Sonnet 88 claims that the speaker’s love is so complete that he will take the young man’s side against himself, exposing his own faults to justify being cast off, and will count that self-injury as his own gain.
Sonnet 88: Full Poem
When thou shalt be dispos’d to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
Upon thy side against myself I’ll fight,
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults conceal’d, wherein I am attainted;
That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:
And I by this will be a gainer too;
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to myself I do,
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
That for thy right myself will bear all wrong.
Text from the 1609 Quarto, with spelling and punctuation lightly modernized.
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about Sonnet 88 for quick reference.
What Sonnet 88 Means
The poem begins with a future that the speaker treats as certain: “When thou shalt be dispos’d to set me light.” When the young man is inclined to value him lightly, and to hold his merit up “in the eye of scorn,” the speaker will not defend himself. Instead, he will fight “Upon thy side against myself,” and prove the young man “virtuous, though thou art forsworn,” though it is the young man who has broken his vows.
The second quatrain explains how. No one knows the speaker’s weaknesses better than he does, so he can “set down a story,” a written account, of hidden “faults conceal’d” that stain him, the faults “wherein I am attainted.” With this story in hand, the young man will look justified: “in losing me,” he “shalt win much glory.”
Line 9 turns the argument toward the speaker: “And I by this will be a gainer too.” Because all his “loving thoughts” are bent on the young man, the injuries he does to himself, since they benefit the young man, benefit the speaker twice over: they “double-vantage me.” Whatever helps the person he loves helps him, even when it hurts him.
The couplet sums up the bargain. “Such is my love, to thee I so belong, / That for thy right myself will bear all wrong.” The speaker belongs so completely to the young man that, to keep the young man in the right, he will take every wrong onto himself.
Sonnet 88 Line by Line
Each line, with the sense of it in plain English.
Themes
Sonnet 88 comes just after the Rival Poet group and belongs to a run of poems in which the speaker imagines losing the young man. Its themes grow out of that fear.
Taking the Beloved’s Side
The speaker’s plan is to change sides in his own case, and the idea recurs across the sequence. In Sonnet 35, he says, “Thy adverse party is thy advocate,” and finds himself an accessory to the young man’s fault. Sonnet 49 imagines raising his hand “against myself” to “guard the lawful reasons on thy part.” The next poem, Sonnet 89, carries the plan further: “For thee, against my self I’ll vow debate.” In each case, the speaker’s loyalty to the young man is measured by his willingness to act against himself.
Loss and Gain
The poem is full of the language of profit: “losing,” “win,” “glory,” “gainer,” “vantage,” and “double-vantage.” The speaker treats the end of the relationship as a transaction and then insists that he comes out ahead. The arithmetic is strange, and it is meant to be. A love that counts its own injuries as profit has stopped measuring itself by its own welfare. The accounting turns the vocabulary of the marketplace into a vocabulary of devotion.
Rejection Foreseen
The poem does not say “if.” It says “When thou shalt be dispos’d,” as though the young man’s turning away were only a matter of time. The poems around it share that expectation. Sonnet 87 begins “Farewell!” and treats the young man’s love as a gift he is entitled to take back, and Sonnet 90 opens, “Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now.” In this group, the speaker often rehearses his loss before it happens, as if preparing for it could make it easier to bear.
Form and Language
Sonnet 88 speaks the language of the courtroom and the counting house, and its sound changes at the point where the speaker confesses.
Meter and Rhyme
The poem follows the usual Shakespearean pattern of three quatrains and a couplet in iambic pentameter. The second quatrain is set apart by its rhymes. All four of its lines end on an extra unstressed syllable, a feminine ending: “acquainted” and “attainted,” “story” and “glory.” These falling endings come in the lines where the speaker lists his own faults, and they give the confession a deflated cadence. The couplet returns to firm single-syllable rhymes, “belong” and “wrong.”
The Language of Law
Much of the poem’s vocabulary comes from legal proceedings. “Forsworn” means having broken an oath. To be “attainted” could mean to be convicted, especially of a serious crime. “Upon thy side” and “Upon thy part” suggest the two parties in a case, and to “set down a story” sounds like writing a statement for the court. The couplet’s “right” and “wrong” have legal as well as moral force. The speaker imagines a trial in which he is both the defendant and the young man’s lawyer.
“Vantage” and “Double-Vantage”
Line 12 repeats a word and then doubles it: “Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.” “Vantage” meant advantage or benefit. The repetition is a small verbal figure that mirrors the logic of the sestet. Every advantage given to the young man returns to the speaker multiplied, so the line itself grows as it moves from “vantage” to “double-vantage.”
A Closer Reading
Sonnet 88 makes self-sacrifice into an argument, and the strain in its logic is where its feeling shows.
The first line uses an image of weight. To “set me light” is to give the speaker little value, as if he had been placed on a scale and found wanting. The second line moves from scales to spectacle: the speaker’s merit is put “in the eye of scorn,” displayed for contempt. Already the poem imagines the speaker as something judged, and he does not object to the judgment. He offers to help with it.
Line 4 contains a revealing phrase. The speaker will “prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.” In one breath he promises to defend the young man and admits that the young man is the one who broke faith. The truth escapes even as the speaker volunteers to cover it up. The same doubleness runs through “a story / Of faults conceal’d.” “Story” could mean a true account, but it can also suggest a tale made up for the occasion, and the speaker never says whether his faults are real or merely useful. He says only that he is “attainted,” which may be the kind of thing a willing witness says.
The sestet tries to make the sacrifice reasonable. The logic runs in a circle: the speaker’s thoughts are all on the young man, so what helps the young man helps him, so hurting himself for the young man’s sake is a double gain. The argument is ingenious, but its ingenuity is the sign of strain. A person who must reason his way to the conclusion that injury is profit is a person who has been injured. The poem’s careful bookkeeping is a way of not saying how much this hurts.
The couplet gives up the argument and states the fact. “Such is my love, to thee I so belong.” The verb “belong” is the key. The speaker no longer speaks as an equal or even as a suitor, but as a possession, and the closing line accepts the consequences: “for thy right myself will bear all wrong.” The play on “right” and “wrong” makes the exchange exact. The young man gets the right, and the speaker takes the wrong. Readers may find this devotion moving or troubling, and the poem allows both responses.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Sonnet 88, answered briefly.
Who Is Sonnet 88 Addressed To?
The young man of the Fair Youth sonnets. Sonnets 1 to 126 are generally read as addressed to him, and this poem’s fear of being cast off fits the poems around it.
What Does “Set Me Light” Mean?
It means to value the speaker lightly, to think little of him. The phrase suggests weighing something and finding it of small worth.
Why Does the Speaker Take the Young Man’s Side?
Because his love is so complete that the young man’s good has become his own. He reasons that whatever benefits the young man benefits him twice, even when it costs him his reputation.
How Is Sonnet 88 Connected to Sonnet 89?
Sonnet 89 continues the same plan. There, the speaker promises to “comment upon” any fault the young man names, to “halt” if accused of lameness, and to “vow debate” against himself for the young man’s sake.
Where Is the Volta in Sonnet 88?
At line 9, with “And I by this will be a gainer too.” The first eight lines describe how the young man will gain from rejecting the speaker, and the sestet turns to how the speaker, strangely, will gain as well.
Related Sonnets
Three sonnets share this poem’s habit of taking the young man’s side against the speaker’s own interest.