Sonnet 72 argues that the young man should forget the speaker after his death, because praising him truthfully is impossible and praising him falsely would turn the young man’s true love into a lie that shames them both.
Sonnet 72: Full Poem
O lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me that you should love
After my death, dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
Text from the 1609 Quarto, with spelling and punctuation lightly modernized.
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about Sonnet 72 for quick reference.
What Sonnet 72 Means
Sonnet 72 picks up where Sonnet 71 leaves off. That poem ends by asking the young man not to mourn, “Lest the wise world should look into your moan,” and this one opens with the same worry: “O lest the world should task you to recite / What merit lived in me.” The speaker imagines that, after his death, people will ask the young man why he loved him, and he wants to spare his friend that question.
The first quatrain gives the speaker’s solution: “dear love, forget me quite.” His reason is blunt. The young man could not “prove” anything worthy in him, because there is nothing there to prove. The request to be forgotten is built on a low estimate of himself that the rest of the poem keeps confirming.
The second quatrain offers the one way around this. The young man could invent “some virtuous lie,” a kind falsehood that gives the dead speaker more credit than he earned and hangs “more praise” on him than “niggard truth,” stingy truth, would allow. The speaker raises the idea only to reject it.
The third quatrain explains why. If the young man praised him falsely, his “true love” would “seem false,” since love would have made him speak untruly. Better, the speaker says, that his name be buried with his body and “live no more to shame nor me nor you.” The couplet then gives the deepest reason of all: the speaker is ashamed of “that which I bring forth,” and the young man should be ashamed too, for loving “things nothing worth.”
Sonnet 72 Line by Line
Each line, with the sense of it in plain English.
Themes
Sonnet 72 is a request to be forgotten, and its themes all turn on why the speaker thinks forgetting would be a kindness.
Death and Being Forgotten
Sonnets 71 to 74 are often read as a group about the speaker’s death and what should happen to his memory afterward. In Sonnet 71, he asks the young man not to mourn him, and in Sonnet 73, he describes himself as autumn, twilight, and a dying fire. Sonnet 72 goes further than either. It asks not only for an end to grief but for the speaker’s name to be “buried where my body is,” a complete erasure. The request runs against the many poems in the sequence that promise the young man immortality in verse, such as Sonnet 55, where the speaker’s “powerful rhyme” will outlive monuments.
Truth and Lying in Love
The poem’s argument depends on a trap. Honest praise of the speaker would be thin, because “niggard truth” has little to say. Generous praise would be a “virtuous lie,” and that would make the young man’s love “seem false.” Either way, love and truth come apart. The speaker resolves the problem by removing himself from it. If no one speaks of him, no one has to choose between loving him and telling the truth about him.
Shame and Self-Worth
Shame is named twice in the last three lines: “to shame nor me nor you” and “I am shamed.” The speaker’s modesty in the first twelve lines can read as a polite convention, the kind of self-lowering that lovers’ poems often contain. The couplet makes it sound sincere. He is ashamed of what he produces, and he extends the shame to the young man, whose fault, in the speaker’s account, is loving him. The poem’s tenderness is real, but so is its self-contempt.
Form and Language
Sonnet 72 is built as two long sentences that each begin “O lest,” and its language borrows from law, accounting, and argument.
Meter and Rhyme
The poem follows the usual Shakespearean pattern of three quatrains and a couplet in iambic pentameter. Several rhymes are imperfect to a modern ear: “love” with “prove,” “desert” with “impart,” and “forth” with “worth.” The pairing of “lie” with “deceased I” stands out, because it puts a subject pronoun where grammar expects an object. The couplet’s near rhyme binds what the speaker makes, “forth,” to what it is “worth,” which by his account is nothing.
“O Lest” and the Two-Part Plea
The phrase “O lest” opens line 1 and line 9, dividing the poem into two attempts at the same request. The first attempt worries about the world’s questions, and the second worries about the young man’s honesty. Both end in the same place: forget me. The repetition gives the poem the feel of someone restating an argument because the first version did not settle it, and the couplet then supplies the reason he has been circling.
“Deceased I”
In line 7, the speaker refers to himself as “deceased I,” using the subject pronoun where an object would be expected. Whatever the reason, whether rhyme or emphasis, the phrase makes the speaker look at himself from outside, as a dead man to be talked about. It fits a poem in which he is already imagining his own absence and arranging how others should talk about it.
“Niggard Truth” and “Virtuous Lie”
Two compact phrases carry the moral argument. A “virtuous lie” is an oxymoron: a falsehood told out of goodness. “Niggard truth” personifies truth as a miser who will not part with more praise than is owed. Together, they set up a world where generosity requires lying and honesty requires meanness, and the speaker refuses to put the young man in either position.
A Closer Reading
Sonnet 72 presents its self-erasure as a gift to the young man, but the couplet shows that it is also a judgment the speaker passes on himself and his work.
For twelve lines, the poem looks like a considerate request. The speaker worries about the young man’s reputation. He does not want his friend cornered by the world’s questions, and he does not want him forced into a “virtuous lie” that would make his “true love” look false. Read this way, forgetting is something the speaker does for the young man, a final act of protection that costs the speaker his name.
The couplet changes the balance. “For I am shamed by that which I bring forth” is not about the young man at all. It is a confession about the speaker’s own output. Many readers take “that which I bring forth” to mean his poems, which would make the line a startling admission in a sequence so often confident about its verse. Whether it means his writing or, more broadly, everything he produces, the line moves the problem from what others will say to what the speaker already believes. The world’s questions only matter because he fears that their honest answer is “nothing.”
The last line then makes the young man share the shame: “And so should you, to love things nothing worth.” This is a strange thing to say to someone you love. It sounds like humility, but it also criticizes the young man’s judgment, as though loving the speaker were itself an error. The poem’s self-deprecation carries a reproach that it never fully admits.
Set beside Sonnet 55 or Sonnet 81, where the speaker’s verse is a monument that will outlast stone, Sonnet 72 shows the other face of the same preoccupation. The speaker who can promise the young man eternal life can also wish his own name buried. Both poems measure love by what survives death, and in this one the speaker decides that nothing of his deserves to.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Sonnet 72, answered briefly.
Who Is Sonnet 72 Addressed To?
The young man of the Fair Youth sonnets. Sonnets 1 to 126 are generally read as addressed to him, and this poem continues the direct address of Sonnet 71.
Why Does the Speaker Want to Be Forgotten?
He believes there is nothing worthy in him to praise. Any praise the young man offered would have to be a “virtuous lie,” which would make his true love look false, so forgetting is the honest course.
What Does “Niggard Truth” Mean?
“Niggard” means stingy. The phrase pictures truth as a miser that would give the dead speaker only the small amount of praise he actually earned.
What Is “That Which I Bring Forth”?
It is what the speaker produces. Many readers take it to mean his poems, though the phrase is broad enough to cover his work and conduct in general.
Where Is the Volta in Sonnet 72?
At line 13, with “For I am shamed.” The first twelve lines make two attempts at the same request, and the couplet turns to the reason behind it: the speaker’s shame at his own work.
Related Sonnets
Three neighboring sonnets share this poem’s meditation on the speaker’s death and memory.