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SONNET 151Love is too young to know what conscience is;Yet who knows not, conscience is born of love? Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove. For thou betraying me, I do betray My nobler part to my gross body's treason; My soul doth tell my body that he may Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason, But rising at thy name, doth point out thee As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride, He is contented thy poor drudge to be, To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side. No want of conscience hold it that I call Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall. NOTES CLI. A consciousness of where fault lies is apt to follow after love. There was danger, therefore, lest the poet's mistress should be incriminated as the cause of his bringing the nobler part of his nature under the dominion of his fleshly lusts. He asks, therefore, that the question as to the morality of his conduct shall not be raised. l, 2. Love in its first impetuousness disregards moral considerations, but reflection and remorse follow on its fruition. 5, 6. For thou betraying me, &c. The "gentle cheater" betrays or seduces the poet into sin; and so he becomes guilty of treason against the nobler part of his nature. 9. Thy name. See note on line 14. 10. Pride. Proud conquest, alluding most likely to the lady's rank. In his triumphant prize there is probably an allusion also to the name "Fitton," the fit one. 14. Rise and fall. Rise in the triumph of the flesh, and fall in the subjugation and humiliation of the soul. It has been thought that some lines in this Sonnet were expressed so that they might be taken sensu male pudico; but whether this be so or not it is scarcely necessary to determine, though, as the lady was probably Mrs. Mary Fitton, it is not very difficult to suggest a possible play on the name in two ways. As to the possible play on "fit" compare Cymbeline, Act iv. sc. i, "For 'tis said' a woman's fitness comes by fits.'" How to cite this article:______ Even More...  Stratford School Days: What Did Shakespeare Read? Games in Shakespeare's England [A-L] Games in Shakespeare's England [M-Z] An Elizabethan Christmas Clothing in Elizabethan England Queen Elizabeth: Shakespeare's Patron King James I of England: Shakespeare's Patron The Earl of Southampton: Shakespeare's Patron Going to a Play in Elizabethan London Ben Jonson and the Decline of the Drama Publishing in Elizabethan England Shakespeare's Audience Religion in Shakespeare's England Alchemy and Astrology in Shakespeare's Day Entertainment in Elizabethan England London's First Public Playhouse Shakespeare Hits the Big Time
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