Sonnet 57
Being your slave, what should I do but tend
servitude
jealousy
love
waiting
Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.
What It Means
Shakespeare calls himself a slave — he waits for the young man's leisure and calls it time well spent. He doesn't question, doesn't accuse, doesn't let jealousy speak. Whatever the young man does with his time is fine. This sounds like total devotion but reads as something more complicated: the patience is a disguise for the cost of being so entirely at another's disposal.
Context
Part of the Fair Youth sequence. Sonnets 57 and 58 form a pair on the theme of servitude and jealousy suppressed.
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