Sonnet 138 When my love swears that she is made of truth: Reflection

This sonnet describes the relationship between Shakespeare and his mistress, the dark lady.  Both partners in the relationship are lying to each other.  The man lies about his age and the women lies about her fidelity.  However, both the man and the mistress know they are lying to each other as if to flatter each other.

As the man grows older he becomes insecure about his age, he starts to lie about the fact that he is much older than his mistress in order to sound more youthful and inexperienced.  He also acts young by trying to make her think he is unsophisticated by believing the lies she is telling even though he knows she is lying.  The “Dark Lady” is lying about her faithfulness towards her relationship.  The man knows she is lying and she knows he knows she is lying.  This is almost exactly the same as the man lying about his age.

I found this sonnet to be very interesting in that both lovers are lying to each other just for the sake of flattering each other.  Even though they both know what they are both saying is not true, they say it anyway.  What can be said is that these so called “lovers” are only together to fulfill their desires of sexual pleasure as well as make the former.  Shakespeare’s use of words also makes the sonnet interesting by having words have two denotations.  Such as the word “lie,” which can mean not telling the truth as well as lying in bed with another man, which is clearly made known in the poem itself.