Sonnet 40
1. Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,
2. What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
3. No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,
4. All mine was thine before thou hadst this more:
5. Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
6. I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest,
7. But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest
8. By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
9. I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief
10. Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
11. And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief
12. To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.
13. Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
14. Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.
We Must Not be Foes
Dedication: To Elizabeth
Explaining to Elizabeth that she has his love and she had it before Henry. Then explaining he blames her for her deceit and her not employing Henry as her heir to the throne. Finally explaining that though she commits this ill against him, and Oxford views it as spiteful he wishes that they not have enmity toward each other.
1st Quatrain: (1-4)
Telling Elizabeth that if she took all his loves she would have nothing more than she has always had which is his love.
2nd Quatrain: (5-8)
Then perhaps a little confusingly telling her if she acts for his love ("my love" i.e. Henry) she will receive his love. Thus not blaming her for the love she uses if she uses Henry. Contrastingly telling her if she decieves herself (again denying her own mortality and refusing to perform her office of bestowing rights to her heir) then she'll be blamed.
3rd Quatrain: (9-12)
Forgiving her for her past actions regarding Henry he tells her that it is particularly hard to bear a wrong brought out of love (Henry) than to bare a wrong truly committed.
couplet (13-14),
Shocking but probably appropriately calling Elizabeth "Lascivious grace" and telling her that in her "all ill well shows". But in an attempt to reconcile, asking her that they not engage in enmity for one another.
Commentary:
It is my feeling that this sonnet is better understood as a crescendo of sorts to the three sonnets written discussing the relationship of the poet to the other two subjects. While I don’t think they were necessarily crafted as a whole there relationship is probably the result of them having been penned in the order provided here (42, 41, & 40). But notice even more the continuation of the earlier themes so often glossed over in a normal discussion of theses sonnets; the hate, the thievery, and the injury that were seen in the so called “Dark Lady” sonnets. It is my feeling that the tempering of the language is the result of the passage of time and the realization on the part of the poet that the subject has not only been won over by the initial anger displayed but that the subject of these poems has both the power to do what she will. In addition, the poet has developed a greater ability to cope and a more thorough strategy born of patience and a belief that his wishes are a destiny to be fulfilled. At least this is largely what we have seen in previous sonnets. In this sonnet actually is growing impatience and the language as we will see in the sonnets to come is of a growing desperation and fear of his subject dying before his wishes are fulfilled.
The robbery and gentle thief of line 9 harks back to the first sonnets (starting at 152) with talk of the crime committed in hiding Henry.