Sonnet 125

I reject external ceremonial honor and false devotion; I offer only internal obedience, pure oblation, mutual love unmixed with calculation.

Original

Modern

1 Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,

Would it be anything to me if I carried the canopy

2 With my extern the outward honouring,

With my body showing outward honor

3 Or laid great bases for eternity,

Or laid great foundations for eternity

4 Which proves more short than waste or ruining?

Which crumble faster than waste or ruins?

5 Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour

Haven't I seen people devoted to appearance and favor

6 Lose all, and more by paying too much rent

Lose everything and more by paying too high a price

7 For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,

For luxury; letting go of simple joy,

8 Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?

Pathetic hustlers whose wealth gets spent just watching?

Volta The volta shifts from criticizing external ceremony to offering an alternative: internal obedience and mutual render.

9 No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,

No, let me be devoted in your heart

10 And take thou my oblation, poor but free,

And receive my offering, humble but genuine

11 Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,

Which is pure, contains no deception

12 But mutual render, only me for thee.

But only equal exchange, only me for you

Wordplay: “mutual render”

Render means both 'give' and 'account'; mutual suggests perfect reciprocity.

13 Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul

Go away, you corrupted informer; a true soul

14 When most impeached, stands least in thy control.

When most attacked, stands least under your command

The Canopy and Eternity's Bases

The speaker rejects the performance of honor: bearing 'the canopy' (the ceremonial tent of state), 'extern the outward honouring.' He dismisses those who lay 'great bases for eternity'—monumental investments meant to confer permanence—as building structures that prove 'more short than waste or ruining.' The speaker has seen 'dwellers on form and favour' lose everything by 'paying too much rent / For compound sweet.' Outward ceremony and monumentality are revealed as temporary and expensive performances.

Obsequious Heart and Mutual Render

Instead, the speaker offers to 'be obsequious in thy heart'—a radical privacy of devotion. The oblation is 'poor but free,' 'not mixed with seconds' (not adulterated), 'knows no art' (calculation). It is pure 'mutual render, only me for thee.' This is love stripped of ceremony, politics, monumentality. The couplet then addresses a 'suborned informer'—presumably time, fortune, or slander—claiming that a 'true soul / When most impeached, stands least in thy control.' Pure devotion becomes invulnerable to external accusation.

If this happened today

You could hold a grand public gesture—post about them, announce your love, make it official. But instead you choose quiet, persistent internal commitment that no one witnesses. It's the opposite of performing love; it's living it.

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