Sonnet 138 – Shakespeare

Shakespeare describes a love sustained by mutual deception: the mistress lies, and the poet pretends to believe her so he can be seen as young and desirable. Their relationship becomes an agreement to ignore truth, because honesty would end the pleasure. The sonnet is both comic and bitter, revealing how love can survive only by turning blindness into a pact.

Sonnet 138 – Read and Listen

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When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor’d youth,
Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress’d.

But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:

Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.

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Introduction to Sonnet 138

Sonnet 138 is Shakespeare’s frank confession that love can be sustained by mutual deception. The poem begins with a paradox: the mistress swears she is “made of truth,” and the speaker says he believes her, even though he knows she lies. Instead of outrage, the poet chooses complicity. He accepts the lie because it allows him to play a role she desires.

The logic is ironic and bitter. The speaker pretends to believe her so she may imagine him “some untutor’d youth,” innocent of the world’s false subtleties. He knows this is fantasy, yet he enjoys it. At the same time, she knows he is not young—“my days are past the best”—but she does not name that truth either. Both partners suppress honesty to preserve the pleasure of the relationship.

The middle of the sonnet asks two direct questions. Why does she not admit she is unjust? Why does he not admit he is old? The answer is revealing: love’s best habit is “seeming trust.” Love performs faith even when it knows better, and age in love hates to have years counted.

The final couplet delivers the blunt conclusion. They lie with each other, and through lies they flatter themselves in their faults. In Sonnet 138, deception is not a failure of love; it becomes the condition of love’s survival.

Analysis — Sonnet 138

First Quatrain — Believing the Lie on Purpose

The first quatrain establishes the sonnet’s central irony. The mistress claims she is truthful, but the speaker knows she lies. Still he believes her, not out of ignorance but by choice.

His motive is vanity as much as desire. By acting credulous, he lets her imagine him as youthful and untutored. The quatrain therefore shows love as performance: pretending becomes intimacy.

Second Quatrain — Two-Sided Suppression of Truth

The second quatrain reveals that deception runs both ways. The speaker vainly thinks she believes him young, though she knows he is past his best days. He “credits” her false tongue simply to keep the illusion alive.

The key statement is moral: “On both sides thus is simple truth suppress’d.” Their relationship is built on a shared agreement not to speak plainly. This is not innocence; it is strategy.

Third Quatrain — The Questions of Unjustice and Age

In the third quatrain the poet asks why neither tells the truth. She does not call herself unjust, and he does not call himself old.

Shakespeare answers with a general maxim. Love’s best habit is in seeming trust. Trust is not always reality; it is often a style, a costume. Age, meanwhile, does not want its years told. The quatrain therefore links love to denial: affection protects itself through illusion.

Final Couplet — Lies as Flattery

The couplet is famously blunt. “Therefore I lie with her and she with me.” The phrase is sexual and rhetorical at once: they lie in bed, and they also lie in speech.

Their faults are softened through mutual flattery. Deception becomes mutual comfort. The ending is comic in tone, but the emotional truth is grim: honesty would destroy the relationship, so falsehood becomes tenderness.

Conclusion

Sonnet 138 presents love as a pact of deception. The mistress lies about her truthfulness; the speaker pretends belief so she can imagine him young and innocent. Both sides suppress what they know, because plain truth would expose injustice, age, and disappointment.

Shakespeare’s genius here is his honesty about dishonesty. He does not condemn the lie as mere sin; he shows it as a practical arrangement, almost a contract. Love becomes performance, and trust becomes a habit of seeming.

The final couplet captures the entire relationship in one stroke: they lie with each other, and through those lies they flatter themselves. Sonnet 138 is witty, painful, and startlingly modern—an admission that desire sometimes needs illusion more than truth.

Sonetto 138 – In Italiano ·
◀ Sonnet 137 · Sonnet 139 ▶

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