Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Text/Sonnet 121
121
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing: 4
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good? 8
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown; 12
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad and in their badness reign.
3, 4 Cf. n.
6 Give salutation to: greet (as if Shakespeare were one of them)
sportive: wanton
8 in their wills: as they please
11 bevel: oblique