THE MIND OF SHAKESPERE
doubt whether the poet knew anything of love at all. Did the imagination that fashioned the Dark Lady, or uttered the terrible curse of lust, or the superb praise of friendship and of the "marriage of true minds," equally indulge in chop-logic? The examples are familiar. To choose one—
"If I love thee, my loss is my love's gain,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross.
But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;
Sweet flattery! Then she loves but me alone."
Or the whole of the following sonnet, with its amazing artifice—
"When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
[103]
