Sonnet 134: So, Now I Have Confessed That He Is Thine
Sonnet 134: So, Now I Have Confessed That He Is Thine - meaning Summary
Love Tangled with Ownership
The speaker admits that a beloved belongs to someone else and that he has mortgaged himself to that person’s will. He imagines offering himself in exchange for the return of the loved one, but both lovers refuse to release him. Using economic metaphors, the poem presents possession, debt and loss: the rival keeps the beloved, the speaker remains bound, and his sacrifice achieves nothing to free him.
Read Complete AnalysesSo, now I have confessed that he is thine, And I my self am mortgaged to thy will, Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still. But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, For thou art covetous, and he is kind, He learned but surety-like to write for me Under that bond that him as fist doth bind. The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, Thou usurer, that putt’st forth all to use, And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake; So him I lose through my unkind abuse. Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me; He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.
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