Sonnet 136

The poet begs the Dark Lady to accept him as 'Will' and allow his name to suffice as his identity, reducing himself to his name alone.

Original
Modern
1 If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
The soul check
If thy soul cheque'd thee that I come so near,
2 Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,
Swear I am thy Will
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will:'
3 And will thy soul knows is admitted there,
And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;
4 Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.
Thus far for love my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.
5 Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love,
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
6 Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,
7 In things of great receipt with case we prove,
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
8 Among a number one is reckoned none.
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
Volta The volta shifts from wordplay negotiation to the paradoxical logic of 'nothing'—one lost in a crowd becomes invisible, thus free.
9 Then in the number let me pass untold,
All men are bad, and in their badness reign;
10 Though in thy store’s account I one must be,
But I am that by me myself was sold;
11 For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,
Yet for the good which thou dost give to me,
12 That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.
I will keep clean thy name, so shall live I,
13 Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
Unless thou take that from me, which I lend,
14 And then thou lov’st me for my name is Will.
In this thou hast me, ever to offend.
The Blind Soul and Blind Love

The sonnet opens with a plea to swear before her 'blind soul' that the poet was her Will. Blindness is key: her soul cannot see, cannot judge. The poet asks to be accepted on faith, not evidence. This aligns with the Dark Lady sequence's meditation on love as willed self-deception. The poem acknowledges that his plea is false ('Swear to thy blind soul that I was') but asks her to accept the fiction anyway. Love, in this formulation, is collaborative illusion.

Receipt and Reckoning

Line 7's 'things of great receipt' suggests containers that hold vast quantities without overflow. The Dark Lady is a capacious vessel; the poet wants to be liquid poured into her. But paradoxically, line 9 argues that being one among thousands means being nothing at all—invisible, uncounted. This freedom through anonymity might be the poem's only comfort: if he doesn't matter, he's also free from the burden of mattering.

If this happened today

Like a crush asking you to forget everything about them except their name and role in your life. 'Just call me by my name and think of me as yours.' It's the reduction of personhood to a function in someone else's narrative.