 and now 132. Of these, Sonnet 131 once more dwells on the mistress's unconventionally beautiful, because 'dark', appearance and then comes out with this surprising twist at the end:
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander as I think proceeds.
Rather than, as we would have good reason to expect, elaborating on these deeds and this slander, Sonnet 132 now goes back into almost coy mode and actually in terms of what it expresses makes it sound once more like the kind of poem you would write to your mistress before she had 'succumbed' – if that's the right word – to your advances.
If, as certainly we can, we interpret a lady taking 'pity' on her lover to mean giving in to him and having sex with him, then Sonnet 132 does not make sense after Sonnet 129, assuming 129 references the same woman. This is by no means certain though, and Sonnet 129 too may be out of place.
What somewhat supports the notion that it is Sonnet 132 which has slid a little out of position is mostly that it wedges itself in-between Sonnets 131 and 133, which are in all but certainty linked through the 'black deeds' of the mistress. Though when we say 'in all but certainty' we need to bring this, as every so often we must, into perspective: virtually nothing is certain when it comes to these sonnets, and practically everything is conjecture, except the words. But the words of Sonnet 133, as we shall see very shortly, are perfectly clear, and what they describe gives Shakespeare an excellent reason to admonish his mistress for what she has done.
The question that then presents itself naturally is this: if Sonnet 132 is out of place, as in the wrong position in the sequence within the collection, then how did it get there. This takes us back to the persistent question that appertains to all these sonnets: who curated them into the Quarto Edition of 1609? If it was Thomas Thorpe, the publisher, or somebody other than Shakespeare who handed Thorpe the sonnets without Shakespeare's own involvement, then the point is evectivelly moot, since a mistake of this kind would be entirely congruent with that kind of practice.
If, on the other hand, William Shakespeare himself prepared the collection for publication and thus placed the sonnets into their order personally – as many scholars believe he did, though many also believe he didn't – then the possibility exists that this isn't a mistake at all, but a deliberate choice on the part of the poet.
And if that were the case, then by virtue of the fact alone that it was, this would merit some further investigation, because if the positioning of Sonnet 132, odd though to us it may be, is deliberate, then contained therein is a gesture and that gesture, by virtue of the fact alone that it is one, has some meaning.
But: although it grieves me to say so, I must admit, we don't know what that meaning is. It could be – as we offered for one possibility in the last episode – that Shakespeare is constructing a dramatic arc. It could also be that he just needed to slot 132 in somewhere or else ditch it, and this somewhere seemed as sensible as any other, not least because that way it forms part of the group that elaborates on the mistress's 'dark' features. They will be mentioned several times again, but from now on in simply as an established fact, no longer as anything that needs further explanation or discourse.
What is also possible, of course, is that William Shakespeare is not here making an active decision, but that the placing of this sonnet, though carried out by him, in a subconscious way gives expression to something that we sense throughout: that his relationship with his Dark Lady is conflicted, complex: that he wants her, and wants her again, but that he is also disturbed by his want of her. That he desires, even loves, her, but possibly wishes he didn't or at least didn't have to.
And this is beginning to formulate something of a profile also of the woman herself. We know of the Fair Youth, the young man sonneteered to and about in the first 126 poems of the collection, that he is fickle, unfaithful, demanding, much as he is beautiful, charming, delightful. This woman, we are slowly getting the impression, is no less contradictory, maybe even at times contrary: if she is a real life woman – and it strikes me as increasingly disingenuous, so as not to say ridiculous to assume anything else, the further we go along – then she comes across as someone who will, just as these sonnets suggest, blow hot and cold. Who will one day be poised at her virginals and virginal in her appearance, the next devour the man she has caught with the bait that she's laid to make him mad – to freely quote Sonnet 129 – then disdainful and detached again, and then...
And then doing what the next poem, Sonnet 133, leaves us in no doubt that she did. Unless, of course, William Shakespeare makes it all up. If he does that, he is an inventor of stories indeed. But that, as we know from his plays, and from his long narrative poems, he is really not: with some notable exceptions, the vast majority of his output is based on plots found in some source. And for this next development, as for the most part of these sonnets on the whole, there is no source, other than most plausibly, most obviously, his own, real, life...
The sonnet thus stands in a long tradition of poetry that has a male lover pine for his unattainable and/or contemptuous mistress, and while on the surface it appears to express itself in positively chaste tones – certainly when compared to the exceptionally explicit Sonnet 129 – it still carries some subtle but nonetheless perfectly evident sexual undertones which it combines, so we get the impression, with just a tinge of irony.
The positioning of Sonnet 132 is curious. It bears an obvious resemblance to, and borrows themes from, Sonnet 127, the first of the Dark Lady Sonnets, and unless we were to – wildly, I warrant, and unwisely – speculate that Shakespeare had several dark eyed, black haired, tan skinned mistresses, it is obviously addressed to the same woman that Sonnet 127 talks about.
Sonnet 128 says nothing about her appearance, but nor does it offer any new or different type of characterisation, and with it we felt that it might be addressed to, as well as written by, almost anyone, but that it appears to express an as yet unmet desire for physical proximity with the lady therein portrayed.
Sonnet 129 does nothing of the sort. It too gives no clue as to whom, if anyone specific, it is about, but it offers plenty of rason to think that it was composed post-consummation of whatever the relationship is, and it also leaves no serious doubt that that relationship is with a woman.
Sonnet 130 more than anything mocks the poetry of other lovers in their cliched praise for their mistresses and contrasts Shakespeare's mistress with others' in terms that make her undoubtedly the same woman again as Sonnet 127 and the sonnets that then follow, 131 and now 132. Of these, Sonnet 131 once more dwells on the mistress's unconventionally beautiful, because 'dark', appearance and then comes out with this surprising twist at the end:
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander as I think proceeds.
Rather than, as we would have good reason to expect, elaborating on these deeds and this slander, Sonnet 132 now goes back into almost coy mode and actually in terms of what it expresses makes it sound once more like the kind of poem you would write to your mistress before she had 'succumbed' – if that's the right word – to your advances.
If, as certainly we can, we interpret a lady taking 'pity' on her lover to mean giving in to him and having sex with him, then Sonnet 132 does not make sense after Sonnet 129, assuming 129 references the same woman. This is by no means certain though, and Sonnet 129 too may be out of place.
What somewhat supports the notion that it is Sonnet 132 which has slid a little out of position is mostly that it wedges itself in-between Sonnets 131 and 133, which are in all but certainty linked through the 'black deeds' of the mistress. Though when we say 'in all but certainty' we need to bring this, as every so often we must, into perspective: virtually nothing is certain when it comes to these sonnets, and practically everything is conjecture, except the words. But the words of Sonnet 133, as we shall see very shortly, are perfectly clear, and what they describe gives Shakespeare an excellent reason to admonish his mistress for what she has done.
The question that then presents itself naturally is this: if Sonnet 132 is out of place, as in the wrong position in the sequence within the collection, then how did it get there. This takes us back to the persistent question that appertains to all these sonnets: who curated them into the Quarto Edition of 1609? If it was Thomas Thorpe, the publisher, or somebody other than Shakespeare who handed Thorpe the sonnets without Shakespeare's own involvement, then the point is evectivelly moot, since a mistake of this kind would be entirely congruent with that kind of practice.
If, on the other hand, William Shakespeare himself prepared the collection for publication and thus placed the sonnets into their order personally – as many scholars believe he did, though many also believe he didn't – then the possibility exists that this isn't a mistake at all, but a deliberate choice on the part of the poet.
And if that were the case, then by virtue of the fact alone that it was, this would merit some further investigation, because if the positioning of Sonnet 132, odd though to us it may be, is deliberate, then contained therein is a gesture and that gesture, by virtue of the fact alone that it is one, has some meaning.
But: although it grieves me to say so, I must admit, we don't know what that meaning is. It could be – as we offered for one possibility in the last episode – that Shakespeare is constructing a dramatic arc. It could also be that he just needed to slot 132 in somewhere or else ditch it, and this somewhere seemed as sensible as any other, not least because that way it forms part of the group that elaborates on the mistress's 'dark' features. They will be mentioned several times again, but from now on in simply as an established fact, no longer as anything that needs further explanation or discourse.
What is also possible, of course, is that William Shakespeare is not here making an active decision, but that the placing of this sonnet, though carried out by him, in a subconscious way gives expression to something that we sense throughout: that his relationship with his Dark Lady is conflicted, complex: that he wants her, and wants her again, but that he is also disturbed by his want of her. That he desires, even loves, her, but possibly wishes he didn't or at least didn't have to.
And this is beginning to formulate something of a profile also of the woman herself. We know of the Fair Youth, the young man sonneteered to and about in the first 126 poems of the collection, that he is fickle, unfaithful, demanding, much as he is beautiful, charming, delightful. This woman, we are slowly getting the impression, is no less contradictory, maybe even at times contrary: if she is a real life woman – and it strikes me as increasingly disingenuous, so as not to say ridiculous to assume anything else, the further we go along – then she comes across as someone who will, just as these sonnets suggest, blow hot and cold. Who will one day be poised at her virginals and virginal in her appearance, the next devour the man she has caught with the bait that she's laid to make him mad – to freely quote Sonnet 129 – then disdainful and detached again, and then...
And then doing what the next poem, Sonnet 133, leaves us in no doubt that she did. Unless, of course, William Shakespeare makes it all up. If he does that, he is an inventor of stories indeed. But that, as we know from his plays, and from his long narrative poems, he is really not: with some notable exceptions, the vast majority of his output is based on plots found in some source. And for this next development, as for the most part of these sonnets on the whole, there is no source, other than most plausibly, most obviously, his own, real, life...