Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Text/Sonnet 118
118
Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge; 4
Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
To be diseas'd, ere that there was true needing. 8
Thus policy in love, to anticipate
The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd,
And brought to medicine a healthful state,
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd; 12
But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.
1 Like as: just as
2 eager compounds: bitter mixtures
palate urge: stimulate the appetite
7 welfare: good health
12 rank of: cloyed with