Sonnet 133

The Dark Lady has stolen the poet's heart and enslaved his friend as well, creating a triangular torment where the poet loses both self and beloved.

Original
Modern
1 Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
The revelation
Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan,
2 For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;
That hath by shifting what is light to heavy,
3 Is’t not enough to torture me alone,
Made me to bear so great a burthen grown;
4 But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be?
Friend enslaved
But it is thou that all the sorrow gave,
5 Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,
Witch me, poor soul, to suffer and bear it,
6 And my next self thou harder hast engrossed,
Till my life's close; but then my woes grow worse,
7 Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,
If thou couldst pity me, thou wouldst not chide,
8 A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:
Or at the least to yield some small relieve
Volta The volta shifts from lamenting the theft of self and friend to attempting negotiation—trying to reclaim the friend's heart through the poet's suffering.
9 Prison my heart in thy steel bosom’s ward,
For I am sick when I do look on thee,
10 But then my friend’s heart let my poor heart bail,
But thy disdain and scorn kills me outright;
11 Whoe’er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,
And yet I could not choose but to believe,
12 Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.
That thou didst love me for my own sake.
13 And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
14 Perforce am thine and all that is in me.
What hast thou then more of them than before?
The Theft of Identity

The sonnet uses legal and property language: the Dark Lady 'takes' the poet from himself, 'engrosses' his 'next self' (the friend). This makes the seduction a kind of theft and enslavement. The poet is 'forsaken' by both himself and his beloved. This inversion of agency—the poet becomes the object taken—reveals how desire unmakes the self. Love, in this formulation, is the loss of autonomous identity.

The Torment of Threes

Line 8's 'torment thrice three-fold' suggests a mathematical impossibility of pain: three parties, three losses, compounded. The language of imprisonment ('prison my heart,' 'ward,' 'gaol') makes clear that the Dark Lady has become a tyrannical jailer. The poet's hope—that his suffering might bail out his friend—is touching but clearly desperate. He cannot trade his pain for his friend's freedom; both remain trapped.

If this happened today

Like discovering your best friend has been sleeping with your ex (or current) partner. The betrayal is doubled: losing the lover and the friend simultaneously. The poem captures the particular torment of romantic entanglement with a friend—the problem isn't just jealousy but the destruction of multiple bonds.