Sonnet 42

The speaker has lost both the beloved and the woman to each other, but consoles himself that their union is not his loss because the beloved and he are one—so really, the woman merely loves the beloved, who is the speaker.

Original

Modern

1 That thou hast her it is not all my grief,

That you have her is not the whole of my sorrow,

hast = have, possess; not all my grief = not the only source of sorrow

2 And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,

And yet it can be said that I loved her deeply,

may be said = can be said, is true

3 That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,

The volta's admission that loss of the beloved pains most deeply

That she has you is the chief cause of my lamentation,

wailing chief = greatest lament, primary sorrow

4 A loss in love that touches me more nearly.

A loss in love that wounds me much more intimately.

touches me more nearly = affects me more intimately

5 Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,

This is how I will forgive you both, my beloved betrayers,

loving offenders = those who betray through love; ye = you (plural)

6 Thou dost love her, because thou know’st I love her,

You love her because you know I love her,

7 And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,

And she, for my sake, likewise betrays me,

for my sake = because of me; abuse = mistreat, wrong

8 Suff’ring my friend for my sake to approve her.

Allowing my friend, for my sake, to desire her.

suffer = allow; approve = desire, endorse

Volta The volta occurs at line 9 with 'Both find each other, and I lose both twain'—acknowledging the true loss before attempting to rationalize it away in the final couplet.

9 If I lose thee, my loss is my love’s gain,

If I lose you, my loss becomes my love's gain,

10 And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,

And in losing her, my friend has found what I've lost,

11 Both find each other, and I lose both twain,

Both find each other, and I am left with both losses,

twain = two

12 And both for my sake lay on me this cross,

And both place this burden upon me, supposedly for my sake,

lay on me = place upon me; cross = burden, crucifixion

13 But here’s the joy, my friend and I are one,

The volta's consoling paradox: 'my friend and I are one'

But here is the comfort: my friend and I are one,

my friend and I are one = we are unified, identical

14 Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.

The couplet's self-aware acknowledgment of its own delusional comfort

Sweet self-deception—therefore she loves only me after all.

sweet flattery = self-comforting illusion; but = only, merely

The Hierarchy of Losses

Lines 1–4 distinguish two levels of grief. The beloved having the woman is not 'all' the speaker's sorrow; worse is that she has taken the beloved. Lines 3–4 claim that 'That she hath thee is of my wailing chief / A loss in love that touches me more nearly.' The loss of the beloved to another is more intimate than the loss of the woman herself. This is a crucial acknowledgment: the speaker's devotion to the beloved supersedes his romantic love for the woman. The real wound is not being supplanted in the woman's affections but losing the beloved's exclusive attention. The sonnet's emotional architecture reveals the hierarchy of the speaker's attachments: the beloved is primary, the woman secondary. This makes the betrayal doubly cruel: it's not just infidelity but usurpation of the beloved's allegiance.

Logic as Escape Hatch

Lines 9–14 attempt to transform this tragedy through sophistic reasoning. Lines 9–10 are nearly incomprehensible, but the logic seems to be: if losing the beloved means gaining the woman's favor (my loss = her gain), and the beloved gains from that favor, then losing the beloved means the beloved gains. Lines 11–12 then acknowledge the reality: 'Both find each other, and I lose both twain.' The speaker stands alone. Yet line 13 performs a final, astonishing reversal: 'But here's the joy, my friend and I are one.' This is explicitly labeled 'sweet flattery' (line 14), an acknowledged illusion. Because the beloved and speaker share an 'undivided love' (as stated in 36), their identities are fused. Therefore, the woman's love for the beloved is love for the speaker by extension. It is magical thinking, but it is also the only consolation available. The speaker cannot face the reality of loss, so he dissolves the boundaries of identity itself to preserve the fantasy of union.

If this happened today

Your best friend takes the person you love. You're devastated. But then you think: wait, I love him so much that we're basically the same person. So when she loves him, she's loving me through him. When they're together, it's like I'm there. It's comforting but also delusional. It's what you tell yourself when reality is unbearable.

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