111
O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds. 4
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdu'd
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd; 8
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction. 12
Pity me, then, dear friend, and I assure ye
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
112
Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow? 4
You are my all-the-world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong. 8
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of other's voices, that my adder's sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are.
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense: 12
You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
That all the world besides methinks are dead.
2 guilty goddess . . . deeds: goddess guilty of . . . deeds
5 brand: stigma
6 subdu'd: reduced
10 eisel: vinegar
12 correct correction: chastise chastisement, make my correction doubly sure
1 impression: mark, brand
4 o'er-green: cover as by a vine or grass
allow: approve
7, 8 Cf. n.
10, 11 Cf. n.
12 with . . . dispense: I am indifferent to neglect (by others)
13 in my purpose bred: engrafted in my life
14 besides: except you
