Shakespeare’s Sonnets

William Shakespeare
No Fear Sonnet 112
No Fear Sonnet 112 Page 1
Page 1

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Your love and pity doth th' impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all the world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others' voices, that my adder’s sense
To critic and to flatt’rer stoppèd are.
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:
  You are so strongly in my purpose bred
  That all the world besides methinks y'are dead.
(Continuing from Sonnet 111) Your love and pity make up for the damage popular opinion has done to my reputation, since what do I care who calls me good or bad as long as you gloss over what’s bad about me and acknowledge my good? You’re the entire world to me, and I have to strive to learn what’s good or bad about me from what you say. No one else matters to me, and I matter to no one else alive. Your

opinion

Editors are unsure what line 8 actually means. The italicized translation represents this editor’s best guess.

 opinion is so powerful with me that it determines what’s right and wrong. I care so little about what other people say that it’s as if I threw their voices into a bottomless pit—that’s how deaf I am to their flattery and criticism. Notice how I disregard the fact that the rest of the world neglects me. You matter so much to me that you’re dead to the rest of the world.
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