Sonnet 121

Commentary

Address to his young friend

Changes to the original text: line 2, comma deleted after 'be'; line 3, comma taken out at end of line; line 7, semi-colon changed to comma; line 10, final comma changed to semi-colon; end of line 11, semi-colon added.

In the first quatrain, the poet expresses the thought that it is better to actually be vile than to be esteemed vile, when, not being vile, one is still reproached with being vile, and reproached, not because one is vile (not by our feeling) but because others esteem one vile (by others seeing). 'The just pleasure lost' is the pleasure in being esteemed just (not vile) which is lost because of calumnies (others seeing).

The opposition worked out here is that between what one is and knows oneself to be (our feeling) and what others may take us to be (others seeing). Standing behind this is the thought that the pleasure in being just (just pleasure) is lost because the young man judges not from is own feeling, but from others seeing.

The meanings of this verse are certainly tangled, and one may speculate that the post wanted to tie his friend in knots of impenetrable verse in order to deflect his (the friend's) attention from his (the poet's) misdeeds.

In the second quatrain, the poet asks why should the opinions of others, themselves false adulterers, be thought to be familiar with (give salutation to) his (the poet's) sexual proclivities (sportive blood), or why should those who sin more than the poet be believed, when their judgement (their wils) takes what the poet thinks good as bad, and vice versa. They are bound to come to the wrong conclusions. Behind this stanza lies the friend's judgement, never in fact mentioned, but necessary to make sense of the words. The 'why?' really needs to be expanded into 'why are they believed by you?', but has been subjected to shakespearean compression either for reasons of poetry, or to bamboozle the poor Southampton.

'Wils' is a word that can be taken in a number of senses viz judgements, penises or sexual proclivities, or the name Will. One can play with the various meanings to give different senses. The poet is perhaps talking of all three things at once.

In the third quatrain, the poet asserts that he is what he is, and his calumniators who criticise him (they that levell at my abuses), are actually talking about their own vices (reckon up their owne), his (the poet's) deeds should not be judged by those whose own thoughts are foul (rancke thoughts).

In the final couplet, the poet tells the young man it is only in the case where all men are evil that the poet himself can be judged evil. In this case, evil is king (in their badness raigne).