Sonnet 144 claims that the speaker has two loves, a good angel and a bad one, and that he suspects the bad angel, the woman, has seduced the good one, the young man, though he will never know for certain.
Sonnet 144: Full Poem
Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still.
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colored ill.
To win me soon to hell my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turned fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell.
Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
Text from the 1609 Quarto, with spelling and punctuation lightly modernized. In line 6, the Quarto prints “sight”; modern editions follow the earlier 1599 printing, which reads “side.”
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about Sonnet 144 for quick reference.
What Sonnet 144 Means
Sonnet 144 turns the speaker’s love for two people, and his fear that they have betrayed him together, into a small drama of angels and devils.
The first quatrain introduces the two loves. One brings him comfort and the other despair, and like two spirits they are always whispering to him. The better angel is a fair young man; the worse spirit is a dark woman.
The second quatrain describes what the woman is doing. To drag the speaker to hell, she is tempting his good angel away from his side, trying to corrupt his saint into a devil by seducing his purity with her proud and ugly charms.
The third quatrain admits that the speaker cannot be sure. He suspects that his angel has turned into a devil, but he cannot say so outright. Since both of them are away from him and friendly with each other, he guesses that one is in the other’s hell.
The couplet says he will never know for certain. He will live in doubt until the bad angel drives the good one out.
Sonnet 144 Line by Line
Each line, with the sense of it in plain English.
Themes
Sonnet 144 brings together the two figures of the sequence, and its themes all come from the triangle they form with the speaker.
Two Kinds of Love
The first line sets out the two loves as opposites: one of “comfort” and one of “despair.” The young man is the love that sustains; the woman is the love that torments. The poem compresses the whole sequence into that opposition, the idealized friend of Sonnets 1 to 126 set against the desired and resented woman of Sonnets 127 to 152.
Jealousy and Suspicion
The speaker fears that his two loves have become lovers, and the poem is built from that fear. Both are “from me,” away from him, and both are friends to each other. He cannot see what is happening, only guess at it, and the guessing is its own torment.
The Pain of Not Knowing
The last three lines return again and again to uncertainty: “suspect I may,” “not directly tell,” “I guess,” “this shall I ne’er know,” “live in doubt.” The poem does not end with a discovery. It ends with the speaker condemned to suspect without proof, which the sonnet presents as worse than knowing.
Form and Language
Sonnet 144 borrows the machinery of religious drama and fills it with sexual double meanings.
Meter and Rhyme
The poem is a Shakespearean sonnet in iambic pentameter, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The second quatrain rhymes “evil” with “devil,” two words that each end on an unstressed syllable, so the rhyme on the woman’s wickedness has a softer, trailing sound. The turn at line 9 moves from what the woman is doing to what the speaker cannot know.
Good Angel and Bad Angel
The poem draws on a familiar image from religious drama: a person caught between a good angel and an evil one, each trying to win his soul. Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, from the same period, puts a Good Angel and an Evil Angel on stage to argue over Faustus. Shakespeare turns the young man into the good angel, “my saint,” and the woman into the bad one, “my female evil.”
Double Meanings
Several words carry a second, sexual sense beneath the religious one. “Hell” was Elizabethan slang for the female body, so “one angel in another’s hell” suggests the young man and the woman are sleeping together. “Fire out” means to drive out with fire, as hunters smoked animals from their dens, and many editors hear a further allusion to venereal disease. Our guide to literary devices in the sonnets covers wordplay of this kind.
“Colored Ill”
Line 4 describes the woman as “colored ill,” meaning dark in complexion, in contrast to the young man, who is “right fair.” The pairing of fair and dark runs through the whole sequence, and here it lines up with good and evil, a moral judgment the Dark Lady sonnets make again and again.
A Closer Reading
Sonnet 144 sets up a scene from religious drama and then leaves the speaker out of it.
In the traditional picture, the good angel and the bad angel fight over a human soul. The person stands between them, and the struggle is for him. Sonnet 144 begins as if it will follow that pattern: “Two loves I have,” two spirits that “suggest me still,” and a female evil who wants “to win me soon to hell.”
But the woman does not tempt the speaker. She “tempteth my better angel from my side.” The bad angel pursues the good angel, not the man between them. The prize in this morality play is not the speaker’s soul but his friend, and the struggle takes place somewhere he cannot follow: “being both from me.” He is left outside his own drama, able to “suspect” and “guess” but not to see.
That is why the ending is so bleak. In a morality play, the outcome is revealed on stage. Here the speaker will learn the truth only when the bad angel “fire[s] my good one out,” and whatever that means, whether a cooling of the affair or the marks of disease, it is a proof that arrives as harm. The only certainty available to him is the damage itself.
The same triangle appears in the Fair Youth sonnets, where the speaker tries to forgive the young man for taking his mistress. Sonnet 144 tells it from the other side: the speaker no longer forgives or excuses, and simply waits to find out how badly he has lost both.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Sonnet 144, answered briefly.
What Is Sonnet 144 About?
A love triangle. The speaker loves a young man and a dark woman, pictures them as a good and a bad angel, and suspects that the woman has seduced the young man away from him.
Who Are the “Two Loves” in Sonnet 144?
The young man of the Fair Youth sonnets, the “better angel,” and the woman readers call the Dark Lady, the “worser spirit.” The real identities of both are unknown.
What Does “Till My Bad Angel Fire My Good One Out” Mean?
Until the woman drives the young man away, as fire drives an animal from its den. Many editors also hear an allusion to venereal disease, the evidence that would finally prove the affair.
Why Was Sonnet 144 Printed Before the Other Sonnets?
It appeared in 1599 in The Passionate Pilgrim, a collection sold under Shakespeare’s name, along with Sonnet 138. The full sequence of 154 was not published until 1609.
What Does “Suggest Me Still” Mean?
“Tempt me constantly.” In Shakespeare’s English, “suggest” could mean to tempt or prompt, and “still” meant always.
Related Sonnets
Three Dark Lady sonnets that show other sides of the same relationship.