Sonnet 20: “The Master Mistress of my passion”

20

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,

Hast thou the Master Mistress of my passion,

A woman’s gentle heart but not acquainted

With shifting change as is false women’s fashion,

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling;

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,

A man in hue all Hues in his controlling,

Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created,

Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated,

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

     But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,

     Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.

“This sonnet always makes me laugh…But for the story, what is most important is the dramatic pause inserted by Sonnet 19, separating these very different parts of the story. The change in style in Sonnet 19 now seems stark, with the reversion to a more natural style in Sonnet 20. There is a clean break. No more talk of immortality, just praise and love. The theme is completely different…This sonnet is a statement of the asexual love between W. and Y.M.—a love that is superior to sensual love. This sonnet introduces a new theme into our series.

“There are four lines that deserve mention. (I should also give credit to Martin Friedman [‘Shakespeare’s ‘Master Mistris’” {Shakespeare Quarterly 22:189-91, 1971}] for the gloss for Master Mistress in line 2. He explains that both ‘Master’ and ‘Mistress’ were used interchangeably as the name for the ball thrown out at the beginning of the game of bowls for the players to aim at. Here, they are used as a metaphor as an object that is the center of attention or of ‘passionate interest.’…) Line 7 is admittedly difficult, but it looks like an example of a compressed thought explained more fully in the next line. Hues always means ‘color,’ but color is often used metaphorically to mean ‘appearance’ or ‘type,’ as in ‘what color of thing is that?’ And we can’t pass by line 4 without discussing the reference to false women. Do we excuse this simply on the grounds that we should not expect an enlightened attitude about women from an Elizabethan male? There are too many strong female characters in Shakespeare’s plays for this to sit well with me. And too many false men. It sounds flip. The other explanations that come to my mind are: (1) exaggerated praise, and (2) foreshadowing. This second possibility is strengthened by two other lines, 8 and 13, which note that Y.M. steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth and was pricked out for women’s pleasure. In all those sonnets begging Y.M. to get married and have a child, did he even seem to be interested in women at all? Wasn’t there less a sense of, ‘Please pick one of your lovely lady friends and marry her,’ than ‘Go find a wife and have a child’? In Sonnet 20, Y.M., is expected to be interested in women—or at least they are expected to be interested in him. Perhaps too interested? Will those eyes of his prove false in rolling?”

—Shakespeare’s Sonnets Among His Private Friends, p. 54-55 (publication date 10/1/21)