1. When my love swears that she is made of truth,
2. I do believe her though I know she lies,
3. That she might think me some untutored youth,
4. Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
5. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
6. Although she knows my days are past the best,
7. Simply I credit her false speaking tongue,
8. On both sides thus is simple truth suppress't:
9. But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
10. And wherefore say not I that I am old?
11. O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
12. And age in love, loves not to have years told.
13. Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
14. And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
Flattery
Dedication: To Elizabeth
He knows she lies to him but she shouldn't think him unwise in the ways of the world though she is older (17 years) and he a mere young man. Yet commenting that she knows his best days are behind him. Commenting thus on how each to the other lies. That she claims she is not unjust and he that he is old (as he feels due to his forced suffering of the unkind ways of the world). Finishing with how in love there must be at least a seeming trust but comments on how each lies to flatter the other.
1st Quatrain: (1-4)
Referring to Elizabeth's lies. Revealing how the more mature person in the relationship being the subject of the poem. Oxford was still quite young , most likely in his early twenties.
2nd Quatrain: (5-8)
Though Oxford reflects that his love thinks he is young for vanity's sake and to probably to avoid thinking that his love thinks he is foolish. He is though most likely past his most athletic and virile as expressed in line 6.
3rd Quatrain: (9-12)
Comparing her claims of her own fairness to her misrepresentations about his age. Line 12 I believe is a reflection on Elizabeth's own advancing age. She clearly had Henry at a very late stage in her fertility. Oxford is in fact 17 years younger than she and very likely she is upwards of her mid forties by now.
couplet (13-14),
Here we get confirmation that there most likely was some relationship left between them though this could be more metaphorically.
Commentary:
An essential element of this sonnet is the dishonesty expressed which I’ve maintained is a critical undercurrent of these sonnets and which I maintain ties all the way back to the lie spoken of in sonnet 152. Additionally this lie forms another important source of metaphor, since the lack of truth is the antithesis of what the poet deems is his own personal identity. As the name Vere, means truth, truth as we’ll see represents him and will become important in sonnets to come.
This sonnet contains references to both the poet's youth in the first quatrain as an “untutored youth” and also his advancing age as in days “past the best”. While these apparently conflicting observations don’t provide a very explicit age I would maintain that never the less this contains an important clue about the relative age of the subject of the poem to that of other poems. As the poet’s advancing age becomes far more explicit in the poems to come. And thus more evidence for the relative chronology of these poems. Likely Oxford's physical process was compromised by the many jousting tournaments he engaged in was was champion in.
His age should also be considered as a relative to the immaturity at the beginning of the sonnets. I would argue further that his maturity has likely been very much influenced and accelerated by the events and ordeal with which he has suffered. This is even what likely was the necessary ingredient to the birth of Shakespeare and the empathy and depth he provided to all his characters and to the frequent ambiguity of their actions and circumstances.
However further clarification of line 10 is likely in order. The poet is first referring to subject and suggesting that she is claiming she is not "unjust". Which I would argue the poet thinks is clearly not true. However it is this mutual claim that is at play and thus I believe he is deliberately offering her a mutual argument where they are both wrong. As the poet is illustrating their mutual faults. But again I would argue he is suggesting in some sense otherwise with regard to his age, likely because he thought of himself as much older than his chronological age. Oxford was pretty clearly a child prodigy and attended Cambridge by the time he was 13. This is why he makes the claim. More importantly context is very important as the deliberate absurdity of a 19-21 year old suggesting they are old actually provides meaning to this. One has to consider his perspective and his likely protestations that he is not so young. But one might better consider it in light of the following:
In a July 1571 letter to Catherine de Medicis from the French ambassador Fenelon the QE while negotiating her possible marriage to François the Duke of Alençon which reads
"Madame, while discussing with the Queen of England on questions in my letter to the King, we came, from one subject to another, to speak of the portrait of His Highness, your son and she said that, though it was only a pencil sketch and his complexion was partly smudged by the charcoal, it allowed great beauty to be seen in the face and many marks of dignity and prudence, she had been pleased to see a perfectly mature man, for, she wanted to tell me freely that, given her age,she would not willingly be led to the alter to be married to someone who looked as young as the Earl of Oxford and that could not be without a certain feeling of shame and even some regret. But anyone who saw the presence and modest ways of Monsieur, could not but say he had a wise and judicious manner as he appeared to be a good seven years older than he really was, which was what she really wished was so, or that she should be that much younger."
translated by Oxfordian Patricia Poullain from the archives of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
The context thus becomes very important. There is another version of this poem that appears in the “Passionate Pilgrim” where the subject claims she is young, which she uses to thwart his pleas to renew herself. However it should also be regarded as further evidence and confirmation of the proper indication of time's direction. Young may be a rather relative term in dealing with Elizabeth’s age but as we will see the subject will become very much older as these sonnets progress. This sonnet also seems to reflect a reconciliation and thus can likely be better dated when a more thorough understanding is developed between the relationship of Oxford and Elizabeth.
While I’m not sure if there is orthodox consensus on this poem, I have heard it expressed that the relationship between the poet and subject is that of an older man writing to a younger woman. While this poem is actually somewhat ambiguous there is the one clue of the line “Age in love loves not to have years told”. This only suggests a mature relationship and I believe the erroneous assumption is that the Shakespeare is older. In accordance likely with general bias. As we’ll see in other sonnets it is actually not the case and of course de Vere was 17 years younger than Elizabeth.
Vendler observes that this sonnet begins with discussion of lies where she apparently might have expected resolution in the sonnet itself but still fails to see this as connection to the larger whole of the sonnets and other lies spoken of.