Sonnet 140

The Dark Lady: Desire

Notes

TLN 1947archaic vocab
“tongue-tied patience with too much disdain”
'Tongue-tied patience' is long-suffering endurance forced into silence. The poet warns the Dark Lady that this silence is running out: if she keeps pressing him with too much contempt, sorrow will give him words he can no longer hold back.
TLN 1949archaic vocab
“manner of my pity-wanting pain”
'Pity-wanting' means lacking pity -- the pain receives no compassion from her. In Elizabethan English 'wanting' regularly means 'lacking' or 'without,' not 'desiring.' The line says sorrow may force him to put into words exactly what it feels like to suffer with no mercy shown.
TLN 1950archaic vocab
“If I might teach thee wit, better it were”
'Wit' here means practical intelligence or good judgment, not humor. The poet says: if you would take sound advice, the sensible course would be to tell me you love me -- not because it is true, but because the lie protects you from the consequences of my despair.
TLN 1956archaic vocab
“ill-wresting world is grown so bad, Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be”
'Ill-wresting' means inclined to twist everything toward the worst possible meaning -- to 'wrest' (wrench, distort) a bad sense out of any word or act. 'Mad ears' are ears that are eager for, and credulous of, malicious gossip. The couplet makes the threat concrete: in a world that amplifies slander, even a madman's ravings will find believers.