We can interpret the phrases, “the perfect ceremony of love's rite” and “look for recompense” as we will; but it must be admitted that even when used to the uttermost they form an astonishingly small base on which to raise so huge and hideous a superstructure.
But we shall be told that the condemnation of Shakespeare is based, not upon any sonnet or any line; but upon the way Shakespeare speaks as soon as he discovers that his mistress has betrayed him in favour of his friend. One is inclined to expect that he will throw the blame on the friend, and, after casting him off, seek to win again the affections of his mistress. Nine men out of ten would act in this way. But the sonnets tell us with iteration and most peculiar emphasis that Shakespeare does not condemn the friend. As soon as he hears of the traitorism he cries (sonnet 33):
“Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.”
It is the loss of his friend he regrets, rather than the loss of his mistress; she is not mentioned save by comparison with “basest clouds.” Yet even when read by Gradgrind and his compeers the thirteenth line of this sonnet is utterly inconsistent with passion.
In the next sonnet the friend repents, and weeps the “strong offence,” and Shakespeare accepts the sorrow as salve that “heals the wound”; his friend's tears are pearls that “ransom all ill deeds.” The next sonnet begins with the line:
“No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done”;
Shakespeare will be an “accessory” to his friend's “theft,” though he admits that the robbery is still sour. Then come four sonnets in which he is content to forget all about the wrong he has suffered, and simply exhausts himself in praise of his friend. Sonnet 40 begins:
“Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou may'st true love call; All mine was
thine, before thou hadst this more.”
This is surely the very soul of tender affection; but it is significant that even here the word “true” is emphasized and not “love”; he goes on:
“I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.”