# Sonnet LXVI explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by William Shakespeare.

## What happens

The speaker, weary of the world's injustices and moral decay, longs for death but is held back by the thought of leaving his beloved alone.

## Themes in this chapter

### Truth and Deception

The poem laments how 'purest faith' is forsworn and 'simple truth' is misnamed simplicity, highlighting the perversion of truth in society.

### Time and Mortality

The speaker's cry for 'restful death' underscores a deep weariness with life and a longing for mortality's release.

## Character check-ins

### William Shakespeare

The speaker of the sonnet, expressing profound disillusionment with the world.

### Love

The beloved whose existence prevents the speaker from seeking death.

## Key lines

> Tired with all these, for restful death I cry

Exhausted by all these injustices, I long for the peace of death.

_The speaker expresses a desire for death as an escape from the world's corruption._

> Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

Except that dying would mean abandoning my beloved.

_The only thing preventing the speaker from seeking death is his love for another._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters/lxvi
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_28_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_28_se/chapters