Sonnet 41
Those petty wrongs that liberty commits,
infidelity
beauty
forgiveness
temptation
Those petty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;
And when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed?
Ay me! but yet thou mightest my seat forbear,
And chide try beauty and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth,
Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.
What It Means
The young man is young and beautiful and has a liberty that leads him into infidelity. Shakespeare understands. He's hard to resist. But there's a line between being tempted and giving in — and he crossed it with Shakespeare's mistress. The logic of the sonnet is sympathetic on the surface but the wound shows through. The forgiveness is generous but not painless.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence, second in the triangle group (40–42).
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