Sonnet Cxl Poem by William Shakespeare

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.shakespeares-sonnets.com/ 1. Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press Be wise as thou art cruel = (I suggest that, warn you that, you ought) to be wise to the same extent, in a similar manner, as you are cruel. I.e. learn wisdom and, if you are going to be like the typical disdainful lover, be as wise and chaste as they are. Or, 'Since you are determined to be cruel, try to be wise also'. Cruelty in the fair beloved was traditional and expected. It consisted mostly of disdain (see the next line) and a refusal to gratify the lover's amorous desires. Here, in addition, the cruelty is unfaithfulness and an open preference for other men. For the traditional manner of cruelty compare the lines to her in an earlier sonnet: Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel; 131 and from Astrophel and Stella Yet since my death-wound is already got, Dear killer, spare not thy sweet cruel shot: A kind of grace it is to kill with speed. Sidney.A&S.48. Smith in his sonnets to Chloris (1596) threatens to retreat to the desert in despair at his lover's disdain, and there take his revenge: And like Amyntas, haunt the desert cells (And moneyless there breathe out thy cruelty) Where none but Care and Melancholy dwell. I, for revenge, to Nemesis will cry! If that will not prevail, my wandering ghost, Which breathless here this love-scorched trunk shall leave, Shall unto thee, with tragic tidings post! How thy disdain did life from soul bereave. Then all too late my death thou wilt repent! When murder's guilt thy conscience shall torment. Chloris 24. Nemesis - the goddess of revenge in antiquity. All sonneteers, from Petrarch on, found their chaste and lofty beloveds cruel. do not press = do not seek to overcome by violence, do not provoke. A part military metaphor, as in the previous sonnet: What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might Is more than my o'er-press'd defense can bide? 139. Partly also a reference to a form of torture, in which heavy weights were placed on the accused person if he/she refused to speak. 2. My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain; My tongue-tied patience - being tongue tied was well established as the characteristic of the sincere lover. Compare the sonnet to the youth on the subject,23. But the precedent had in any case been celebrated long before by Sidney: Dumb swans, not chattering pies do lovers prove; They love indeed, who quake to say they love. A&S.54. pies = magpies. prove = turn out to be. disdain - see the note above. 3. Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express Lest = for fear that. See OED.1. The build up of ideas, from sorrow, to words, to expressing one's pain, which describes a chain of cause and effect, was a common feature of sonneteering. The technical name for it was 'climax', a term from rhetoric, meaning a series or a ladder. See OED.1. and SB.p.484.n.3-4. 4. The manner of my pity-wanting pain. The manner of = the character, nature of; the way in which it woll manifest itself. pity-wanting pain = pain which is not pitied by you; i.e lacking pity. Or, pain which is desirous of pity. The agony is traditionally that of not being loved in return, and having one's amorous advances denied. 5. If I might teach thee wit, better it were, If I might teach thee wit = If I might be so bold as to suggest how you could behave more wisely. The phrase seems to be mildly deprecating, as if he does not wish to overstep the mark in criticising her behaviour. 'Let me make the suggestion that etc.' Or it could be taken as a sign of impatience, i.e., 'surely you have enough sense to see that this is how you should behave'. But however we interpret the tone, there is no mistaking the reality of the situation, that she does not love him, her heart is 'elsewhere'.

10. And in my madness might speak ill of thee; in my madness = in my mad frenzy. speak ill of thee = slander you, say nasty things about you, reveal the ugly truth (which incidentally he has already done in the previous five sonnets) . 11. Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, ill-wresting = that turns everything askew, that distorts and maims all that it hears of. to wrest is to force something with a twisting movement. 12. Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. mad ears = mad listeners, the populace at large (who have all gone mad in this ill-wresting world) . believed be = are believed. 13. That I may not be so, nor thou belied, That I may not be so = in order that I may not be mad, or go mad, as I have described; in order that I may not be believed; in order that I do not speak ill of you, by becomong a mad slanderer. nor thou belied = nor you have false stories told about you, be slandered. Possibly also, bearing in mind sonnet 138, therefore I lie with her and she with me, 'in order that you do not have other men sleeping with you'. 14. Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide. Bear thine eyes straight = do not glance aside, do not look flirtingly at other men, but keep your eyes true (straight) to me. go wide = strays, wanders far and wide surveying the talent; misses the mark, as an arrow goes wide of the target, i.e. strays away from me.

In the preceding sonnet [139], the poet makes a candid and humiliating plea to his cheating mistress, begging her to refrain from looking at other men when she is with him. The theme continues here [sonnet 140], although the poet's tone is less docile. He is now afraid that the tongue-tied patience he has practiced thus far will give way to his baser feelings of contempt, disgust, and hurt (in the final couplet of sonnet 147 the poet can no longer contain these feelings) and he will lash out at the dark lady. Longing to be unaware of her infidelities, the poet implores his mistress to hide any evidence of her promiscuity, whether it be physical proof or emotional. She must not speak of other men, nor look at them as they pass by. He wants her to pretend that she loves only him. He is placing the mistress in charge of his reactions.

Notice the stress Shakespeare places on the word be to enhance his desire for the dark lady to control the relationship: Be wise (1) , believed, (12) , belied (13) , Bear (14) . She will be completely responsible for his behaviour. Denial is a theme that permeates the twenty-four sonnets dealing with the dark lady, and, in the last few sonnets addressed to his mistress, the poet finally realizes that he must accept the futility of their affair.