Sonnet 88: When Thou Shalt Be Disposed to Set Me Light
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When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of scorn, Upon thy side against myself I'll fight And prove thee virtuous though thou art forsworn: With mine own weakness being best aquainted, Upon thy part I can set down a story Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted That thou in losing me shall win much glory. And I by this will be a gainer too, For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, The injuries that to myself I do, Doing thee vantage, double vantage me. Such is my love, to thee I so belong, That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong. |
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When thou shalt be disposed to set me light
And place my merit in the eye of scorn, |
When you are willing or ready to value me lightly or to consider me of light and therefore little value and to present any good qualities or merit that I have in such a way that anyone would feel only disdain or contempt for them...
The strong connotation is that such a placing 'in the eye of scorn' has a public aspect to it, that not only would the young man himself consider his poet friend and lover of little worth but that he would also talk about him dismissively to his friends and thus make him look bad in society at large. In a society such as that of Elizabethan England, where a person's life can be entirely ruined by slander or slur, this is no trivial matter. |
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Upon thy side against myself I'll fight
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn: |
...then, when you do this, I will take your side and fight against myself on your behalf, and in doing so I will prove you to be virtuous – of good character and integrity – even though you actually betray me.
To 'forswear' and therefore be 'forsworn' means to commit perjury or to break a vow, which again strongly implies that our poet is under the impression that the young man has made a strong, near-formal commitment to him. You cannot accuse someone of being 'forsworn' unless they do or say something that goes directly against what they said they would do or say. There may also be a pun intended on a secondary meaning of 'to pledge to do without', as in 'he forswore the pleasures of his male and female companions to lead a life of chaste dedication to God', for example, which would make this quite an ironic sentence, because to all intents and purposes and as far as we can tell, the young man is not 'forswearing' the company of Shakespeare for an ascetic life of spiritual growth, but most likely from what we gather so as to pursue his betrayal of him with another man or with other men, and if Will here is the injured party in this way, then this would be a particularly clever way of telling the young man off for his behaviour. And another double layering comes with the 'though'. The line can be read either as a direct accusation to the young man: even though you are betraying me, I will do this, or as: even if you were to do so, I would still fight your corner for you. This latter then softens the charge somewhat and it importantly also leaves the door open for the young man to perhaps not, or no longer pursue such unfaithful conduct. |
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With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story Of faults concealed, |
Being most familiar with my own weaknesses and faults, I am in a position where I can lay out or expound or even construct a story of faults of mine that are hidden and that therefore you don't even know about; in other words, to anything bad that you can say about me, I can add more in-depth information and further evidence, simply because I know myself better than anyone else, including you...
Editors like to point out that the line can also be read so that 'upon thy part' relates to these 'faults concealed' and thus suggests that the young man similarly has such hidden flaws. This cannot be dismissed out of hand. It doesn't strictly make sense in the context of me being most familiar with my own weaknesses, but we are more than a little conscious of the fact that the young man has many and fairly serious character flaws, and so it would not be at all surprising for Shakespeare here to mask a finger pointing at the young man within an apparent denigration of himself. |
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wherein I am attainted
That thou in losing me shall win much glory. |
...and in this story that I can thus come up with, I am tainted or stained or dishonoured in such a way that you, by getting rid of me, will greatly benefit your reputation.
This would appear to echo a sentiment expressed strongly also in Sonnet 36, although the act of 'losing' there rests with Will: I may not evermore acknowledge thee Lest my bewailed guilt should to thee shame, Nor thou with public kindness honour me, Unless thou take that honour from thy name. You will find that some editors emend 'shall' to the grammatically correct 'shalt', and certainly it is possible that this is simply printing error, but as Colin Burrow in the Oxford Edition points out, the use of the plural form 'shall' when the singular 'shalt' would ordinarily be required is not at all unusual, and in fact John Kerrigan in the Penguin edition also follows the practice of leaving the original intact. And an interesting little detail comes with the word 'losing'. The Quarto Edition spells this 'loosing', which is not at all unusual at the time and elsewhere gives not much raise for comment, but it here also allows for a meaning of 'setting me free', as in 'loosening your ties to me', or indeed, to invert some of the meaning of the previous sonnet, 'releasing me from my bonds' in you, and while we have to treat any variant spellings in the Quarto Edition with the greatest caution because, as we know, it is haphazard to say the least, this may of course here be intentional. |
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And I by this will be a gainer too,
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And by this process of you 'losing' or indeed 'loosing' me, I will also benefit, I will gain from this...
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For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to myself I do, Doing thee vantage, double vantage me. |
...because directing all my loving thoughts towards you – which I do, and which you know I do because I have told you so many times now – it turns out of course that any advantage you may gain from me damaging my own reputation and thus giving you good reason to leave me, and effectively excusing you for your betrayal, doubly benefits me, because...
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Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong. |
...my love for you is so great and I so much belong to you that anything good that happens to you is also good for me, and so for your benefit, to make your case for you, and to make you look and seem virtuous and faithful, even though you are not, I will bear all the wrong that you do to me, all the wrong that I do to myself, and all the wrong that may or may not somehow be inherent in this relationship of ours.
The justification or reason for Shakespeare thus shouldering any wrongdoing and any hurt that such wrongdoing may cause is clear enough, it is exactly as the last line of Sonnet 36 also suggests: "thou being mine, mine is thy good report." The idea is simple and straightforward: we two are one – a declaration that has been made repeatedly, most explicitly perhaps in Sonnet 42, "my friend and I are one" – and so anything good that happens to you is by necessity and extension also good for me, even if that supposed 'good' is actually an injury I do to myself. |
Having bid his lover farewell in Sonnet 87 and effectively conceded that this young man is out of his league, starting with Sonnet 88, and stretching over the next two poems, Shakespeare sets the ground for a spirited fightback that will materialise properly in Sonnets 91 to 96.
In its tone and its stance Sonnet 88 seems submissive, even self-debasing. It echoes sentiments that were expressed in several sonnets before, notably Sonnet 49, which similarly expressed that when the time comes for the young nobleman to distance himself from his poet friend and lover, he, Shakespeare, will take the young man's side and argue his lover's case for leaving him, rather than defending himself and pleading for his lover to stay.
We noted, when we examined Sonnet 49, that there was an inevitability to the outcome Shakespeare anticipated there. And while we must forever be conscious of the possibility that these sonnets may not all appear in the Quarto Edition in the exact order in which they were composed, Sonnet 87 appears to have ushered in the phase referred to in Sonnet 49.
And Sonnet 87 as a preamble to Sonnet 88 is significant, because Sonnets 88 to 90 could, much like Sonnet 49, simply be considered a speculative, hypothetical scenario at some point in an unspecified future. But with the words "Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing" still reverberating – and nobody seriously suggests we should separate Sonnet 87 out from Sonnet 88 and the following group – we now sense that Shakespeare is no longer thinking in terms of something that may or even must one day come to pass, but in terms of something that is imminent, indeed in progress.
And without wishing to anticipate the exceptionally bold and intriguing segment that consists of Sonnets 91 to 96, it is equally significant, of course, that these three poems here, Sonnets 88 - 90, in which our poet appears to be doing nothing other than to absolve the young man of any responsibility or wrongdoing for the heartache he is nonetheless causing, are going to be followed by a half dozen poems that voice the strongest criticism yet of the young man.
But let's take a moment to remind ourselves of Sonnet 49:
Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
Whenas thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advised respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
Against that time do I ensconce me here,
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this, my hand, against myself uprear
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:
To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,
Since why to love, I can allege no cause.
The parallels to Sonnet 88 are striking, but there is also a very fundamental difference in the underlying cause that is assumed for the young man ultimately leaving Shakespeare, and also, it would seem, in Shakespeare's motivation for writing about it.
Sonnet 49 gives as the principal reason for the young man changing his attitude towards him some 'advised respects'. These, we saw, may be either the young man's own insights, or possibly more plausibly, the earnest counsel of his actual advisors who would no doubt sooner or later have warned the young man against being too closely, and to visibly, too publicly, involved with a poet and playwright who is in terms of his status by some substantial margin his inferior, and in terms of his age at least ten years his senior.
Sonnet 88 gives no direct cause for why the young man would be thus changed in his love and affection for Shakespeare, but then it doesn't really have to since Sonnet 87 provided ample reasons, which you'll find discussed in detail obviously in the previous episode, but which in a nutshell amount to the young man being – as we again put it just a moment ago – out of Shakespeare's league, certainly and at least in his own perception.
When we look at the motivation – or we should probably be cautious here too and speak of a potential motivation, since we cannot possibly know this for certain – for Shakespeare writing both these sonnets, then the difference too becomes quickly apparent.
Sonnet 49 comes on the heels of Sonnet 48, which begins with:
How careful was I when I took my way
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust
And then laments the fact that the young man – more precious than the most valuable jewel to Shakespeare – is left "the prey of every vulgar thief."
The suggestion is clearly that Shakespeare, while away from his young lover, fears that he will 'be taken' from him, for which, in a real world where a young aristocrat cannot and will not simply 'be taken' but will to a fair extent be giving himself away or 'taking' in turn, we may read will go off and be unfaithful to him.
It is therefore not preposterous to propose that Sonnet 49 is prompted mainly by this fear of unfaithfulness. There, it turns out, the immediate outcome is not one of betrayal and loss, but of reconciliation and bliss, assuming, as even skeptics of the sequence do, that Sonnet 49 yields straight into the separation of Sonnets 50 & 51 and from there into the likely reunion of Sonnets 52 and 53. And so even if this fear of unfaithfulness was at least to some extent also grounded in actual escapades the young man may have permitted himself, what does not come through is a fundamental shift in attitude from the young man, beyond taking some liberties, as had already been acknowledged in Sonnet 41 with:
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Here, by contrast, the resignation into the way things are is drawn out longer, over three sonnets, and followed by half a dozen poems that build up to a near sensational broadside before tuning down again a bit.
And so what motivates Shakespeare to write Sonnet 88 does not sound like a fear of his young man getting off with someone while he's away somewhere, or even the young man getting off with someone while still and always being – to paraphrase Cole Porter – 'true to him in his fashion, true to him in his way', what prompts Sonnet 88 would appear to be a realisation – as strongly signalled in Sonnet 87 – that Shakespeare just isn't what the young man now wants and goes after, and the reality – as will become more and more apparent throughout Sonnets 91 to 96 – that this young man thinks he can get away with anything because he can: he is so beautiful, so admired, and so privileged, that unless he chooses to take responsibility for himself and elects to look after his reputation, and unless he actually wants to be in some sort of meaningful relationship with Shakespeare, he can never be relied on to be a true and faithful love; and he has now, it would seem, made it clear enough to Shakespeare, that Shakespeare for him is no longer good enough. And that really does change everything.
Sonnet 88 can stand on its own, but it doesn't. It is strongly linked and in its construction tied into a triptych that continues with Sonnets 89 and 90, which, as we shall shortly see, carry through the same stance and theme, but which, in themselves, are far from last word on the matter of William Shakespeare and his young lover...
In its tone and its stance Sonnet 88 seems submissive, even self-debasing. It echoes sentiments that were expressed in several sonnets before, notably Sonnet 49, which similarly expressed that when the time comes for the young nobleman to distance himself from his poet friend and lover, he, Shakespeare, will take the young man's side and argue his lover's case for leaving him, rather than defending himself and pleading for his lover to stay.
We noted, when we examined Sonnet 49, that there was an inevitability to the outcome Shakespeare anticipated there. And while we must forever be conscious of the possibility that these sonnets may not all appear in the Quarto Edition in the exact order in which they were composed, Sonnet 87 appears to have ushered in the phase referred to in Sonnet 49.
And Sonnet 87 as a preamble to Sonnet 88 is significant, because Sonnets 88 to 90 could, much like Sonnet 49, simply be considered a speculative, hypothetical scenario at some point in an unspecified future. But with the words "Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing" still reverberating – and nobody seriously suggests we should separate Sonnet 87 out from Sonnet 88 and the following group – we now sense that Shakespeare is no longer thinking in terms of something that may or even must one day come to pass, but in terms of something that is imminent, indeed in progress.
And without wishing to anticipate the exceptionally bold and intriguing segment that consists of Sonnets 91 to 96, it is equally significant, of course, that these three poems here, Sonnets 88 - 90, in which our poet appears to be doing nothing other than to absolve the young man of any responsibility or wrongdoing for the heartache he is nonetheless causing, are going to be followed by a half dozen poems that voice the strongest criticism yet of the young man.
But let's take a moment to remind ourselves of Sonnet 49:
Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
Whenas thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advised respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
Against that time do I ensconce me here,
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this, my hand, against myself uprear
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:
To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,
Since why to love, I can allege no cause.
The parallels to Sonnet 88 are striking, but there is also a very fundamental difference in the underlying cause that is assumed for the young man ultimately leaving Shakespeare, and also, it would seem, in Shakespeare's motivation for writing about it.
Sonnet 49 gives as the principal reason for the young man changing his attitude towards him some 'advised respects'. These, we saw, may be either the young man's own insights, or possibly more plausibly, the earnest counsel of his actual advisors who would no doubt sooner or later have warned the young man against being too closely, and to visibly, too publicly, involved with a poet and playwright who is in terms of his status by some substantial margin his inferior, and in terms of his age at least ten years his senior.
Sonnet 88 gives no direct cause for why the young man would be thus changed in his love and affection for Shakespeare, but then it doesn't really have to since Sonnet 87 provided ample reasons, which you'll find discussed in detail obviously in the previous episode, but which in a nutshell amount to the young man being – as we again put it just a moment ago – out of Shakespeare's league, certainly and at least in his own perception.
When we look at the motivation – or we should probably be cautious here too and speak of a potential motivation, since we cannot possibly know this for certain – for Shakespeare writing both these sonnets, then the difference too becomes quickly apparent.
Sonnet 49 comes on the heels of Sonnet 48, which begins with:
How careful was I when I took my way
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust
And then laments the fact that the young man – more precious than the most valuable jewel to Shakespeare – is left "the prey of every vulgar thief."
The suggestion is clearly that Shakespeare, while away from his young lover, fears that he will 'be taken' from him, for which, in a real world where a young aristocrat cannot and will not simply 'be taken' but will to a fair extent be giving himself away or 'taking' in turn, we may read will go off and be unfaithful to him.
It is therefore not preposterous to propose that Sonnet 49 is prompted mainly by this fear of unfaithfulness. There, it turns out, the immediate outcome is not one of betrayal and loss, but of reconciliation and bliss, assuming, as even skeptics of the sequence do, that Sonnet 49 yields straight into the separation of Sonnets 50 & 51 and from there into the likely reunion of Sonnets 52 and 53. And so even if this fear of unfaithfulness was at least to some extent also grounded in actual escapades the young man may have permitted himself, what does not come through is a fundamental shift in attitude from the young man, beyond taking some liberties, as had already been acknowledged in Sonnet 41 with:
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Here, by contrast, the resignation into the way things are is drawn out longer, over three sonnets, and followed by half a dozen poems that build up to a near sensational broadside before tuning down again a bit.
And so what motivates Shakespeare to write Sonnet 88 does not sound like a fear of his young man getting off with someone while he's away somewhere, or even the young man getting off with someone while still and always being – to paraphrase Cole Porter – 'true to him in his fashion, true to him in his way', what prompts Sonnet 88 would appear to be a realisation – as strongly signalled in Sonnet 87 – that Shakespeare just isn't what the young man now wants and goes after, and the reality – as will become more and more apparent throughout Sonnets 91 to 96 – that this young man thinks he can get away with anything because he can: he is so beautiful, so admired, and so privileged, that unless he chooses to take responsibility for himself and elects to look after his reputation, and unless he actually wants to be in some sort of meaningful relationship with Shakespeare, he can never be relied on to be a true and faithful love; and he has now, it would seem, made it clear enough to Shakespeare, that Shakespeare for him is no longer good enough. And that really does change everything.
Sonnet 88 can stand on its own, but it doesn't. It is strongly linked and in its construction tied into a triptych that continues with Sonnets 89 and 90, which, as we shall shortly see, carry through the same stance and theme, but which, in themselves, are far from last word on the matter of William Shakespeare and his young lover...
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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!