Shakespeare’s Sonnet 138 features the narrator’s love for his mistress, the “dark lady”, who appears throughout Sonnets 127-154, and his issues with trust in the relationship. The first quatrain sets the mood and introduces the storyline for the rest of the sonnet. The sonnet’s tone shifts from a recognition of his lover’s lie about her age to developing a sense of trust in exchanging the lie, creating a volta. The poem accentuates the effects of age and the associated fall of beauty, and its influence on a sexual or romantic relationship.
The opening line, “When my love swears that she is made of truth,” proposes that there is a need to mend a relationship: the woman having to promise that she isn’t cheating on him, suggesting that doubt has surfaced, and the poet having to act younger than he really is in fear of losing her. The speaker is illustrated as someone who is apprehensive about revealing his age in an attempt to defy time and win compassion of his younger lover. Here, we also learn that this is a loving, romantic relationship due to the phrase “my love”. In the second line of this sonnet: “I do believe her, though I know she lies” (2) the word lies has multiple meanings: The first meaning is that she literally lies to him and doesn’t tell him the truth about her age; the second meaning, however, sets the tone for the whole sonnet: It can also mean that she lies, or sleeps with, other men. This line creates some irony, or a double entendre; the woman lies to him, he lies to himself, and he believes all of these lies. It is ironic because though he believes of the lies, he still knows they aren’t true. The speaker’s calm tone is emphasized in this line when he uses the word “do” instead of just saying “I believe her.”
The third line of this quatrain lets us know that the narrator is in the later part of his life: “That she might think me some untutor’d youth,” (3). The narrator feels as though he is not capable of finding true love at his age, thus seeks the relationship he has with his mistress, who is
the subject of this sonnet. He seeks to mislead her and make himself seem younger than he truly
is. Both lines three and four give reason for the speaker’s beliefs concerning his and his lover’s lies. He wants to appear younger, while she wants to think that she is with a more youthful lover. However, he prefers simply to ignore her lying and adultery because he simply cannot believe he is worthy of love at his age. He uses the word “untutor’d” to show that he wants her to see him as naïve or inexperienced as she may be.
Sonnet 138 reveals a contradiction that emphasizes the speaker’s personal struggle to come to terms with concerns of dishonesty and trust in love. The sonnet’s tone shifts from an acknowledgement of his lover’s lie about her age to evolving an awareness of trust in exchanging the lie. The lady is portrayed as someone insecure about her age in her attempt to defy time and win compassion of her younger lover. The hint of irony in this exchange is his indication to her knowledge that his age is already past youth. This idea contradicts the age of both subjects. Though the mistress is insecure about her age, the speaker of the poem is actually the older one, far from his youth.
The second quatrain, exclusively in lines five and six, the speaker states that he is aware that she knows he is not in his youth. Beginning line five with the words “Thus vainly” efficiently refutes the other half of the line, suggesting that the woman doesn’t really believe in the speaker’s youth. The word vainly creates a pun: his vanity is what motivates him to lie to her, while he can actually see that she knows the truth. Similarly, for line seven, “Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:”, with the second part of the line evidently opposing the first part.
Quatrain three contains the lines, “But wherefore says she not she is unjust? / And wherefore say not I that I am old?” In a relationship without love or trust, the two lovers settle on a relationship based on shared dishonesty. Both parties agree to never speak about how much their relationship is built on silent truths.
The last two lines of this poem, or the couplet, shows how the poet is content to support the woman’s lies because he is flattered that she thinks he is still young, even though he is well aware that she realizes just how old he actually is. Furthermore, he doesn’t necessarily contest her guarantees of faithfulness, even though she knows that he is aware of her adultery. The adultery goes back to the usage of the word “lie.” However, neither partner is willing to expose the other’s faults. After all, the speaker and the lady stay together for two obvious reasons: the first is their sexual, physical relationship, and the second is that they are clearly comfortable with the lies and deceptions. Both of these reasons are implied by the pun on the word “lie,” meaning either “to have intercourse with” or “to deceive” which is used again in the couplet: “Therefore I lie with her and she with me, / And in our faults by lies we flattered be.”
The rhyme scheme here is that of a sonnet which contains three quatrains followed by a couplet. The rhyme scheme here follows typical Shakespearean structure: abab cdcd efef gg. It is also written in iambic pentameter. For example, this line, “Although she knows my days are past the best” (6).