1. Canst thou, O cruel, say I love thee not,
2. When I against myself with thee partake:
3. Do I not think on thee when I forgot
4. Am of myself, all tyrant for thy sake?
5. Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,
6. On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,
7. Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend
8. Revenge upon myself with present moan?
9. What merit do I in myself respect,
10. That is so proud thy service to despise,
11. When all my best doth worship thy defect,
12. Commanded by the motion of thine eyes.
13. But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind,
14. Those that can see thou lovest, and I am blind.
Her Hate
Dedication: To Elizabeth
Asking Elizabeth if she can say he doesn't love her when he turns against himself in complicity with her deeds (cover up of Henry) for her. Telling her it is she who hates the boy he calls his "friend" who he fawns upon. Though Elizabeth inflicts injury upon him he takes it out on himself (not her). And he asks her how he is to respect himself when he "worships" her child, which she considers her "defect". Finally to continue her hate for he knows her true feelings for Henry.
1st Quatrain: (1-4)
Line 2 is effectively saying, “How can you say I don't love you?, when I am going along with you against myself. More properly understood as going against himself because he is denying his own flesh and blood by virtue of denying Henry. 'My own cruelty to myself is for you' in line 4.
2nd Quatrain: (5-8)
Line 5 is an important rhetorical question. Elizabeth is the one who hates his "friend". Friend will become an important reference and a way to refer to Henry, the third member of the poet’s unfortunate triangle motivation for the Sonnets. Line 6 again speaks of the displeasure of Elizabeth with the child he loves. And again in line 8 he refers to his own treason.
3rd Quatrain: (9-12)
In line 11 he asks how he is to respect himself when he worships her "defect" (Henry) and it is his chief source of pride and respect in line 10.
couplet (13-14),
Line 12 is likely a subtle reminder of a young baby whose every action seems a response to his mother. And in line 13 we again see that Elizabeth claims to hate this child and the Oxford and others (presumably his few knowing friends) can see she really loves the child and thus "are blind".
Commentary:
Oxford expresses his demonstration of love by virtue of his having joined Elizabeth in a pursuit he views as completely contrary to himself. Which he expresses in the first quatrain. This sonnet is notable for the appearance of the friend to whom the subject purportedly hates. And which is notable as well for the connection of this friend to the subject as thy “defect” (line 11). This I would like to point out is a continuation on him loving "what others do abhor" from the previous sonnet.
The interpretation of this sonnet falls on correctly understanding both that the friend he “fawn(s) upon” is both central to the sonnet and that the friend is in fact central to the story told by the sonnets. A clue of who the friend is, is provided when the poet uses language appropriate for a baby i.e., “fawn”. Very few sonnets address the friend directly but as will be seen, when they do, they are addressed to the boy (19) or Lord and to whom there is very little question of his love. Only a few dozen sonnets are addressed to Henry by my count as discussed earlier. And three more if we add those in the Passionate Pilgrim and Phaeton to his Friend Florio. Otherwise these sonnets will be addressed to his sovereign mistress.
The subject referenced as “O cruel” in line 1 is a continuation of Elizabeth’s cruelty by virtue of lying and refusal to recognize what the poet sees. Lines 9 and 10 are also heart felt expressions on his own self worth, as he feels he has both offered the greatest service he can and the result of that service is horribly disrespected in his view.
Again the progression of time is revealed in the answering the denial to which he is subjected to. The same denial that is the essence of the lie to which we have already seen, thus a continuation of it.The “revenge upon himself” should be understood as having to reject what he considers a part of himself, his own child. As well in seeing the development of the two themes just discussed.
I think that it should be intuitive that the poet would use the metaphor of the false nature of his sight at this early point in the story as a means of expressing the psychological state of disbelief. But it will still recur in the early sequence and it will be seen again in the next sonnet as mentioned and in 137. The poet, as you will see, will also change his metaphor concerning the same subject to talk of things hidden, stored, distilled, etc. A clear indication that he very much understands that what he sees is both real and secret and provides both means of advancing the story and displaying the ever important arrow of time.
Once again consider how there is no contradiction to what to the poem expresses versus how I have interpreted it, or more importantly how well it fits with this theory. As a sonnet addressed to an older more powerful figure who is forcing the denial of a shared child and who expresses hate for the child.
The modern orthodox readings of this sonnet seem to be confused on several points. For example, Booth is unclear how the couplet relates to the rest of the poem. He correctly and inadvertently points out that sonnet 149 introduces the blindness of the poet that 148 will refer to it as continuing for the love of his subject and thus an insightful observation that 149 appears to belong before 148.However part of the source of confusion is based on his inability to understand the importance and meaning of the poet’s commentary on the false nature of his sight. A point clearly instrumental in understanding the sonnets as a whole and one that the orthodox scholars are not privy to but certainly should have noticed at least in these two early sonnets ( or late by their traditional numbering and chronology).
Vendler however remarks that the narrative focuses on seeing without explanation but then assumes the source of hate of the subject of the poem is the poet’s hate of some unknown party who hates the subject. And thus the subject hates the spinelessness of the poet. Thereby completely missing the connection to sonnet 145 where the poet reveals again how the subject expresses hate (I submit clearly again for his "friend") but expresses the relief that the hate is not toward the poet. The orthodox scholars seem to miss this connection in general and I make this point that this is an additional benefit of this new and better paradigm.
KDJ expresses the notion that the speaker is so acquiescent to his mistress that he loves and hates who she loves and hates. A rather unlikely scenario for someone as both independently creative as Shakespeare but more importantly someone who is clearly not acquiescent to his mistress when he accuses her of vile crimes and behavior befitting of his slander and we shall see.