Like as, to make our appetites more keen...
Sonnet 118Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge, As, to prevent our maladies unseen, We sicken to shun sickness when we purge, Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness, To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness To be diseased ere that there was true needing. Thus policy in love, to anticipate The ills that were not, grew to faults assured And brought to medicine a healthful state Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured: But thence I learn, and find the lesson true, Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you. |
Buy and Download...Click HERE
|
(Continuing from previous sonnet)
Sometimes we think up exotic combinations of food to stimulate the appetite, and sometimes we take medicines to cure us of ills, though the medicines themselves make us sick. That’s the principle behind my going off and cheating on you with someone less
attractive: because I was so full of your sweetness (though it was never cloying) I tried to treat a problem that wasn’t there in the first place. By trying to be too clever in loving, I made a healthy love sick and in need of curing: that same one which I was trying to make better by doing bad deeds.
I’ve learned, however, from the results of this experiment, that this sort of medicine only poisons someone whose malady is to be in love with you.