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Be wise as thou art cruell, do not presse
My toung-tide patience with too much disdaine:
Least sorrow lend me words and words expresse,
The manner of my pittie-wanting paine.
If I might teach thee witte, better it weare,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so,
As testie sick-men when their deaths be neere,
No newes but health from their Phisitions know,
For if I should dispaire I should grow madde,
And in my madnesse might speake ill of thee,
Now this ill wresting world is growne so bad,
Madde slanderers by madde eares beleeved be.
That I may not be so, nor thou belyde,
Beare thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart goe wide.
Commentary
Commentary
Warning to a troublesome mistress
Warning to a troublesome mistress
Changes to the original text: line 2 'toung-tide' hyphen added; line 4 'pittie-wanting', hyphen added; line 5 comma after 'witte'; line 6 commas added around 'love'.
In the first quatrain, the poet urges his mistress to be as wise as she is cruel, and not to press too far his patience, so that his does not give full expression to his pain.
In the second quatrain he offers his mistress advice (teach thee witte) to tell him that she loves him, even though she doesn't, in the same way that physicians always give a dying man good news.
In the third quatrain he observes that, should he despair, he consequences might not be pleasant, he might speak ill of her, and, as the world is mad, people might believe him.
In the final couplet, he makes an appeal that she should keep looking straight in front of her (beare thine eyes straight), not look from side to side, (particularly not at attractive men), even though her heart might be wandering (goe wide), and this in order to avoid the consequences of him going mad (That I may not be so) and her being talked ill of (belyde).
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