Sonnet Cxxxvii Poem by William Shakespeare

The dichotomy between the impulses of the eye and the heart is developed further in this sonnet. After the preceding two sexually comic sonnets, Sonnet 137 presents the poet seriously musing over just how false love can be. He first addresses Love, which he calls 'A blind fool' and blames Love for misleading him about the woman's moral character. In the second quatrain, the poet asks Love why it encourages him to love the woman, 'Whereto the judgment of [the poet's] heart is tied.' Angry at, and highly uncomplimentary of the woman, the poet characterizes her as a loose woman, 'the wide world's common place.' Still the poet is confused, for he finds himself insensibly drawn to a woman whom he ought — in a more rational state of mind — to repudiate. The conflict between passion and judgment shows just how mortified and perplexed he is by his submission to an irrational, impulsive element of his personality: 'Or mine eyes seeing this [the woman's wantonness], say this is not, / To put fair truth upon so foul a face.' The mistress no longer is the focus of the sonnet; now the poet's concern is with the nature and workings of human judgment.

The poet reflects on his infatuation with the woman and is perplexed by what he finds. He is uncertain whether to blame his eyes or his heart, or both of them jointly. They both seem to be in error in supposing that so foul a person is in fact fair and worthy of love. The previous sonnets were far from flattering to the woman, having suggested that her sexual appetites were almost unlimited. This one is no better, and implies that she is like a common prostitute, being 'the bay where all men ride' and 'the common' where all men have free access.

Sonnets 46 & 47 describe a conflict between heart and eyes which is resolved by an alliance between the two. In this sonnet both heart and eyes are portrayed as being at fault in perverting what they perceive. But pride of place is given to the eyes, in that they are shown to lead the way and, being corrupt, they drag the heart along behind them. Of course the distinction is only poetic and has no psychological basis, nor did it have in Shakespeare's day. He is merely elaborating a conceit which serves the purpose of illuminating the contradictions in his heart over his blind infatuation for the dark lady. The function of eyes in setting a soul on the pathway to love had been well established by Petrarch, ever since that fatal Good Friday on 6 April 1327 when he first set eyes on Laura in the Church at Avignon. (The date in fact is fictional, but readers presumably did not know that in the 15th and 16th centuries) . Shakespeare is merely following this convention by attributing to the eyes the power to lead the way in love, and to subvert the personality. It is also entirely consistent with the blindness of Cupid, which does not however prevent Cupid from seeing with a sixth sense. As Virgil said Quis fallere possit amantem? 'Who can deceive a lover? '

The sonnet continues in the less than flattering tone of flattery which the previous three sonnets have used. His mistress is a piece of common land to which all men have access, a harbour in which all ships ride, she has a foul face which is painted to look fair, and finally she is a false plague, which has the power to infect all at random. This is far from the tradition of the Petrarchan praise of Laura which had set the precedent for all sonneteers thereafter, so that mistresses were nearly always praised as lofty, beautiful, chaste and inaccessible goddesses. It is true that a contrary tradition had been established which rebelled against this slavery and fantastic idealisation of women, an idealisation which had little basis in reality. Sir Thomas Wyatt, whose poems Shakespeare would have known, had already introduced a more down to earth approach to loving and courtship. (See the example below left) . And sonnet sequences had already been published which consisted of a main section devoted to adoration, followed by a concluding section which repudiated love, the cold beloved, and the slavery which held the lover in chains.

Nothing in the sonnet literature of the time prepares us for such an onslaught on a loved one, and we have to conclude that, despite the occasional tender words to his mistress, the poet did not find the experience uplifting, certainly not spiritual, and that it was in many ways a source of revulsion and self-disgust which he found it impossible to flee from or expiate from his soul. shakespeares-sonnets.com

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