Sonnet 148
O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Oh, me! What kind of eyes has love put into my head that I don’t see
anything accurately?
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
Or if my eyes do see correctly, what’s happened to
my judgment to make me wrongly criticize what they see?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If the one I
love to look at is beautiful, why does the rest of the world say it is
not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s: no,
If it is not so, then a person in love doesn’t see as accurately as
others.
How can it? O how can love’s eye be true,
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
No—how can a lover see right? Oh, how can a lover’s eye work
properly when it’s so distressed by staying awake and crying?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.
It’s no
wonder then that I’m wrong about what I see; the sun itself doesn’t see
anything until the sky is clear.
O cunning love! With tears thou keep’st me blind,
Lest eyes well seeing thy foul faults should find.
Oh, ingenious love, you keep me blind
with tears so I won’t discover my lover’s foul faults, as I would if my
eyes worked properly.
Comments