Sonnet 114: or Whether Doth My Mind, Being Crowned with You
Sonnet 114: or Whether Doth My Mind, Being Crowned with You - meaning Summary
Perception Shaped by Love
Shakespeare’s sonnet explores how love alters perception. The speaker questions whether his mind, "crowned" by the beloved, distorts sight into flattering illusions or whether his eye has learned to transform faults into virtues. Love acts like alchemy and poison: it creates idealized cherubs from monsters and the speaker admits his mind eagerly drinks this flattering draught, taking blame for embracing a pleasing falsehood rather than resisting it.
Read Complete AnalysesOr whether doth my mind, being crowned with you, Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery? Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true, And that your love taught it this alchemy, To make of monsters, and things indigest, Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, Creating every bad a perfect best As fast as objects to his beams assemble? O, ’tis the first, ’tis flattery in my seeing, And my great mind most kingly drinks it up; Mine eye well knows what with his gust is ‘greeing, And to his palate doth prepare the cup. If it be poisoned, ’tis the lesser sin That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
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