Sonnet 138: When My Love Swears That She is Made of Truth

And In Which I Leave My Comfort Zone and Perform an Experiment ...

"Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” – Simone Weil¹

(Note: I am experimenting! I recorded myself reading this sonnet and am making that recording available to all readers. I’m also opening the comments to all subscribers, too, because I’d love your feedback about whether or not you want me to read future posts or passages therein. Let me know what you think! Or even if this worked or not, LOL … )

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Sonnet 138 brings forth nearly all that Shakespeare is best at and for which he is most noted: wit, cynicism, sex, puns, and paradoxes.

When 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?

Oh, 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.

The gist of this sonnet is fairly straightforward: the two lovers pretend to deceive one another—but they know the truth. She pretends to think that her lover, the speaker, is more youthful than he is, and he knows she is pretending not to know. It’s also understood that the lover’s falsity includes lack of sexual fidelity: when the two opening lines describe his lover’s lack of truth and the speaker’s knowledge of her lies, it is her faithfulness to him that is immediately called into question, and only then does the plot, as they say, thicken: the mutal pretension about the speaker’s age develops as the central theme of the poem. (The theme of aging is a recurring one in the sonnets. Remember Sonnet 73?) This pretending by both of them that he is younger than he really is serves the vanity of both. It is a form of mutual flattery. But it also serves the further purpose of making him seem more innocent and naïve than he’d otherwise be about her sexual infidelity, a subtle point that is easily subsumed by the larger theme.

The complexity of their mutual lies is compressed by the way in which each pretension (the one about his age and the one about her fidelity) is reinforced by the other. An older, more mature person wouldn’t be as likely to believe that a lover like the “dark lady” (to whom this sonnet is addressed) would be faithful; pretending to be younger makes his feigned naïveté more believable.

This relationship status really is “complicated,” as the young people say today.

But, like all illicit love, it’s kind of tedious and boring.

In fact, it brings to mind this quote from Joni Mitchell which has resurfaced on social media recently:

“Everybody has a superficial side and a deep side, but this culture doesn’t place much value on depth — we don’t have shamans or soothsayers, and depth isn’t encouraged or understood. Surrounded by this shallow, glossy society we develop a shallow side, too, and we become attracted to fluff. That’s reflected in the fact that this culture sets up an addiction to romance based on insecurity — the uncertainty of whether or not you’re truly united with the object of your obsession is the rush people get hooked on. I’ve seen this pattern so much in myself and my friends and some people never get off that line.

But along with developing my superficial side, I always nurtured a deeper longing, so even when I was falling into the trap of that other kind of love, I was hip to what I was doing. I recently read an article in Esquire magazine called ‘The End of Sex,’ that said something that struck me as very true. It said: “If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.” What happens when you date is you run all your best moves and tell all your best stories — and in a way, that routine is a method for falling in love with yourself over and over.

You can’t do that with a longtime mate because he knows all that old material. With a long relationship, things die then are rekindled, and that shared process of rebirth deepens the love. It’s hard work, though, and a lot of people run at the first sign of trouble. You’re with this person, and suddenly you look like an asshole to them or they look like an asshole to you — it’s unpleasant, but if you can get through it you get closer and you learn a way of loving that’s different from the neurotic love enshrined in movies. It’s warmer and has more padding to it.”²

I can’t find the original interview where Mitchell said this, but it shows up in numerous places on the internet (so, it’s surely true, ha!). But it is reportedly printed in this book of interviews (according to Reddit—again, surely true!). Moreover, as someone pointed out, Mitchell has been married twice and in numerous relationships, so some of what she says may be more theoretical than practical. But that by no means negates her observations here.

Shakespeare was married to his wife Anne Hathaway for 34 years, and the couple had three children. We saw in an earlier post that in his will, he demonstrated devotion both to Christ and to his family (which proves nothing, of course, as many philanderers do the same). Scholars have debated for years, and continue to debate, how biographical Shakespeare’s sonnets are, and some critics insist he was bisexual and had affairs with both men and women. I will leave that debate to the biographers.

Either way, it is clear from the poetry that the real interest for Shakespeare in a sonnet like this one is the language more than the love. This sonnet is filled with wordplay to the point that that is the point. (Confession: I’m not a big fan of biographical criticism.)

Wordplay abounds in this one.

Words with clearly intentional double-entendre include:

·        “vainly” in line 5, meaning both “with pride or vanity” and “uselessly”

·        “simply” in line 7, meaning both purely and foolishly or naively

·        “habit” in line 11, meaning both a practice and something worn that covers

·        “told” in line 12 comes from “tell,” which means to say and to count (as in a bank teller)

·        “lie” in line 13 (a word repeated throughout), which refers to both telling a falsehood and sleeping together

Each “lie” (in both senses of the word) flatters the other. As usual, the sense of the sonnet culminates in the couplet.

Yet, the whole thing builds so steadily throughout, particularly with so much repetition of so many words (not just “lie/s”). These repetitions are so skillfully selected and placed that it’s easy to miss them. Reading the poem aloud for yourself will help you hear them. Actually, I highly recommend reading this poem aloud not only to hear it, but also because the words—not only in themselves but especially in their juxtaposition—convey a sense that you can actually feel with your mouth and tongue as you say them. (I find this particularly true of the monosyllabic punches achieved in lines 9 and 10.)

Here are some of the repetitions worth hearing and feeling (I likely didn’t catch them all):

·        “think,” “thinking,” and “thinks” appear in lines 3 and 5

·        “know” and “knows” appear in lines 2 and 6 (and consider how contrasting the words “think” and “know” are in this context)

·        “simply” and “simple” in lines 7 and 8

·        “she” twice in line 9

·        “I” twice in line 10

·        “not” in lines 9, 10, and 12

·        “love’s,” “love,” “loves” in lines 11 and 12

Perhaps the most clever wordplay is one that repeats the sound but not the sense: “false” and “faults” in lines 4, 7, and 14. (So brilliant!)

In its repetitions and varieties, this sonnet celebrates illicit, false love. But it does so knowingly, which tinges its wryness and wit with a kind of sadness—if not the sadness of the speaker, at least the sadness of the reader (this reader, anyway).  

Speaking of knowing, as this sonnet does a great deal, it is not by happenstance or even wordplay that the Bible uses the word “know” (in the original Hebrew) to describe the act of sexual consummation (as in Genesis 4:1, 4:17, and 19:5, depending on the English translation).

These lovers know some things about each other.

But there is so much more they don’t know.

And with that, I hope you, dear reader, think you know just a little bit more about Shakespeare from these weekly readings!

Next week, we’ll read about Jack Heller’s experience teaching Shakespeare in prison. I wrote about a similar effort ten years (!!!) ago at The Atlantic. You might want to read this to get warmed up.

Next up will be Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus. It is online here, and you can also buy a print copy for just a few bucks here. I will plan on spending two or three weeks on this play, but it’s not a long read. I truly hope you will read along. This is one of my favorite plays to teach! And you have time to prepare. :)

1. Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, trans. By Emma Crawford and Mario von der Ruhr (London: Routledge, 2002), 117.

2. I imagine this quote has resurfaced in part because of Joni’s iconic performance at this year’s Grammy awards: