Sonnet notes 26

Sonnet 132, line 14: “And all they foul who thy complexion lack.”

Martin Seymour-Smith notes that the poet does in this sonnet what he said he wouldn’t do in the previous one (line 7)—to call the Dark Lady “the prototype of beauty” (Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 1961, p. 180). Katherine Duncan-Jones compares this “swaggering assertion” with Berowne’s response in Love’s Labours Lost to the King saying his “love is black as ebony” (Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 1997, p. 378). Berowne defends his love’s black brows, as this poet does in Sonnet 127. Fritz Kraus also notes the resemblance to Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella ,Sonnet 7 (H. E. Rollins, New Variorum, The Sonnets, 1944, I. 338). But with the focus here on complexion, Ovid’s poem about his affair with his mistress’s slave, the “dark-skinned Cypassis” sounds closer (Horace Gregory, Love Poems of Ovid, “Amores,” Book II, Elegy 8, p. 70-71). Complexion may mean “appearance” or “demeanor” in Shakespeare, but “skin color” seems more relevant in this context. Yet given the poet’s tendency to hyperbole, it’s hard to know for sure whether to take black literally or whether it might mean “swarthy,” or even “not fair.” What strikes me most, though, is how little emphasis it receives. The poet is much more interested in the Dark Lady’s eyes and deeds than the color of her skin. In the previous sonnet, he even states explicitly, In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds. We can’t take this literally since we have been told she has black eyes and hair, but the emphasis on her deeds is made explicit. Sonnet 132 is just a complaint that the poet wants something from the Dark Lady. Sonnet tradition tells us he wants sex (the usual meaning of pity). His “swaggering assertion” will be made only if she grants his request. But we won’t hear about complexion again and the word “black” occurs only once more, in Sonnet 147. Foulness and sin predominate. Beauty, from this poet’s point of view, apparently, is only skin deep.