Sonnet 151: Love Is Too Young to Know What Conscience Is
Sonnet 151: Love Is Too Young to Know What Conscience Is - meaning Summary
Desire Overriding Conscience
Shakespeare’s sonnet presents a speaker torn between desire and conscience. He argues that conscience itself springs from love, so his betrayals are reciprocal and arise from bodily impulse rather than moral failing. The poem frames love as youthful, overpowering the soul’s nobler claims and reducing the self to a willing servant of flesh. Ultimately the speaker asks not to be judged harshly, since his actions stem from devotion to the beloved.
Read Complete AnalysesLove is too young to know what conscience is; Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove. For thou betraying me, I do betray My nobler part to my gross body’s treason; My soul doth tell my body that he may Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason, But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride, He is contented thy poor drudge to be, To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side. No want of conscience hold it that I call, Her love for whose dear love I rise and fall.
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