2.1 Lexical Ambiguity

The use of lexical ambiguity is the main way of obscuring the truth in this poem. To exemplify this, we will look at some of these lexical ambiguities in more detail. The very first lines contain ambiguous words:

(1) “truth”:

1. faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty, constancy (OED 1.a.)
2. truthfulness, veracity, sincerity, honesty, uprightness (OED 4.)

(2) to “lie”:

1. to tell a lie or lies, to utter falsehood, to speak falsely. (OED v.² 1.)
2. to be in one’s bed for the purpose of sleeping or resting. (OED v.¹ I.1.a.); hence to lie with: to have sexual intercourse with (OED v.¹ I.1.f.)⁴⁷

In the context of a relationship, truth can refer both to faithfulness and to veracity, which implies that it is not entirely clear which of the two meanings S refers to: does he question the general truthfulness of L, or rather her constancy towards him? This sense of ambiguity is later on emphasised through the verb lie: not only can it also refer to both veracity and faithfulness, but it is repeated in the penultimate line of the poem in an ambiguous way. Whereas lie, in line 2, primarily refers to the telling of lies, the sense of unfaithfulness also comes in through the implied sense of her lying with somebody else. The connection between the two meanings is enhanced by an unspoken pun on not being upright; she is “unjust” (l. 9) because she lies.

When “lie” is taken to mean ‘not telling the truth,’ we may still ask what this means and what exactly qualifies a statement to be a typical lie from a linguistic point of view. We can set up a number of characteristic features of a prototypical lie:

(3) a. Firstly, what the speaker says is untrue

(4) a. Secondly, the speaker believes that what he says is false

(5)

1. Thirdly, the speaker intends to deceive the hearer (Coleman & Kay 1981, 28–29)

When these characteristics are applied to sonnet 138 we are confronted with several problems:

(3)

• b. How do we know what is true or false in this poem? As we shall see, the poem makes contradictory assertive statements and is the only source of information we have, so how can we figure out what the facts are? That the reader has to choose what to believe is one source of ambiguity in the poem.

(4)

• b. The speaker contradicts himself, so does he or doesn’t he believe what he says?

(5) b. Who deceives whom in this poem? Is anybody really deceived here?

Thus, even though this is a poem about lying, it is difficult to mark any statement in this sonnet as a lie. This is due to several linguistic mechanisms which make it difficult to decide on this question. They include the embedding of statements under verbs of propositional attitude, some of which introduce presuppositions, as well as withholding important contextual information from the reader that could help him decide how trustworthy the characters in the poem are. Much will also depend on whether we regard the sonnet as a soliloquy (does S lie to himself?) or as addressing someone else, who is to believe what S says.

Linguistic theories of conversation assume that the whole purpose of all discourse is to add meaningful, true statements to the “common ground,” which is the set of propositions people believe to be true (Stalnaker 1978, passim).⁴⁸ The reason why we look for evidence of what can be accepted as a true statement in the poem is the fact that people operate under this assumption.

Some of the lexical ambiguities comprise meanings that are at odds with each other:

(6) “seeming” (1.11):

1. external appearance considered as deceptive, or as distinguished from reality; an illusion, a semblance (OED n. 2.); cf. apparent to the senses or to the mind, as distinct from what is (OED adj. 3.a.)
2. suitable, beseeming, fitting; according (OED adj. 1.)

(7) “flatter” (“flattered” 1.14):

1. to praise or compliment unduly or insincerely (OED 3.) – i.e., to lie
2. to touch or stroke lightly and caressingly (OED 1.b.) – something that pleases both of them

When the speaker says that “love’s best habit is in seeming trust,” he again makes a double statement: the trust between lovers can both be illusionary and suitable. This goes along with the ambiguity of “habit”: A suitable, beseeming trust may be the best dress or outward appearance (OED 1.a./e.) of love, or its best “settled disposition or tendency to act in a certain way” (OED 9.a.). But there is also a cynical reading: the best dress (i.e. disguise) of love consists in appearing (pretending) to be full of trust, or it is the best disposition (i.e. all the other habits of love are worse than seeming to trust). Since both, S and L, are flattered “by lies,” (7a) is the preferred reading of “flatter” in this context, although (7b) is not excluded as a possible second meaning. Flattery as an insincere praise expresses a negative attitude of S towards L, as well as a negative self-perception of the speaker, which is sustained by the overall reading of the poem (see below).⁴⁹

Other lexical ambiguities rather refer to opinions and convictions of the speaker and his lady:

(8) “credit” (1.7):

1. to give credit to, put faith in, believe, trust (a statement, person, or thing) (OED 1.)
2. to trust (a person) with goods or money on the faith of future payment; to supply with goods on credit (OED 3.a.)
3. to bring into credit, repute, or estimation; to reflect credit upon, do credit to (OED 5.) – that is, to give someone a good reputation (which does not necessarily mean he deserves it)

(9) “vainly” (1.5):

1. in vain, uselessly, fruitlessly, ineffectually (OED 1.)
2. with personal vanity, conceitedly (OED 3.)

(10) “simply” (1.7):

1. with simplicity (of mind) or sincerity; in an honest or straightforward manner (OED 1.)
2. in simple language, with simplicity of speech, with no attempt at style (OED 3.a.)
3. in a foolish, silly, or stupid manner; without common sense or sagacity (OED 5.)

When the speaker ‘credits’ his L’s “false-speaking tongue,” he definitely gives it some value: according to the different meanings of the word, he may either believe it (even though it is false), or he may give L a good reputation even though he knows this is unjustified. Still, credit may be used ironically (we may regard this as possible because of its clash with “false-speaking”), in which case another ambiguity arises: does S mean what he says or not? A similar dichotomy can be established for the words vainly and simply, which could both be used by the speaker to reflect either on the action described or on his own character: he may either be so vain as to think that L believes him to be young, or he may erroneously think so; he may be so simple-minded as to credit her tongue, or he may simply do so.

The words listed so far all have two (or more) distinct meanings, both of which are possible denotations within the poem. One reading usually leads to a more negative view S has on himself and his relation to L, while the other reading is more neutral, if not in favour of L. Lexical ambiguity therefore leads to very different attitudes the reader can perceive: accordingly, the tone of the poem can either be distrustful and bitter or accepting and contented.

The use of “unjust,” however, which is also the only use of this word in Shakespeare’s sonnets,⁵⁰ is slightly different:

(11) “unjust”:

1. not acting justly or fairly (OED 1.a.)
2. not upright or free from wrong-doing; faithless, dishonest (OED 2.) –note that the meaning ‘faithless’ goes in the direction of ‘unfaithful,’ but “unjust” does not seem to have been used in this way; the common collocation “just and upright” suggests that being unjust implies lying (down)
3. improper, incorrect (OED 3.)
4. irregular, inexact, inaccurate (OED 4.)

A different adjective could have told us what exactly the lady has done, but this is carefully avoided. The result is that, in contrast to the lexical ambiguities mentioned so far, in this case we are not provided with clearly defined alternative meanings but rather with a scalar denotation of the adjective. The reader can pick a preferred meaning from a range of denotations that do not exclude each other but rather stand for various shades of incorrect behaviour. S is deliberately vague about L’s misdemeanour, which allows him to represent his own attitude ambiguously.

The use of ambiguous terms in this poem leads to several overall alternatives: do S and L deceive each other with their behaviour or do they play a knowing but nevertheless tender game with their statements? Is this a poem about sexual fidelity or about veracity and truthfulness (in a relationship)?

In addition to lexical ambiguity, we find instances of ambiguity on a structural level. The first line starts with the word when, which might be used in two different ways:

(12) “when”

1. episodic (‘in this moment’)
2. habitual (‘whenever’)

Different interpretations of when give us different impressions of the speaker and the situation. If when is episodic, we expect the description of an individual experience; accordingly, “When my love swears” might possibly refer to L’s emotional state at a particular moment in a conversation that has begun earlier; we are in the middle of S reporting that conversation, i.e. meet with a narrow point of view (which seems to exclude much previously arranged deception). If when is habitual, we expect a more general and distant description, possibly evaluative and self-reflexive. But it is impossible to decide in favour of one of these interpretations, and both make perfect sense in this sonnet.

Another case of structural ambiguity results from the use of that in l. 3, which, again, can be read in different ways:

(13)

1. I believe her in order that she might get the impression that I am young
2. I believe her this when she swears the following: she might think me an untutored youth
3. I believe her when she lies in order that she is able to think me an untutored youth⁵¹

The first interpretation seems the most plausible one (because of “might,” which hints at a future action, and because the first line already gives a complement for “believe”), but the other possibilities also linger. One of the reasons for this is that “believe” expresses thought and mental conviction but not necessarily speech. But if the speaker does not utter his belief, L cannot draw any inferences from it. Alternatively, this stresses a relationship between S and L, in which S responds to the utterance by L (who “swears”) not by words but by thoughts, which nevertheless have an (imagined) effect.⁵²

Two more cases of structural ambiguity can be found in line 12 with “loves not” (14) and “to have years told” (15):

(14)

1. does not like it to have its years told
2. likes it when its years are not told

(15)

1. to have its years mentioned or enumerated
2. to possess so many years (which are mentioned)

In these two cases the variants have very similar meanings, but they contribute to presenting us with alternative attitudes: S either likes the state of affairs or he does not.

2.2 Presupposition

Another strategy to confuse the readers chosen in the poem is the use of presuppositional items. For example, the use of “swear” in line 1 makes the statement much stronger than if simply “say” had been used. We suggest that this is due to a presuppositional meaning of the word “swear” along the lines of (16):

(16) [[swear]] = λw.λp.λx: the truth of p in w is under debate. x says in w that p

Thus “swear” is a relation between individuals and propositions that is only defined if the content of the proposition is under debate. The presupposition implicitly establishes the very ambiguity and uncertainty that the act of swearing is meant to eliminate. In that case, the relation holds if the individual asserts the proposition – I only swear when the truth of my statements is likely to be challenged. Thus, the credibility of the lady’s statement is undermined, even though it is not explicitly stated that the truth of her statements might be contested. What is more, when the act of swearing occurs in Shakespeare’s sonnets (and often, too, when it occurs in his plays) it is usually linked to deception and means ‘swearing falsely.’⁵³

2.3 Verum focus

The third device used in this poem concerns verum focus (Höhle 1992, passim). In line 2, the speaker states: “I do believe her,” which focuses on the polarity of the sentence: “though I know she lies.” The use of verum focus presupposes that the set of alternatives triggered by the focus is available in the context of the utterance. Hence line 2 presupposes that the context makes available the set of possibilities:

(17) C = {that I believe her, that I do not believe her}

Accordingly, the first two lines of the poem are only appropriate in a context in which it is under debate: firstly, whether the lady is made of truth, and secondly, whether the speaker believes the lady.

2.4 Factive verbs

Another difficulty we find in this sonnet is that of factive verbs, more precisely of the verb “know” in line 2. Factive verbs (e.g. regret, realize, know) trigger the presupposition that their complement is true, whereas non-factive verbs (e.g. imagine, dream, believe) do not.

(18) He knows that he bought the car.

• → presupposition: he bought the car.
• → assertion: he believes that he bought the car

(19) He imagines that he bought the car.

• → no presupposition that “he bought the car”

If know is negated and used with the first person, then the presupposition fails, because the sentence denies the presupposition of the complement (cf. Levinson 2003, 186). Kiparsky & Kiparsky (1970, 148) describe this situation as a “semantic anomaly.”

(20) Sally doesn’t know that Peter bought the car.

• → presupposition: Peter bought the car

(21) I don’t know that Peter bought the car.

• → presupposition: Peter bought the car
• → assertion: I don’t believe that Peter bought the car
• ⇒ contradiction

Know does not only have a factive implication but also a belief implication (see Abusch 2002, 1):

(22)

Taken literally, this leads to a contradiction in line 2 (‘I believe her’ vs. ‘I believe she lies,’ ‘I don’t believe her’). The speaker is aware of the contradiction between the two statements, as he turns it into a paradox when linking them by “though” (“I do believe […] though I know”). Even though the logical contradiction will never quite disappear, it is possible to make sense of this statement, by reinterpreting “believe” to mean either (23) or (24).

(23) ‘I trust her (something like ‘I believe in her’), I have not lost confidence in her,’ or

(24) ‘I pretend to believe her’

This, however, results in an underdeterminacy as to what exactly the speaker means by “I believe her.” The reading in (23) fits a positive view on the relationship described, whereas the reading in (24) has the opposite effect: the relationship is not viewed as being based on trust but on pretence and lies.

2.5 Redundancy

The symmetric relation in line 13 – “Therefore I lie with her, and she with me” –creates the redundancy of the statement. The relation R “x lies with y” is symmetric, that is, y lies with x, if and only if x lies with y:

(25)

The first conjunct asserts that the speaker lies with the lady, which implies that she lies with him. The second conjunct, that the lady lies with the speaker, is therefore redundant. This redundancy not only has a stylistic effect but also implies to two possible interpretations, i.e., it leads to yet another ambiguity: either the relation is not really symmetric (despite appearances, S and L do not do exactly the same thing), or there is a focus on mutuality and equality, and it is therefore important that they both behave in the same way towards each other. Furthermore, whereas the second conjunct is superfluous in the sexual sense of “lie with,” it is by no means redundant when “lie with” means telling lies; this possible meaning is thus brought up in the very act of stressing the mutuality of S and L.⁵⁴

Redundant, symmetric expressions similar to this example abound in love poetry. One of the earliest examples is the Middle High German love poem „Du bist min, ich bin din“: Friedrich Ohly (1995) lists an abundance of love poems –both secular and religious – that make use of this phrase. While not symmetric as “I lie with her and she with me,” it expresses a similar idea: that of a reciprocal, equal relationship, where each partner is loved and valued to exactly a similar extent. Interestingly, Ohly’s list already includes poems involving deception, infidelity and other problematic relationships, such as a married woman’s declaration of love towards her lover, not her husband (thus making her unfaithful character explicit; see Ohly 1995, 158); and also that of a lover openly acknowledging to his beloved that he loves her not for her fidelity but for the pleasure she gives him (see Ohly 1995, 150–151).

In the Renaissance, we can find this expression, for example, in the poetry of Sir Philip Sidney and George Herbert. Sidney, in “My true love hath my heart and I have his,” begins with:

He emphasises the equality of this exchange or “bargaine” throughout the poem. George Herbert in “Clasping of Hands” (Herbert 2011, 540), assumes a similarly possessive, mutual relationship between speaker and God (“Lord, thou art mine, and I am thine,” l. 1); however, he ends his poem with “O be mine still! still make me thine! / or rather make no Thine and Mine!” (ll. 19–20), already hinting at the problems such a relationship might cause. Significantly, Shakespeare’s use of an expression of mutuality is not related to possession – speaker and beloved do not belong to each other; they simply enjoy each other.⁵⁵ Thus Shakespeare, by evoking the symmetrical, redundant pattern familiar from love poetry, has his speaker both share and cynically parody the happy mutuality it implies. Since the lovers’ deceptions and pretences are mutual, their game is not necessarily to the disadvantage of either of them. In addition, their pretences, since they are transparent, do not really serve to deceive or hurt the other but to sustain and keep alive their relationship.⁵⁶

2.6 Interim Summary

The connections between content and language established so far have also in parts been pointed out by other critics, albeit often in a less systematic way.⁵⁷ For the interpretation of this sonnet, it is essential to note that the use of lexical and structural ambiguity adds another layer of difficulty to interpreting what is said. Not only can the reader not tell what is the truth and what is a lie, but once we accept a statement, we can also not be sure what exactly is meant by it. This is not what would be expected of a cooperative speaker in ordinary conversation. But the question is: who is the addressee, anyway? If the speaker talks to himself, the transmission of information is probably not the primary objective; rather, the speaker wishes to become certain of his own attitude.⁵⁸ One way to explain this is to assume that nothing is meant to be added to our common ground, since we are not dealing with ordinary assertion (cf. Bauer & Beck 2014). This is possible if the poem is to be understood as a “game” in which the speaker’s and his beloved’s relationship is explored, and not as a text where the transmission of information is the primary objective. This agrees with the fact that it is possible to read the poem in such a way that after S’s opening statement about L’s oath there is no further reference to an actual utterance. S speaks about thinking and believing, and about not saying something. This silence leads to the action of lying with each other in l.13.

3.1 The Speaker’s Assertions and Lies

We should note that, although the poem is presented from the perspective of a first-person (and therefore potentially unreliable) speaker, we have to take his statements for granted, because the only (immediate) context we can refer to is the poem. Therefore, what the speaker says constitutes, so to speak, the ‘truth’ of this sonnet. On the other hand, Sonnet 138 is not only read and interpreted as an isolated text but also embedded in the larger context of Shakespeare’s other sonnets. The complete sonnet sequence gives us the impression that the lady is indeed a deceptive person, but also that the speaker knows of and sometimes maybe even accepts her deceptiveness. Possible assertions by the speaker (in this particular sonnet) are:

(26) a. ‘I believe her (that she is made of truth)’

This is supported by line 2 (“I do believe her though I know she lies”), sense c of “credit” (to improve someone’s reputation), sense b of “lie” (‘to lie with’ in a sexual sense), sense a of “unjust” (simply not acting justly), and sense a of “truth” (‘fidelity’). Or,

(26) b. ‘I believe her so that she will think I am young’

This is supported by line 3 (“That she might think me some untutored youth,”), lines 5–6 (“vainly thinking that she thinks me young, / Although she knows my days are past the best”), sense b of “vainly” (conceitedly) and l. 10 (“wherefore say not I that I am old?”).

Throughout the sonnet, the speaker seems to be very much concerned with his age and with appearing young. He assumes the role of a naïve young man: his ‘simple’ thoughts and his trust in the lady’s character are meant to make him seem naïve, and appearing naïve (that is, mentally young) is supposed to make the speaker seem physically young (and attractive). One question therefore is: what is the speaker’s main concern? Is it really his trust or distrust in the lady, or is he more worried about concealing his age?

3.2 The Lady’s Assertions and Lies

Even though this is a soliloquy and the speaker is the only person we hear, he tells us what the lady has said, from which we get the impression that she is just as ambiguous as he is. We cannot be sure what she means when she “swears” that she is “made of truth.” Possible meanings of L’s assertion are:

(27) a. ‘I am made of truth, because I don’t tell lies’

This is supported by line 1 (“I swear”), sense b of “truth” (just truthfulness) and senses a, c and d of “unjust” (unfair, incorrect or inaccurate). Or:

(27) b. ‘I am made of truth, because I am sexually faithful’

This is supported by sense a of “truth” (‘fidelity’), sense b of “lie” (‘lie with someone’) and sense b of “unjust” (‘dishonest’).

The second possibility seems more plausible, partly because we know from other sonnets, if we assume the sequence to form a coherent context, that L cheats on S. But since this possibility is not made explicit, it cannot be exposed as a lie, and this allows the speaker to continue to deceive himself, if he wants to. Another reason why the second option is more plausible is a negative one: if line 1 is not a statement about the lady’s constancy, then we do not really know what she could be lying about. If she lies about her view on the speaker’s age, then this is not stated in the poem.

3.3 The ‘Narrator’

In addition to the speaker and the lady, we at times seem to notice a third instance, a kind of narrator evaluating the scene with a bird’s-eye view. The following instances hint at such an observer:

(28)

1. l.5: “vainly” evaluates the speaker’s actions; he reaches a level of selfawareness that is not quite compatible with his alleged simplicity
2. l.6: “she knows” shows an insight the speaker cannot have (he cannot really know what the lady knows)
3. l.8: this is a statement about their relationship, providing the insight typical of an ‘omniscient narrator’
4. ll.11–12: these lines look like a proverb, presenting their content as a general truth applicable to all men
5. l.14: “we,” too, could be generic and the statement thus general and proverbial
6. ll.5 and 13: “thus” and “therefore” imply logical conclusions – the speaker, being caught in this web of lies and deception, seems hardly capable of this

One should note that some statements, by their proverbial nature, serve as a justification of S and L’s behaviour: they seem to reflect not only the speaker’s opinion but a less contestable objective truth.⁵⁹ Thus, the speaker seems to play several roles: that of a participant in the relationship and of a reflexive ‘narrator,’ as well as that of a naïve ‘youth’ who is easily tricked and of a sly old man who tricks others but is not easily deceived.⁶⁰

3.4 Possible Paraphrases

We have tried to construe two paraphrases, showing the two general directions in which interpretations could go. The first presents the relationship between speaker and lady rather in terms of a mutual agreement giving mutual comfort. The second shows their relationship in a much more negative light.