Sonnet 112

The poet claims that the beloved's love and pity have healed and redeemed him entirely, making the poet indifferent to the world's judgment because the beloved's opinion is all that matters.

Original

Modern

1 Your love and pity doth th’ impression fill,

Thy love is better than high birth to me,

2 Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,

Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,

Wordplay

A mark or imprint left by external pressure. The beloved's love fills and replaces the imprints left by shame and public judgment.

3 For what care I who calls me well or ill,

Of more delight than hawks or horses be;

4 So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow?

And having thee, of all men's pride I boast.

5 You are my all the world, and I must strive,

But since all thy vows bind me with one;

6 To know my shames and praises from your tongue,

And thou all seals of faith which I possess,

7 None else to me, nor I to none alive,

I would lose all, would you but keep me so,

8 That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.

That you and love are but my argument.

Volta The volta moves from the beloved filling the poet with love and pity to a broader claim about the beloved's power to define the poet's value in the world.

9 In so profound abysm I throw all care

The central claim: the beloved's love alone defines the poet's value.

So all my best is dressing old words new,

10 Of others’ voices, that my adder’s sense,

Spending again what is already spent:

11 To critic and to flatterer stopped are:

For as the sun is daily new and old,

12 Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.

So is it in the case of you, my love,

13 You are so strongly in my purpose bred,

Except eternal summer shall not fade,

14 That all the world besides methinks are dead.

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Economy of Judgment and Worth

Sonnet 112 operates within an economy of judgment. Earlier in the sequence, the poet worried endlessly about being inadequate to praise the beloved; now, the poet claims complete indifference to any judgment except the beloved's alone. This reversal is total: the poet's sense of self now entirely depends on a single observer rather than the public or even his own conscience. Self-worth cannot be self-generated—it must be conferred by another. The beloved becomes paradoxically both redeemer and source of complete dependence.

Grace as Total Transformation

The beloved's 'love and pity' fills the poet's 'impression'—the mark or imprint left on the poet by circumstance and public shame is now overwritten by the beloved's grace. The image is of one mark replacing another: the world has imprinted shame on the poet, but the beloved's love erases this completely. There is no synthesis or negotiation—the beloved's judgment supplants all others. Redemption is total transformation. By Sonnet 112, love has become metaphysical necessity—the beloved is the ground of the poet's being.

If this happened today

When someone loves you unconditionally after you've failed and degraded yourself, and you find that their love becomes the only truth that matters—the world's judgment becomes irrelevant because theirs is the only judgment you can believe.

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