Sonnet 147

Love is a self-perpetuating fever: the beloved feeds the disease while reason, like a frustrated physician, abandons the hopeless patient.

Original

Modern

1 My love is as a fever longing still,

central metaphor: love as fever

My love is as a fever, longing still,

2 For that which longer nurseth the disease,

For that which longer nurseth the disease;

3 Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

4 Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please:

The uncertain sickly appetite to please:

5 My reason the physician to my love,

My reason the physician to my love,

6 Angry that his prescriptions are not kept

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,

7 Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,

Have from the table of my thoughts removed,

8 Desire is death, which physic did except.

Her counsel and her counsel vainly help.

Volta The volta shifts from medical metaphor to madness: reason abandons him, and he is left 'frantic-mad' without restraint or truth.

9 Past cure I am, now reason is past care,

Past cure I am, now reason is past care,

10 And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,

And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;

11 My thoughts and my discourse as mad men’s are,

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,

12 At random from the truth vainly expressed.

At random from the truth vainly express'd;

13 For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,

For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,

14 Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

Love as Pathology

Shakespeare employs detailed medical language: fever (disease), nurseth (metaphor of feeding), physician (reason), prescriptions (rational counsel), physic (medicine/cure). Love actively works against healing because the lover craves the beloved as a fever patient craves what worsens the condition. The metaphor implies love is literally a sickness of the body, not merely emotion.

Madness and Truth

Lines 11–12 declare the speaker's thoughts 'as mad men's are,' expressed 'at random from the truth.' Yet madness reveals truth: in the couplet, he admits she is objectively 'black' and 'dark.' Irrationality and delusion are what allowed him to call her 'fair' and 'bright'; sanity reverses the lie. This is psychologically astute: love and madness are one.

If this happened today

Like someone addicted to a toxic relationship—they know it's poisoning them but they crave the poison. Each fight, each cruelty, paradoxically deepens the attachment. The rational part of them has given up; madness is all that's left.

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