Sonnet 138: When My Love Swears That She Is Made of Truth
Sonnet 138: When My Love Swears That She Is Made of Truth - form Summary
Shakespearean Sonnet with Volta
This poem is a Shakespearean sonnet that uses the sonnet’s three quatrains and final couplet to present and then resolve a moral paradox: the speaker and his lover both tell comforting untruths to preserve mutual illusion. Each quatrain sketches aspects of their mutual deception—trust, age, and admitted faults—while the concluding couplet summarizes the agreement: their reciprocal lying flatters and sustains the relationship. The form gives the argument a neat development and ironic closure.
Read Complete AnalysesWhen my love swears that she is made of truth I do believe her, though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutored youth, Unlearnèd in the world’s false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although she knows my days are past the best, Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue; On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed. But wherefore says she not she is unjust? And wherefore say not I that I am old? O, love’s best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love, loves not to have years told. Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
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