by Sqide

Created on: July 07, 2009   Last Updated: July 08, 2009

My love is as a fever longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,

And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night

Shakespeare's Sonnet 147 continues the theme of his destructive, consuming love for his dark lady. Here he fittingly describes the impact of his desire in physical terms (fittingly as it seems the relationship was confined to the physical). Through earlier sonnets, the reader has learned that the dark lady has earned the moniker not simply for her dark features, but also for an emotional darkness that leaves her forever out of reach for the author. She is the subject of Shakespeare's most overtly sexual sonnets, and it is clear when looking at the full range of his writing devoted to her that he is not her only lover. This verse deals with the toll that the space between physical and emotional intimacy has taken.

Here Shakespeare uses themes common in his other works (most famously Romeo and Juliet and the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia in Hamlet), including the destructive nature of loving someone without being governed by reason. Intellectually he knows that the cure for his heartsickness is to sequester himself from the dark lady, but he finds himself unable to do so.

Love without reason becomes a disease for the author, one with both physical and psychological symptoms. Most notable is Shakespeare's change in perception of his lover, which he acknowledges in the final couplet of the sonnet. Whereas before he was capable of objectively describing her darkness, he is now delusional to the point of calling her 'fair' and 'bright.'

Shakespeare uses the metaphor of his rational mind as a 'physician,' a motif used both in his plays and in his other sonnets, and frequently cast in opposition to the 'fool' that is his heart. Here the physician continues fruitlessly in his attempt to save the author from an affair that can never be actualized to his satisfaction. While Shakespeare the patient is willing to acknowledge his mind's efforts to dissuade him from this love, he chooses to follow his heart instead, and thus leaves all reason behind and willingly plunges into madness.

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