1. Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press
2. My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:
3. Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,
4. The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
5. If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
6. Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,
7. As testy sick-men, when their deaths be near,
8. No news but health from their Physicians know.
9. For if I should despair I should grow mad,
10. And in my madness might speak ill of thee,
11. Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
12. Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
13. That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
14. Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
Slander Me
Dedication: To Elizabeth
Expressing to Elizabeth the notion that she should not to aggravate him with too much contempt, or else he is apt to speak his mind. If he could teach her to love, it would be to express her honesty and not tell him of false promise for Henry. That these lies may drive him mad. As he starts to believe the slanders levied against him. Finishing with an appeal to be true (with him and in general).
1st Quatrain: (1-4)
An appeal to Elizabeth to be wise as she is cruel is most apt for a monarch. Warning not to express too freely her own judgment of him, else he might reciprocate. His "pity-wanting pain" is both deep and probably unfulfilled in receiving pity.
2nd Quatrain: (5-8)
Here Oxford alludes to unexpected death as a means of reminding Elizabeth that she is taking a dangerous course if she is waiting to recognize.
3rd Quatrain: (9-12)
Oxford discusses his own emotional turmoil in line 9. While line 10 he mentions this as a motivation if he might speak ill of his sovereign. In lines 13 and 14 he reflects and the poisonous nature surrounding this scandal and the slanders leveled at him. No doubt the beginning slanders that would later culminate to become the actual “libels” against Oxford in years to come.
couplet (13-14),
Finally requesting of her, that she see the truth and act, though he accuses her of losing her love of he and Henry. A seeming final appeal that her heart extend to attaching to what is truly important.Cleverly the last line goes wide as well.
Commentary:
This sonnet deals with emotions that are still raw much like sonnet 147. The continuation of a cruelty whose source isn’t readily apparent from this poem alone but should be combined with the previous discussion of what he sees and loves and what others despise. Mostly this sonnet is a message to Elizabeth of the torment she inflicts on him and its effect on him. This poem also describes some of the background information regarding how the conflict is affecting the poet’s life by creating an environment of slander by person’s within and around the court. This aspect will prove to be a crucial element in the story of Edward de Vere’s life and will help corroborate the story told. The last thought of the sonnet additionally provides an important clue about the nature of the accusation against the subject of her heart straying from where it should be. In addition to the first mention of the cruelty of the subject which once again relates to the “dark” nature of that this person possesses.What I find most striking of the orthodoxy’s interpretations, is that they so fail to account for the continued “madness” of the poet.
Also new to this poem is a psychological state of acceptance (with impatience) reached and mention of possible retribution and defiance to be had by the poet. Which I argue goes toward demonstrating the chronology of the poems along with the continuation of the progression through the stages of grief.
Another interesting connection is the subject’s heart going wide in the couplet which I would maintain is about Elizabeth’s seeming lack of maternal love and seen and corroborated by the neglectful mother of 142. The impatience is with Elizabeth’s intransigence. The poet’s referral to slander also first appears which will become more developed in 131.
KDJ argues that this builds on 139 without justification. Among the many problems faults Shakespeare for as apposed to realizing that orthodox readings are to blame.
Vendler remarks that this poem expresses that the poet is “afraid of what his tongue might say” but isn’t clear about why he is either afraid or what he is holding back and fails to provide any basis for the anger or tie it in any way to the rest of the poems.