Shakespeare's Sonnet 40 is one of the sequence addressed to a well-born, handsome young man to whom the speaker is devoted. In this poem, as in the others in this part of the sequence, the speaker expresses resentment of his beloved's power over him.

Paraphrase

Go and take all of my loves, my beloved—how would doing so enrich you? It would not give you anything you do not already have. All that I possessed was already yours before you took this. (The second quatrain

Quatrain

A quatrain is a stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines of verse. Existing in various forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China; and, continues into the 21st century, where it is...

 is obscure and contested.) If, instead of loving me, you love the person I love, I can't blame you, because you are merely taking advantage of my love. (For possible readings of lines 7-8, see below). Yet I forgive you, even though you steal the little that I have, and even though it is well known that an injury inflicted by a supposed lover is far worse than an insult from an enemy. Oh lustful grace (i.e., the beloved), in whom everything bad is made to look good, even if you kill me with these wrongs against me, I will not be your enemy.

Source and analysis

Commonly viewed as parallel to the situation in Sonnets 133

Sonnet 133

- Synopsis :Critics generally agree that Sonnet 133 addresses the complex relationship between the speaker and an unidentified woman. Josephine Roberts interprets the sonnet in that the poet expresses a “fractured sense of self” as a result of his toxic relationship with the dark lady...

, 134

Sonnet 134

In Shakespeare's 134th sonnet, the speaker confronts the mistress after learning that she has seduced the Fair Youth.-Synopsis:In the first quatrain, the speaker confesses that both he and the friend are at the mistress's mercy; in the second one, he surmises that the attachment will hold, due to...

, and 144

Sonnet 144

- Introduction :Sonnet 144 was published in the Passionate Pilgrim. Shortly before this, Francis Meres referred to Shakespeare's Sonnets in "his handbook of Elizabethan poetry, Palladis Tamia, or Wit's Treasurie, published in 1598," which was frequently talked about in the literary centers of...

, the sonnet appears in this light to reflect a situation in which the speaker's beloved has seduced the speaker's mistress. While the seeming specificity of the reference has tantalized biographical critics, it has also been likened (for instance, by Geoffrey Bullough) to the central situation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1590 or 1591. It is considered by some to be Shakespeare's first play, and is often seen as his first tentative steps in laying out some of the themes and tropes with which he would later deal in more...

. The situation described, if not wholly unique to Shakespeare, is at least highly unusual, as Sidney Lee

Sidney Lee

Sir Sidney Lee was an English biographer and critic.He was born Solomon Lazarus Lee at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London and educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history in 1882. In the next year he became assistant-editor of the...

 notes. Parallels have been noted in Petrarch

Petrarch

Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...

 and in Theodore Beza

Theodore Beza

Theodore Beza was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation...

's Poematica, but these are not as implicitly sexual as Shakespeare's poem.

Line 5 is glossed by Edward Dowden

Edward Dowden

Edward Dowden , was an Irish critic and poet.He was the son of John Wheeler Dowden, a merchant and landowner, and was born at Cork, three years after his brother John, who became Bishop of Edinburgh in 1886. Edward's literary tastes emerged early, in a series of essays written at the age of twelve...

 as "If for love of me thou receivest her whom I love"; George Wyndham

George Wyndham

George Wyndham PC was a British Conservative politician, man of letters, noted for his elegance, and one of The Souls.-Background and education:...

, though, has it "If, instead of my love, you take the woman whom I love." Line 8, the next vague line, has received even more varied interpretations. Dowden has it "Deceive yourself by an unlawful union while you refuse lawful wedlock"; Beeching

Henry Charles Beeching

Henry Charles Beeching was an English clergyman, author and poet. He was educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford. He took holy orders in 1882, and began work in a Liverpool parish. He later became Dean of Norwich. He gave the Clark Lecture in 1900 on The history of...

has it "by taking in willfulness my mistress whom you yet do not love"; Lee says "'What thou refusest is that lascivious indulgence which in reality thou disdainest." C. C. Stopes relates the line to other sonnets written in condemnation of illicit lust.

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