Analysis of Sonnet 120: That you were once unkind befriends me now
William Shakespeare 1564 (Stratford-upon-Avon) – 1616 (Stratford-upon-Avon)
That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken
As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time,
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O, that our night of woe might have remembered
My deepest sense how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me then, tendered
The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
Scheme | ABABCDCDEFEFGG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Shakespearean sonnet |
Metre | 1101010111 0111011111 1111010101 0111011101 111011110 11111110111 01010111010 1111110011 111011111010 1101111101 01111111110 010111011 111110101 1101011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 614 |
Words | 119 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 476 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 117 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 140 Views
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"Sonnet 120: That you were once unkind befriends me now" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41419/sonnet-120%3A-that-you-were-once-unkind-befriends-me-now>.
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