Sonnet 132

Thine eies I love, and they as pittying me,

Knowing thy heart torment me with disdaine,

Have put on black, and loving mourners bee,

Looking with pretty ruth upon my paine.

And truly not the morning Sun of Heaven

Better becomes the gray cheeks of th'East,

Nor that full Starre that ushers in the Eaven,

Doth halfe that glory to the sober West

As those two mourning eyes become thy face:

O let it then as well beseeme thy heart

To mourne for me since mourning doth thee grace,

And sute thy pitty like in every part.

Then will I sweare beauty her selfe is blacke,

And all they foule that thy complexion lacke.

Commentary

Addressed to a lady with dark eyes and a dark complexion.

Amendments to the text: line 9, morning changed to mourning.

The first quatrain observes the lady's disdain and supposes that her eyes are black because they have put on mourning in pity for the poet's 'paine'.

In the second quatrain he compares her eyes first to the sun rising in the East, and then to the Evening Star in the West.

The third quatrain asks that the other parts of the woman's body, including the heart, but, by implication, other parts as well, similarly take pity on his 'paine'. Her toes perhaps.

In the final couplet the poet swears to maintain that black is beautiful, and everything that is not black is foul (so long as he gets what he wants).

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