Sonnet 20

    A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted

    gender
    desire
    beauty
    nature
    A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
     
    Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
     
    A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
     
    With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
     
    An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
     
    Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
     
    A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,
     
    Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
     
    And for a woman wert thou first created;
     
    Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
     
    And by addition me of thee defeated,
     
    By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
     
    But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
     
    Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

    What It Means

    This is the most explicit statement about the nature of Shakespeare's feeling for the young man. He has a woman's face but is not a woman — nature, Shakespeare says, 'fell a-doting' on him and added a penis as an afterthought. That addition means the young man belongs to women's pleasure, not Shakespeare's. Whatever the emotional connection, the physical relationship belongs to women. It's one of the most discussed sonnets in terms of what it reveals about Shakespeare's sexuality.

    Context

    Part of the Fair Youth sequence. The 'master mistress' phrase has been interpreted in many ways — the young man as both master and mistress, or as the one who has mastery over the speaker's emotional life.

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