Sonnet 137: Thou Blind Fool Love, What Dost Thou to Mine Eyes
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Thou blind fool love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold and see not what they see: They know what beauty is, see where it lies, Yet what the best is, take the worst to be. If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks, Be anchored in the bay where all men ride, Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks Whereto the judgement of my heart is tied? Why should my heart think that a several plot Which my heart knows the wide world's common place? Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not, To put fair truth upon so foul a face? In things right true my heart and eyes have erred, And to this false plague are they now transferred. |
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Thou blind fool love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold and see not what they see: |
The poem addresses love itself, which is proverbially blind and frequently presented as a 'fool', by Shakespeare and others. Sonnet 57, for example, in its closing couplet maintains:
So true a fool is love that in your will, Though you do anything, he thinks no ill. Here, Shakespeare asks this blind fool love, what are you doing to my eyes that they should be looking but not actually seeing what they are looking at? The implication of which being, of course, that my eyes are being blinded by love. |
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They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be. |
They, my eyes, know full well what beauty is, they can see where it normally resides, they can recognise it when they see it, and yet, because of you – as is implied – they consider that which is best to be worst, and – similarly by implication but crucially – they inversely regard that which is the worst to be the best.
In other words: I am looking at the best, or most beautiful thing or person and, because of my sudden blindness to reality, consider them to be the ugliest; or, as will become much clearer shortly, the reverse: I find myself looking at an ugly thing or person and because I am blinded by love I consider this to be the most beautiful, best thing in the world. |
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If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks,
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If if is the case that eyes which have been corrupted and have had their vision distorted by excessively partial or infatuated glances at the thing or person they have become obsessed by...
Shakespeare here begins to describe the effect that love is having on his eyes: they are 'corrupted' in the sense that they are no longer capable of delivering truthful information to the heart and mind, a fault that has come about by looking too fondly on the thing or person they have fallen in love with. As a pertinent aside: 'fond' in Shakespeare means 'foolish', rather than – or perhaps for that exact reason as well as – 'loving', so when we speak of 'fond glances', meaning loving ones, an Elizabethan would hear 'foolish glances', though know that they be loving ones too, of course. The sonnet, much as the previous one, plays on the 'division of labour' so to speak between the eyes on the one hand and the heart or the mind or both on the other: as we noted there, both heart and mind can only know of the world visually what the eyes convey. If the eyes are unable or unwilling to do their job properly, then heart and mind, too, cannot be fully functional. |
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Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,
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The 'bay where all men ride' is a poetic though for that no less blunt description of the mistress herself: it is the body where all men come to have sex.
Boats or ships 'ride at anchor', as the expression goes, and this had by Shakespeare's time become a readily understood euphemism for sexual intercourse. Thomas Carew's poem The Rapture [79-90] provides a fine example: Now in more subtle wreaths I will entwine My sinewy thighs, my legs and arms with thine; Thou like a sea of milk shalt lie displayed, Whilst I the smooth calm ocean invade With such a tempest, as when Jove of old Fell down on Danaë in a storm of gold; Yet my tall pine shall in the Cyprian strait Ride safe at anchor and unlade her freight: My rudder with thy bold hand, like a tried And skilful pilot, thou shalt steer, and guide My bark into love's channel, where it shall Dance, as the bounding waves do rise or fall. If Shakespeare's eyes, then, are "anchored in the bay where all men ride," that means they are fixated upon or attached to the woman who is available to everyone. |
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Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks
Whereto the judgement of my heart is tied? |
Why have you – love – then used this false or corrupted vision of my eyes to forge hooks that tie the judgement of my heart to what is essentially a lie and thus cause it, my heart, to also be further deceived.
Implied, though here not yet directly expressed, is that the eyes are looking at someone who is ugly or at the very least lacks, as previous sonnets have strongly suggested, traditional beauty, and that their distorted vision now is causing the heart to also misjudge the nature or character of that person: PRONUNCIATION: Note that forged is pronounced as two syllables here: [for-ged]. |
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Why should my heart think that a several plot
Which my heart know the wide world's common place? |
Why should my heart consider that place to be a private or separate or reserved plot of land – perhaps such as a protected garden – of which my heart full well knows that the whole wide world may use it as its common area for recreation or public pasture.
Shakespeare now moves his metaphor from sea to land and compares a private, secluded spot which is available only to a select few or to one owner to a parkland or common pasture ground where everyone may come and enjoy themselves, or graze their cattle: the mistress is further characterised as extremely promiscuous. And a commonplace then as now is also a widely used expression, a commonly deployed phrase or truism, and so a pun is very likely to be intended here with a suggestion that this Dark Lady being generally available for sex is also a commonplace, something that is generally known and talked about. |
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Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not,
To put fair truth upon so foul a face? |
Or why should it further be the case that my eyes, when they can see that they are captivated by someone so sexually indiscriminating, maintain that this is not so and thus furnish such an ugly face as that of my mistress with a 'beautiful truth', meaning an untarnished reputation of a virtuous, faithful character?
'So foul a face' is strong indeed. Until now, within the Dark Lady Sonnets, Shakespeare has used the word 'foul' twice in a fairly general context to contrast 'fair' – as in 'beautiful' – with its opposite, on both occasions also playing on the contrast between 'fair' as in light coloured and its opposite 'dark' or 'black'. Here the epithet is not so softened: it stands on its own against a 'fair truth' and would appear to declare this mistress to be, objectively speaking, ugly. |
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In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,
And to this false plague are they now transferred. |
With regard to or in relation to things which are clearly and obviously and entirely true, both my heart and my eyes have erred and, as is implied, do still err, and so they are now in their allegiance and obligations and – their own better judgement notwithstanding – affections transferred to 'this false plague', meaning this distorted, corrupted affliction which is like a plague or a disease to me; or, even more powerfully pointed, this unfaithful woman who is essentially like a plague or a disease to me.
Editors point out that 'transferred' is a legal term applied to titles, rights, and obligations, and that therefore a suggestion may be implied that the poet has moved his heart's and his eyes' commitment from a previously 'true' as in 'faithful' and wholesome person to this woman who is neither. This, when pitched against what little we know of his wife Anne would seem to make sense and ring true; when applied to his younger male lover it would constitute more of a half-truth, half wishful thinking, since he, going by everything we know about him, is also unfaithful, though he be undoubtedly beautiful. The use of the very strong term 'plague', meanwhile, is more or less universally seen as a most likely deliberate reference to venereal disease, either suspected or present in the lady. This is not entirely unreasonable: sexually transmitted diseases, we noted before, were rife and anyone who had multiple sexual partners – most particularly in a heaving, transient place like London – was at extreme risk of contracting something potentially deeply unpleasant, if not downright dangerous. |
In Sonnet 137, William Shakespeare draws together two of the themes established by the Dark Lady Sonnets thus far: his mistress's unconventional beauty and her sexual freedom.
Following the near-obsessive punning of Sonnets 135 and 136, which lent them a humorous, light-hearted tone, our poet settles back into a more evenly rounded style that is easier on our eye and ear, but no less acute in its observation and in fact ostensibly more fierce in its assessment of the situation: Sonnet 137, for all its poetic metaphorising pulls no punches and portrays this woman's looks no longer as merely 'different' but as downright ugly, and her body as a place that gives access for all men to ride.
Still, the conclusion it reaches is not one of condemnation, but of contented resignation: this is how it is now and I am thus in my desire and affection tied to her.
When with Sonnet 136 we noted how remarkably non-judgmental William Shakespeare's stance towards his mistress's promiscuity was, this here in Sonnet 137 is echoed and further cemented. This poem could scarcely be more stark – or more pronounced – in its choice of words for the mistress's appearance and the way she conducts her sex life, but with its closing couplet it still manages to roundly redeem her: my eyes and my heart are both lying to me and to themselves and to each other, but I must love her anyway, that's just how it is, I cannot help it, nor do I, apparently, particularly want to.
This, when looked at through the lens of centuries of moralistic condemnation of women's sexuality is actually quite radically progressive. Many a man throughout history might and categorically would have done one of two things: either a) demanded sexual exclusivity and if that wasn't forthcoming abandoned the woman he desired, or b) accepted the woman's sexual licentiousness but equated it with moral deficiency and decided he could have sex with her, but not love her. Shakespeare by contrast declares: you may well be the bay where all men ride, but my heart deceives itself into believing that that isn't so and so attaches itself to you nonetheless.
Now we could argue, perhaps, from a truly egalitarian libertarian perspective, that that still makes a judgment. It still says, what you are doing is fundamentally wrong, but I choose not to let it matter to me. But that takes us far deeper into human psychology and the complexity of emotional attachment than a mere male-female power dynamic. Because in relationships between men as in relationships between women, jealousy, possessiveness, or a simple, genuine commitment to sexual monogamy are all not only possible but frequently found, the latter of these not rarely as a matter of personal preference and mutual choice.
If we continue to assume, as I believe we have strong reason to, that both the Dark Lady Sonnets and the Fair Youth Sonnets are rooted in real life experiences and that they dovetail and overlap, with the Dark Lady appearing as Shakespeare's mistress in the crisis that engulfs Sonnets 33 to 42 and the Fair Youth appearing as the friend and love in Sonnets 133 & 134 and soon again in Sonnet 144, then one of the things that Shakespeare is also doing here with Sonnet 137 is avoid falling in the trap of rank hypocrisy. He himself is not, obviously, faithful to his mistress. And in the latter part of the Fair Youth Sonnets he confesses to his young man that he has "gone here and there," that he too has "hoisted sail to all the winds" and "frequent been" with strangers. We don't know whether Shakespeare in these sonnets is mostly referring to other men, to other men and other women, or mostly, indeed, to other women. The impression we got was certainly at least some other men, but it is an impression, not a certainty.
What is certain – as certain as anything can be when it comes to these sonnets – is that William Shakespeare, like his young lover, and like his mysterious mistress, has sex with other people. And what we perhaps may want to bear in mind when reading and hearing these sonnets is that of course he and his younger lover and his dark lady are not alone in this.
Peter Ackroyd in his marvellous and meticulously researched Shakespeare – The Biography makes a point which we here too have made before but which deserves reiterating and keeping close to our conscious awareness: London in the 1590s is a thriving, chaotic, young, dynamic place: "Its vigour and energy came from a fresh access of youthfulness. It has been estimated that half of the urban population was under the age of twenty years. This is what rendered it so strident, so tough, so excitable. Never again would it be so young." [107] And he also notes [112]: "Visitors to London registered their surprise or disapproval at the level of intimacy between the sexes. Erasmus mentions that 'wherever you come, you are received with a kiss by all; when you take your leave, you are dismissed with kisses'. It was customary, at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century, for women to wear dresses in public that exposed their breasts."
Recently on this podcast, in our discussion of Sonnets 133 and 135 we maintained that Shakespeare's is not a prudish age. And Sonnet 137 once more confirms this: William Shakespeare – here aged somewhere in his mid to late twenties, at the very most early thirties, finds himself in the maelstrom of a London life that is bursting at the seams with lust. Lust for life. Lust of life. Lust for other living people. Almost no matter who they are. And again: if you are a poet and playwright in your mid to late twenties, at the very most early thirties, surrounded by poets who don't hang on much longer than that, you have every reason to get on with it and live. You quite literally have no time to tarry, let alone to pontificate.
And so Shakespeare doesn't. He accommodates himself in his emotion, in his desire, in his own lust. And tries to live it as best he can. And Sonnet 138 will take this one step further: it goes into an astonishingly frank and dispassionate assessment of the mutual co-dependency he has formed with his mistress, acknowledging there not only her fully accepted infidelity but also, for the first time in this part of the series, in the Dark Lady Sonnets now, his – and her – awareness of his own age...
Following the near-obsessive punning of Sonnets 135 and 136, which lent them a humorous, light-hearted tone, our poet settles back into a more evenly rounded style that is easier on our eye and ear, but no less acute in its observation and in fact ostensibly more fierce in its assessment of the situation: Sonnet 137, for all its poetic metaphorising pulls no punches and portrays this woman's looks no longer as merely 'different' but as downright ugly, and her body as a place that gives access for all men to ride.
Still, the conclusion it reaches is not one of condemnation, but of contented resignation: this is how it is now and I am thus in my desire and affection tied to her.
When with Sonnet 136 we noted how remarkably non-judgmental William Shakespeare's stance towards his mistress's promiscuity was, this here in Sonnet 137 is echoed and further cemented. This poem could scarcely be more stark – or more pronounced – in its choice of words for the mistress's appearance and the way she conducts her sex life, but with its closing couplet it still manages to roundly redeem her: my eyes and my heart are both lying to me and to themselves and to each other, but I must love her anyway, that's just how it is, I cannot help it, nor do I, apparently, particularly want to.
This, when looked at through the lens of centuries of moralistic condemnation of women's sexuality is actually quite radically progressive. Many a man throughout history might and categorically would have done one of two things: either a) demanded sexual exclusivity and if that wasn't forthcoming abandoned the woman he desired, or b) accepted the woman's sexual licentiousness but equated it with moral deficiency and decided he could have sex with her, but not love her. Shakespeare by contrast declares: you may well be the bay where all men ride, but my heart deceives itself into believing that that isn't so and so attaches itself to you nonetheless.
Now we could argue, perhaps, from a truly egalitarian libertarian perspective, that that still makes a judgment. It still says, what you are doing is fundamentally wrong, but I choose not to let it matter to me. But that takes us far deeper into human psychology and the complexity of emotional attachment than a mere male-female power dynamic. Because in relationships between men as in relationships between women, jealousy, possessiveness, or a simple, genuine commitment to sexual monogamy are all not only possible but frequently found, the latter of these not rarely as a matter of personal preference and mutual choice.
If we continue to assume, as I believe we have strong reason to, that both the Dark Lady Sonnets and the Fair Youth Sonnets are rooted in real life experiences and that they dovetail and overlap, with the Dark Lady appearing as Shakespeare's mistress in the crisis that engulfs Sonnets 33 to 42 and the Fair Youth appearing as the friend and love in Sonnets 133 & 134 and soon again in Sonnet 144, then one of the things that Shakespeare is also doing here with Sonnet 137 is avoid falling in the trap of rank hypocrisy. He himself is not, obviously, faithful to his mistress. And in the latter part of the Fair Youth Sonnets he confesses to his young man that he has "gone here and there," that he too has "hoisted sail to all the winds" and "frequent been" with strangers. We don't know whether Shakespeare in these sonnets is mostly referring to other men, to other men and other women, or mostly, indeed, to other women. The impression we got was certainly at least some other men, but it is an impression, not a certainty.
What is certain – as certain as anything can be when it comes to these sonnets – is that William Shakespeare, like his young lover, and like his mysterious mistress, has sex with other people. And what we perhaps may want to bear in mind when reading and hearing these sonnets is that of course he and his younger lover and his dark lady are not alone in this.
Peter Ackroyd in his marvellous and meticulously researched Shakespeare – The Biography makes a point which we here too have made before but which deserves reiterating and keeping close to our conscious awareness: London in the 1590s is a thriving, chaotic, young, dynamic place: "Its vigour and energy came from a fresh access of youthfulness. It has been estimated that half of the urban population was under the age of twenty years. This is what rendered it so strident, so tough, so excitable. Never again would it be so young." [107] And he also notes [112]: "Visitors to London registered their surprise or disapproval at the level of intimacy between the sexes. Erasmus mentions that 'wherever you come, you are received with a kiss by all; when you take your leave, you are dismissed with kisses'. It was customary, at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century, for women to wear dresses in public that exposed their breasts."
Recently on this podcast, in our discussion of Sonnets 133 and 135 we maintained that Shakespeare's is not a prudish age. And Sonnet 137 once more confirms this: William Shakespeare – here aged somewhere in his mid to late twenties, at the very most early thirties, finds himself in the maelstrom of a London life that is bursting at the seams with lust. Lust for life. Lust of life. Lust for other living people. Almost no matter who they are. And again: if you are a poet and playwright in your mid to late twenties, at the very most early thirties, surrounded by poets who don't hang on much longer than that, you have every reason to get on with it and live. You quite literally have no time to tarry, let alone to pontificate.
And so Shakespeare doesn't. He accommodates himself in his emotion, in his desire, in his own lust. And tries to live it as best he can. And Sonnet 138 will take this one step further: it goes into an astonishingly frank and dispassionate assessment of the mutual co-dependency he has formed with his mistress, acknowledging there not only her fully accepted infidelity but also, for the first time in this part of the series, in the Dark Lady Sonnets now, his – and her – awareness of his own age...
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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!