William Shakespeare‘s Sonnet 113 is a beautiful and intricate piece that reflects the complex interplay between vision, perception, and the mind. Like many of Shakespeare’s sonnets, it explores themes of love, the power of the beloved, and the subjective nature of reality. In this sonnet, Shakespeare presents a vision of an eye and mind so closely entwined with the memory of a loved one that the physical world no longer appears as it once did. The poet grapples with how absence affects perception and how love can distort the clarity of the world.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 113
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch;
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch.
For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favor or deformèd’st creature,
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus maketh mine eye untrue.
The Structure and Tone of Sonnet 113
Sonnet 113 follows the traditional Shakespearean sonnet form. This consists of 14 lines, written in iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG. The poem’s structure is divided into three quatrains and a concluding couplet, a common feature of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Each quatrain explores a different facet of the poet’s experience of his “untrue” eye, while the final couplet delivers a conclusion that both resolves and amplifies the themes introduced earlier in the poem.
The tone of Sonnet 113 is deeply introspective and melancholy. Shakespeare’s speaker seems to be grappling with the consequences of love and absence on his perception of reality. The mood is one of confusion and longing, and the speaker is caught between an internal world dominated by the memory of his lover and the external world, which now seems distorted or “untrue.” The tone is further complicated by a subtle sense of self-awareness, as the speaker understands that his altered perception is a direct result of his emotional state, yet he is powerless to change it.
Analysis of Sonnet 113
Lines 1–4
“Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;”
In the opening lines, Shakespeare introduces the central metaphor of the poem: the eye. The speaker explains that since parting from his lover, his eye no longer functions as it should. He states that “mine eye is in my mind,” suggesting that his vision has become subordinated to his mental state. The eye is no longer purely a physical instrument for seeing the world; it has become an extension of the mind. It is “partly blind,” because it cannot fully perceive the world in a true and objective way. The eye “seems seeing” but is “effectually out,” implying that while the eye appears functional, it is actually blind to the real world due to the emotional distortion caused by the separation from the lover.
Lines 5–8
“For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch;
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch.”
The second quatrain builds on the idea that the eye is no longer able to perceive objects in their true form. The speaker reflects that his eye fails to “deliver to the heart” any real understanding of the objects it observes. Whether it’s a bird, a flower, or any other shape, the objects are seen but not fully grasped or appreciated by the mind. The eye is no longer in sync with the heart, which would normally be the center of emotional and intellectual understanding. The speaker emphasizes that the “mind” has no part in the perception of these objects, meaning the mind cannot attach meaning or significance to what the eye sees. As a result, the vision appears to be passive, capturing images without any true comprehension.
Lines 9–12
“For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favor or deformèd’st creature,
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature.”
In these lines, Shakespeare further explores how the speaker’s perception of the world is distorted by love. He notes that whether the eye sees something beautiful or ugly, gentle or harsh, the vision is always shaped by the memory and image of his lover. The “rud’st or gentlest sight” and “the most sweet favor or deformèd’st creature” suggest that no matter what is seen—whether it be something pleasant or unpleasant—it is all reshaped by the mind to reflect the lover’s features. The eye can no longer perceive objects in their natural state but instead projects the image of the beloved onto everything. The crow and the dove, two birds with starkly different connotations, are also “shaped” into the lover’s image, reinforcing the idea that love has transformed the way the speaker sees the world.
Lines 13–14
“Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus maketh mine eye untrue.”
The final couplet delivers the conclusion to the sonnet’s meditation. The speaker admits that his mind, “replete with you,” is so full of the memory and presence of the beloved that it is “incapable of more.” The mind is consumed by the lover, leaving no room for anything else. This overwhelming love causes the eye to be “untrue”—its perception is no longer accurate or reliable. The mind’s fixation on the lover distorts the vision of the world, making the eye untrustworthy. Thus, the lover’s absence has resulted in a kind of emotional blindness, where love renders the speaker’s perception of reality skewed and subjective.
Conclusion
In Sonnet 113, Shakespeare explores the powerful influence of love on perception. The poem illustrates how love can distort not just emotions, but also the physical act of seeing. The speaker’s eye, once a simple tool for observing the world, has become a mirror of the mind, incapable of seeing clearly or objectively. Love has so consumed him that it shapes every image he encounters, rendering his vision unreliable and subjective. Through this exploration of perception, Shakespeare emphasizes the profound and sometimes disorienting effect that love can have on the mind and the senses. The sonnet not only reveals the speaker’s emotional turmoil but also highlights the ways in which love alters the way we experience the world around us.
