SONNETS 118-129
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Sonnet 118
Like as to make our appetites more keen
With eager compounds we our pallet urge,
As to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
Even so being full of your near cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding:
And sick of wel-fare found a kind of meetness,
To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love t�anticipate
The ill that were, not grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state
Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.
But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.
After the unconditional statement about love in sonnet 116 and the
challenge to the youth to prove the Poet in error in sonnet 117, sonnets
118 and 119 consider the means by which the Poet�s mature understanding
of love avoids the excesses of youthful idealism. He questions the need for
false expectations that predictably lead to unavoidable consequences. The
Poet does not claim to remove �sickness�. He argues only that what is already
bad enough is made worse by feeding the appetite for the excessive
�sweetness� of idealised perfection.
The Poet accepts that, to remedy the needs of the body, �eager
compounds� can increase the appetite and that immunisation can �purge� a
�malady unseen� (118.3) before it takes hold. �Even so�, while small portions
of like compounds work for bodily needs, the Poet turns to �bitter sauces�
to effect a remedy (118.5) when he finds his mind is �full of the near cloying
sweetness� or idealised goodness of the youth. The effect of the youth�s
cloying �beauty� on the Poet�s mind requires a dose of bitterness to bring it
back into balance with the natural logic of truth and beauty. The Poet finds
�a kind of meetness� (118.7) or mental balance when he makes his mind �sick�
to counteract youth�s �cloying� idealism. The �need� to be �diseased� is the
logical remedy to counter the imbalance (118.8).
�Thus� the Poet developed a �policy� to �anticipate� (118.9) the �ill� that is
consequent on the type of idealised or absolute love associated with the
adolescent mind in adults. The �policy� ensures that such love does not grow
to �assured faults� or evil consequences (118.10). Mental �illnesses� of the type
involving �rank of goodness� can paradoxically be brought to a healthful state
by �ill� (118.12). In the couplet, the �lesson� for the Poet as he moves beyond
the immature phase of youth (typified by an absolute belief in the ideal), is
that more of the same �drug� �poisons� only �him� who once �fell� for the
mental �sickness� of impossible love.
Many commentators have found sonnet 118 harsh and confusing because
they commit the very fault Shakespeare anticipates. When they bring their
predispositions for the absolute or the idealised male God to the sonnet, they
are confounded by the sense of ill the sonnet in turn generates in them. The
sonnet affects them just as the Poet is affected if he accepts unquestioningly
youth�s appetite for �cloying sweetness�. The logic of the Sonnets, based in
Nature and respectful of the sexual dynamic, presents a �meet� or balanced
appreciation of truth and beauty.
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Roger Peters Copyright © 2001
Introduction
1-9
10-21
22-33
34-45
46-57
58-69
70-81
82-93
94-105
106-117
118-129
130-141
142-153
154
Emendations
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