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April 12th
2001

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Sonnet 115

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Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer.
Yet then my judgement knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterward burn clearer.
But reckoning Time, whose millioned accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things-
Alas, why, fearing of Time's tyranny,
Might I not then say, "Now I love you best,"
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
          Love is a babe, then might I not say so,
          To give full growth to that which still doth grow?

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Sonnet 116

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Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh no! It is an ever fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
          If this be error and upon me proved,
          I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

The final opponent of time presented in this sonnets is explicitly stated. The conclusion Shakespeare does come to here is that love, despite time, is a constant.

In this Sonnet the poet's expressions of love are unequivocally beautiful and confident.

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Sonnet 117

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Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day.
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time your own dear-purchased right.
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
Book both my willfulness and errors down,
And on just proof surmise accumulate.
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your wakened hate,
          Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
          The constancy and virtue of your love.

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Sonnet 118

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Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge
As to prevent our maladies unseen
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge
Even so, being full of your neer cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding,
And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness
To be diseased, ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love, to anticipate
The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state,
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured.
          But thence I learn, and find the lesson true
          Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

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Sonnet 119

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What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distilled from limbecks foul as Hell within,
Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessèd never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O benefit of ill! Now I find true
That better is by evil still made better,
And ruined love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
          So I return rebuked to my content,
          And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.

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Sonnet 120

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That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow which I then did feel
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by yours, you've passed a hell of time,
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
Oh, that our night of woe might have remembered
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tendered
The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits!
          But that your trespass now becomes a fee,
          Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

You might as well be my lover, and surrender to my love, the poet seems to say, since men think us that already.

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