Sonnet 145

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Sonnet 145 in the 1609 Quarto
Q1 Q2 Q3 C Those lips that Love’s own hand did make Breath’d forth the sound that said “I hate,” To me that languish’d for her sake: But when she saw my woeful state, Straight in her heart did mercy come, Chiding that tongue that ever sweet Was used in giving gentle doom; And taught it thus anew to greet; “I hate” she alter’d with an end, That follow’d it as gentle day Doth follow night, who, like a fiend, From heaven to hell is flown away; “I hate” from hate away she threw, And sav’d my life, saying “not you.” 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare

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Q2



Q3



C

Those lips that Love’s own hand did make
Breath’d forth the sound that said “I hate,”
To me that languish’d for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom;
And taught it thus anew to greet;
“I hate” she alter’d with an end,
That follow’d it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who, like a fiend,
From heaven to hell is flown away;
“I hate” from hate away she threw,
And sav’d my life, saying “not you.”

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8



12

14

Sonnet 145 one of Shakespeare's sonnets. It forms part of the Dark Lady sequence of sonnets. It is written as a description of the feelings of a man who is so in love with a woman that hearing her say that "she hates" something immediately creates a fear that she is referring to him. But then when she notices how much pain she has caused her lover by saying that she may potentially hate him, she changes the way that she says it to assure him that she hates but does not hate him.

Sonnet 145 is — in most respects — a fairly typical English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the rhyme scheme of the form abab cdcd efef gg. However this sonnet is unique in the collection because, instead of iambic pentameter, it is written in iambic tetrameter, a poetic metre based on four (rather than five) pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 1st line exemplifies a regular iambic tetrameter:

Line 5 features a common metrical variation, an initial reversal:

An initial reversal also occurs in line 6, and potentially in line 4. A mid-line reversal occurs in line 14, and potentially in line 11.

The meter demands that line 12's "heaven" function as one syllable.

This sonnet has generally been considered by critics to be one of Shakespeare's slightest works. Its fairly simple language and syntax, along with the oddity of the meter, have led to suggestions that it was written much earlier than the other, more mature, sonnets. Gurr states,