both tell this lie while knowing perfectly well it is
untrue. The third quatrain (ll. 9–12) explains the rea-
son for the deception: “Why not tell the truth?” he asks.
Because “love’s best habit”—works toward a “seeming”
rather than a realistic appraisal of the two lovers, with
habit referring both to dress and to actions.
The relationship of the speaker and the mistress in
Sonnet 138 is demonstrated in the almost wistful pun-
ning on the word lie that ends the sonnet: “Therefore I
lie with her, and she with me, / And in our faults by
lies we fl attered be” (ll. 13–14). The dual meanings of
lie—falsehood and sexual intercourse—sum up the
nature of the speaker’s concerns throughout the
sequence. The preposition with demonstrates their
cooperation in the “fl attering” lies they tell each other
(and those the speaker tells himself) and the intimacy
and passion of their sexual activity (as well as, one sus-
pects, the lack of any emotional connection beyond
their lust and the consequent bitterness and confusion
experienced by the speaker). The central signifi cance
of these meanings of lie in their relationship is further
demonstrated in one of the most insidious lines in all
the Dark Lady sonnets: “O, love’s best habit is in seem-
ing trust” (l. 11). Apparently, the appearance of trust is
all that the speaker, or perhaps any lover, can hope for
in a relationship. This dearth of real love and affection
is what the speaker ultimately comes to accept by the
end of the sequence, as he recognizes his responsibility
in the deception central to this relationship.
See also SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS (OVERVIEW).
Michael Petersen
Shakespeare’s sonnets: Sonnet 139 (“O, call
not me to justify the wrong”) WILLIAM SHAKE-
SPEARE (ca. 1599) Scholars and readers alike have
long been unable to resist reading WILLIAM SHAKE-
SPEARE’s SONNETs addressed to the DARK LADY as a narra-
tive. Traditional scholarship has the narrative begin
with Sonnet 127 and run to Sonnet 152. By Sonnet
139, the putative narrative’s midpoint, the speaker-
poet is past his initial attraction to the Dark Lady, past
falling in love with her, past debasing himself eroti-
cally, past even the point when he realized that he is
being cuckolded. Now he is angry—with himself and
with her—and the result is an unstable poem.
The sonnet begins as a refusal. Using the imperative,
the poet rejects the implied, offstage suggestion that he
must explain her actions: “O, call not me to justify the
wrong / That thy unkindness lays upon my heart” (ll.
1–2). Beginning in a tone of onomatopoetic woe (“O”)
and shifting to one of understated blame (“thy unkind-
ness”), this assertion is marked by disbelief. The initial
rejoinder—“call not me”—is emphatic, clear, and
addresses four groups: the sonnet tradition, which
contains a subgenre of poems wherein a speaker justi-
fi es a beloved’s infi delity; the Dark Lady; the poet; and
readers. Sonnet 139 will be unable to satisfy all of these
parties.
Dissatisfaction is precisely the problem the fi rst QUA-
TRAIN addresses. The Dark Lady clearly has power over
the poet. Complicating matters, he lacks control of
himself, especially in matters of the heart. The poet has
little choice but to recognize her authority, but he does
not capitulate to it outright. Rather, he learns from his
beloved / adversary and answers deception with decep-
tion. His goal is to forestall his inevitable debasement.
The fi rst instance of this strategy occurs as the open-
ing quatrain nears its close. Speaking imperatively
again, the poet instructs his beloved, “Wound me not
with thine eye, but with thy tongue” (l. 3). Here the tell-
ing is a kind of asking. The poet wants his dark mistress
to use language, rather than her cunning gaze, to hurt
him. That gaze is directed at others, and he sees it as a
sign of infi delity. Language is his domain; speaking and
interpreting words are what poets do best. In effect, he
asks that she meet him on his terms, not hers, and he
does so by distinguishing language from artifi ce, a dis-
tinction that does not survive scrutiny. The poet masks
his sophistry by challenging her to “Use power with
power” (l. 4) rather than deploy lowly cunning.
The second quatrain begins with a concession. If
you must, the poet says, “Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere”
(l. 5), but when we are together, look at me. Here he
asks directly for directness. His request is also a lover’s
stratagem. What hurts the poet most is not the dark
lady’s infi delity but being reminded of it. He fears that
her glances signify future betrayals. To placate his
beloved, the poet calls her “Dear heart,” a phrase that
speaks his love as it indicates the price such love
extracts. He continues in this deceptively submissiveSHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS: SONNET 139 395