Sonnet 140

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Sonnet 140 in the 1609 Quarto
Q1 Q2 Q3 C Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain; Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express The manner of my pity-wanting pain. If I might teach thee wit, better it were, Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so; As testy sick men, when their deaths be near, No news but health from their physicians know; For, if I should despair, I should grow mad, And in my madness might speak ill of thee: Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. That I may not be so, nor thou belied, Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide. 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare[1]

Sonnet 140 is one of

Structure

Sonnet 140 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 3rd line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

 ×    /  ×   /    ×  /     ×    /    ×   / 
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express (140.3)

/ = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus.

Line 14 exhibits two common metrical variations: an initial reversal, and (potentially) the rightward movement of the third ictus (resulting in a four-position figure, × × / /, sometimes referred to as a minor ionic):

 /     ×   ×       /        ×      ×   /    /     ×  / 
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide. (140.14)

A mid-line reversal is found in line 5, with potential initial reversals in lines 9 and 10. A minor ionic is present in line 12 and potentially in line 9.

The meter demands that line 12's "slanderers" function as two syllables.^[2]

Interpretations

• Edward Fox, for the 2002 compilation album, When Love Speaks (EMI)

Notes