Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth Essay Questions

Discuss an example of paradox in the sonnet

The sonnet begins with these two lines: “When my love swears that she is made of truth, / I do believe her, though I know she lies.” In other words, the speaker knows that his lover is lying but he believes her anyway. This is a paradoxical statement: normally, one cannot both know that something is a lie while also believing it. These lines suggest that sometimes the best way to hold on to love is to choose not to see difficult things.

How does the sonnet play with the double meaning of words?

The speaker knows that his lover is lying about her faithfulness and also pretending not to notice his advanced age. He says, “Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue.” The word “simply” both means that chooses the “simple” act of believing, and that he pretends to be a “simpleton” who does not notice the truth. Similarly, in the final lines, the speaker says, “Therefore I lie with her and she with me.” This plays on the double meaning of “lie” in the sense of both telling a “lie” and “lying” down (or sleeping together). The lovers are able to sleep together because they tell lies.

What are some major differences between the 1599 and 1609 versions of Sonnet 138?

The 1599 draft of the poem describes the speaker as “unskillful in the world’s false forgeries.” In the accepted 1609 version, however, he is “Unlearnèd in the world’s false subtleties.” The earlier version is more judgmental, describing the speaker not as inexperienced but unskilled. Similarly, the world is a darker place in the older version. It is full of “forgeries” rather than just “subtleties.” In other words, it is a fake world rather than just a complicated one.

How does the speaker try to hide his age?

The speaker is self-conscious about his old age. He hides this by acting more naive than he actually is. When his lover lies about being faithful to him, he pretends to believe her lies. This allows him to pretend that he is inexperienced in the ways of the world as only a young man can be. The lover plays along and this makes the speaker feel better about himself: “Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young.” He also uses euphemisms like “my days are past the best” rather than just openly saying that he is an old man.

What is the meaning of the line “love’s best habit is in seeming trust” and how does it tie in with the themes of the poem?

The speaker and his lover both lie to each other: she about her infidelities and he about his age. Yet they both pretend to believe the other’s lies. This allows them to be “flattered” instead of being crippled by awareness of their “faults.” “Seeming trust” means both trusting in how things seem and seeming/pretending not to see what is really in front of them. This is “love’s best habit” because it allows them to keep loving each other despite their shortcomings. These lies are like a “habit” (or piece of clothing) that covers up the hard-to-accept truth of who they are.