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Sonnet 42: A Love Justified

© Jennifer Alpeche

Once again, they are one.

Armed with this rationalization, the speaker is able to find a bit of comfort. Only, it is a comfort that is fragile, and as noted by even himself -- "Sweet flattery!". He deludes himself into happiness, but he does not believe in it wholly, and the bitterness in his voice is quite clear.

If the speaker were to blame one of the persons involved, it would be his beloved, the mistress. She is the one who has chosen his friend, and as the speaker noted, his friend has not so much betrayed him, but has done him a favor and tested this woman for him -- "Thou dost love her because thou know'st I love her" (line 6).

In the mind of the speaker, the friend is simply doing his duty as "friend," and so, the speaker does not have to see him as the villain. He excuses both of them for their betrayal, but it is obvious that he excuses the lover relationship in order to preserve the friendship.

In Helen Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets, it is noted -- "By inserting himself somehow as cause or agent of the relation between the young man and the mistress, the speaker preserves a connection with the young man which is the overriding motive of this poem" (Vendler, p. 220).

Shakespeare illustrates how delusion saves us from pain, but even as we delude ourselves, the truth remains. We feel it and our efforts to make sense of it comprise a constant reminder as to why we are doing so.

References:

Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 42. The Norton Shakespeare. Edited by Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.

Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.