Sonnet 147: My Love Is as a Fever, Longing Still
Sonnet 147: My Love Is as a Fever, Longing Still - meaning Summary
Love as Destructive Fever
Shakespeare compares obsessive love to a fever that worsens by seeking its own cause. The speaker’s reason—once a physician—abandons him, leaving desire to dominate and render him past cure. Thoughts and speech become irrational and disconnected from truth. Having idealized the beloved as fair and bright, he concludes the beloved is actually "as black as hell," exposing how delusion and self-deception twist perception and intensify suffering.
Read Complete AnalysesMy love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as mad men’s are, At random from the truth vainly expressed. For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
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