Sonnet 111
O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
shame
public life
profession
forgiveness
O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me then and wish I were renew'd;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
What It Means
Fortune has made Shakespeare a public entertainer — his livelihood depends on public performance. This has damaged his nature; he's absorbed the stain of public life into his character. He knows it. He asks the young man to be patient, like a nurse tending a patient taking bitter medicine, as he works to correct the damage his profession has done.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence. This is Shakespeare's most direct reference to his profession as an actor and its social stigma. Actors in Elizabethan England were considered disreputable.
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