Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Text/Sonnet 111
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.
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