William Shakespeare, Sonnet cxviii
Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge; [*]
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
4
We sicken to shun sickness, when we purge;
Even so, being full of your ne'er -cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding,
And, being sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
8
To be diseas'd , ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love, to anticipate
The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state,
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Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured.
But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.
Notes
line 2: Eager -- sour; the French aigre. [ Back to text ]
Most notes to Shakespeare's sonnets are from Charles Knight's edition, but those in square brackets are mine.