144.

Here the complete plot of the drama is shown: his love of 'a man right fair' is his love of Beauty; his love of a woman coloured ill' is his love of Fame. Fame tempts him to offer up his love of Beauty at her shrine-to love and set forth Beauty for the sake of Fame. Whether or not she has succeeded he can only suspect, but as these loves are the two parts of himself, and in one sense friends (Fame depending on Love of Beauty), he suspects that Fame has some influence, but will never know; it will only be known at his death, which will be brought about by the worry caused in him by the struggle against his worse part:

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turned fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;

But being both from me, both to each friend,
guess one angel in another's hell:

I

Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,

Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

145.

He refers to his 'mistress,' Fame, in a buoyant mood, expecting to be approved :

Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'
To me that languished for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,

Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet;
'I hate' she altered with an end,
That followed it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away;

'I hate' from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying 'not you.'

146.

He feels his work, and the strife it causes in him, to be wearing out his body; but, the body being comparatively of little account, he deliberately chooses to continue that work. (Compare Spenser, Sonnet 88, quoted in Introduction, p. 20):

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
[Spoiled1 by] these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate 2 thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And death once dead, there's no more dying then.

147.

He cannot but long for Fame though it is against his reason; and the strife that goes on in him is as a raging fever. His reason, not being able to cool this desire, has left him to take the consequence-death. He denounces Fame :

My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care;
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,

At random from the truth vainly expressed;

For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

148.

He again considers whether what her votaries see in Fame is genuine, and again decides that it is not. Yet he cannot but love her:

O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to 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,

How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.

O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

149.

:

To prove his devotion to Fame he points out that he loves her in spite of such love being to his injury. He also points out that he exercises his genius according to her directions. Yet he gets no satisfaction; and in the last two lines he tells why he said, in the last two lines of the preceding sonnet, that he was blind, and could not see her faults; and he now understands that it is because of his blindness that she does not love him only those are deserving of Fame who, being otherwise worthy, also know her for what she is:

Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
When I against myself with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of myself, all tyrant for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon ?
Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in myself respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?

But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.

150.

He now argues that his love of Fame in spite of her unworthiness, ought to cause her to pity him :

O, from what power hast thou this powerful might,
With insufficiency my heart to sway?

To make me give the lie to my true sight,

And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantise of skill
That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O, though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:

If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
More worthy I to be beloved of thee.

151.

He follows up the conceit of the last sonnet but one that his very Love of Fame will cause him not to receive Fame-by urging that, since conscience can only be born through love, if he be forbidden to love he can have no conscience; and therefore whoever forbids his love will be responsible for his conscienceless betrayal of his better part, his Love of Beauty, to his worse part, his Lust of Fame. Having no conscience, his Love of Beauty permits his Lust of Fame to triumph; he avails himself of the permission, and is content to live and die for Fame. But then, in the last two lines, he draws attention to the want of conscience in beginning by calling that 'Lust' of Fame-Love. That love or lust causes him to achieve something, but it is the cause of his falling short of perfection :