Sonnet 120
That you were once unkind befriends me now,
unkindness
forgiveness
reciprocity
empathy
That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow which I then did feel
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken
As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time,
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O, that our night of woe might have remember'd
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd
The humble slave which wounded bosoms fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
What It Means
The young man was once unkind to Shakespeare. Now Shakespeare has been unkind back. But the memory of his own past hurt is what helps him forgive: he knows what it feels like. If the young man endured Shakespeare's current unkindness the way Shakespeare endured the original wound, then they are even, and they can move forward.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence. The sonnet offers a form of moral accounting: shared suffering creates mutual understanding.
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