Sonnet 137: Thou Blind Fool, Love, What Dost Thou to Mine Eyes
Sonnet 137: Thou Blind Fool, Love, What Dost Thou to Mine Eyes - form Summary
Sonnet Conflict Between Eye and Heart
This Shakespearean sonnet stages a speaker blaming Love for misleading sight and judgment. The eyes recognize beauty yet mistake the worst for the best, and the heart is tied to that error. The poem tracks the speaker’s puzzled complaint that personal perception treats a common, worldly trait as a unique fault, concluding that both heart and eyes have erred and been passed to a "false plague."
Read Complete AnalysesThou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes That they behold and see not what they see? They know what beauty is, see where it lies, Yet what the best is, take the worst to be. If eyes corrupt by overpartial looks, Be anchored in the bay where all men ride, Why of eyes’ falsehood hast thou forgèd hooks, Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied? Why should my heart think that a several plot Which my heart knows the wide world’s common place? Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not To put fair truth upon so foul a face? In things right true my heart and eyes have erred, And to this false plague are they now transferred.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.