Sonnet 113

My mind has replaced my eye's function: everything I see transforms into your image, rendering my vision unreliable.

Original

Modern

1 Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;

2 And that which governs me to go about,

And that which governs me to go about,

3 Doth part his function, and is partly blind,

Is the least favour that thou canst do,

4 Seems seeing, but effectually is out:

Thus neither much nor little is by me esteem'd.

5 For it no form delivers to the heart

All places that the eye of heaven visits,

6 Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,

Are by you my love, transformed and vary'd:

7 Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,

Yet I send them forth thy substitutes,

8 Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:

And it is fed by such as thou hast fed.

Volta The volta shifts from describing the eye-mind split to naming its cause: you have become the obsessive replacement for all visual input.

9 For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,

The morning rose, yet here she is no rose,

10 The most sweet favour or deformed’st creature,

The violet now a grey, all beauty's dead;

11 The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:

Sithence I left thee, mine eye is in my mind;

12 The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.

None of the things the which before I saw,

13 Incapable of more, replete with you,

Incapable of more, replete with you

Is now the god which unto me is known,

14 My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.

But hath a change to foul abuse.

The Eye-Mind Dissociation

Shakespeare presents a startling neurological crisis: the eye 'part[s] his function' and becomes 'partly blind' while simultaneously appearing to see. This isn't mere distraction but a fracture in perception itself. The eye delivers nothing to the heart; the mind intercepts all sensory data and replaces it with your image. The 'form' of external reality—bird, flower, mountain, day—becomes irrelevant.

The Final Paradox of Line 13-14

The concluding couplet contains the sonnet's deepest irony: the speaker's mind is 'most true' precisely because it is also 'untrue.' By being completely flooded with the young man's image, the mind achieves absolute fidelity to obsession—a perverse kind of constancy. Truth and falsehood collapse into each other when love has hijacked cognition entirely.

If this happened today

Like checking your phone every five minutes and seeing only one person's messages reflected everywhere—your dating app becomes their profile, your Instagram feed reshapes itself into their photos, your brain runs this filter so compulsively you stop trusting what you actually see.

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