"
This sonnet, with its affected word-play and wire-drawn consolation,
leaves one gaping: Shakespeare's verbal affectations had got into his
very blood. To my mind the whole sonnet is too extravagant to be
sincere; it is only to be explained by the fact that Shakespeare's
liking for Herbert was heightened by snobbishness and by the hope of
patronage. None of it rings true except the first couplet. Yet the
argument of it is repeated, strange to say, and emphasized in the
sonnets addressed to the "dark lady" whom Shakespeare loved. Sonnet 144
is clear enough:
"Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man, right fair,
The worser spirit a woman, colour'd ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
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