XLI explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Truth and Deception

  The poem explores the breaking of a 'twofold truth'—the beloved's deception of both the speaker and the woman he tempts.

• Beauty and Transience

  The beloved's beauty and youth are portrayed as fleeting qualities that lead to temptation and moral lapse.

Characters to notice

• Youth

  The beloved's youth is cited as a cause for straying and breaking trust.

• Beauty

  The beloved's beauty is personified as a force that tempts and leads to infidelity.

Key passages

• “Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits, When I am sometime absent from thy heart, Thy beauty and thy years full well befits, For still temptation follows where thou art.”

  The charming offenses you commit when I am not in your thoughts are suited to your beauty and youth, because temptation always follows you.

  The speaker excuses the beloved's infidelity as a natural consequence of his attractiveness.

• “Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear, And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth, Who lead thee in their riot even there Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth, Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee, Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.”

  Alas! You could have refrained from taking my place and instead rebuked your beauty and wandering youth, which lead you into such disorder that you are compelled to break a double promise—her promise, because your beauty tempts her to you, and your promise, because your beauty makes you unfaithful to me.

  The speaker laments that the beloved's beauty causes him to betray both the woman he seduces and the speaker himself.