1. Like as to make our appetites more keen
2. With eager compounds we our palate urge,
3. As to prevent our maladies unseen,
4. We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
5. Even so being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,
6. To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
7. And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness
8. To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
9. Thus policy in love to anticipate
10. The ills that were, not grew to faults assured,
11. And brought to medicine a healthful state
12. Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.
13. But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
14. Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.
Poisons
Dedication: To Elizabeth
The poet reflecting on his animosity and love loss toward Elizabeth, and the poisonous effect that his ordeal is having on him, using as a metaphor possibly of the accepted medical wisdom of the time.
1st Quatrain: (1-4)
Just as we eat things to increase the appetite and vomit to alleviate sickness
2nd Quatrain: (5-8)
In line 5 certainly one can see the understatement of Elizabeth's never cloying sweetness. He continues, thus I ate these bitter things and sick good fortune found sickness to be good
3rd Quatrain: (9-12)
Setting up the analogy to love in line 9. That things thought ill were not in line 10. And these really brought a healthful condition in line 11. And setting up the couplet good can be bad and bad can be good in the right circumstances
couplet (13-14),
What should cure me made me ill by my reversal of not loving you.
Commentary:
The poet returns to the usage of metaphor to illustrate his point about a third party adversely affected by the actions of our subject. This might seem a mysterious concept except of course as we are now aware of the point of these sonnets and their need for this kind of obfuscation. I can only wonder if Elizabeth ever grew bored with these sonnets or if Oxford’s ever inventive ways of making this subject matter fresh at least enticed her to read them. Perhaps that was what motivated him to change his methods so frequently. He not only knew his audience was very small but was also likely short of patience for the subject matter. I personally find this one particularly inventive.
The second quatrain is an expression that for Oxford despite that he seemingly needs no appetite stimulant because of Elizabeth’s sweetness, he still ends up with bitter sauces. The third quatrain reveals that Henry who though good, is effectively being treated in this medical analogy by ill. Thus when the couplet comes back to the compounds of Q1 the effects are revealed. The couplet reflects that the drugs discussed affect not Elizabeth but end up having a poisonous effect on Henry.
The poem in general and the final couplet in particular is perhaps interesting in the notion that drugs of the time were not generally pharmacologically effective. While conversely poisons, purges, and emetics (inducing vomiting) were common. But Shakespeare also apparently exhibited a much greater knowledge of medicine in general. To which quite a few books (example) and several recently (example) have been written. Just another indication of the superior education he received and indicative of his actual identity.
Vendler see this sonnet as justification of infidelity. She comments on the imperfect nature of analogy of appetite stimulants/laxatives to effects of love and sees an interesting turn of the argument in the couplet and believes the he of the couplet is the poet. She does not see that the argument is not the “exculpatory defense” of the poet for his infidelity (which exists) but the tale of the subject who like both entices her palate and seeks medicinal aids, yet these compounds if they are having any effect, are felt on the child alluded to. That is the surprise of the couplet.