What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distill’d from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O benefit of ill! now I find true
That better is by evil still made better;
And ruin’d love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. So I return rebuk’d to my content, And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.
Sonnet 119 is one of
154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet
William Shakespeare. It's a member of the
Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.
Structure
Sonnet 119 is an English or Shakespearean
sonnet. The English sonnet has three
quatrains, followed by a final rhyming
couplet. It follows the typical
rhyme scheme of the form ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and is composed in
iambic pentameter, a type of poetic
metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 3rd line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:
× /× / × / × / × /
Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears, (119.3)
An unusual number of lines (5, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 12) feature a final extrametrical syllable or feminine ending, as for example:
/ × × / / × × / × / (×)
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, (119.7)
Line 7 (above) also features an initial reversal, and potentially a mid-line reversal. Other potential initial reversals occur in lines 6, 8, and 13, while potential mid-line reversals occur in lines 9 and 11.
The meter demands that line 6's "blessèd" is pronounced as two syllables.[2]