Sonnet 120
That you were once unkind be-friends mee now,
And for that sorrow, which I then didde feele,
Needes must I under my transgression bow,
Unlesse my Nerves were brasse or hammered steele.
For if you were by my unkindnesse shaken
As I by yours, y'have past a hell of Time,
And I a tyrant have no leasure taken
To waigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O that our night of wo might have remembred
My deepest sence, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soone to you, as you to me then tendred
A humble salve, which wounded bosomes fits!
But that your trespasse now becomes a fee,
Mine ransomes yours, and yours must ransome mee.
Commentary
Address to his beloved
Changes to the original text:
In the first quatrain, the poet asserts that the fact that his beloved acted badly towards him in the past (were once unkind) is now to his advantage (be-friends me now) , and that, because of the sorrow that he (the poet) then felt, he must acknowledge his transgression now (under my transgression bow), else he would not be human (unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel). In summary, as he (the poet) knows the pain and suffering caused by his friend being unfaithful to him in the past, he (the poet) cannot be insensible to the pain he (the poet) has now caused by being unfaithful himself.
In the second quatrain, the poet observes that if his friend has suffered as much as he (the poet) suffered when he (the friend) was unfaithful, then he has passed a 'hell of Time', and he (the poet) must be a very tyrant not to have stopped to consider (weighed) how he (the poet) himself suffered in the same circumstances.
In the third quatrain, the poet expresses the hope that his innermost being (deepest sence) might be reminded (remembred) by both their dark experiences (our night of wo) of how painful sorrow is (how hard true sorrow hits) and that he (the poet) will be able to tender a salve for his friend's hurt, as his friend did for him in the past.
In the final couplet, the poet reckons that his friend's trespass becomes a fee to ransome his (the poet's) own trespass.