Sonnet 118
Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
love
medicine
excess
self-deception
Like 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 tuff 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.
What It Means
People take medicine to maintain their health even when they're not sick — or to recover appetite they've lost. Shakespeare did the same with his love: he took bitter things (possibly other people, or distractions) to renew what he feared was becoming dull. The cure was worse than the disease. What he thought was a remedy was poison.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence.
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