Sonnet 144

Two loves—a fair man and a foul woman—battle for the speaker's soul; the woman may have corrupted the man and doomed them both.

Original

Modern

1 Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,

archetype: the battle between good and evil for the soul

I have two loves, one brings comfort and one brings despair,

2 Which, like two spirits, do suggest me still:

Which, like two spirits, keep suggesting things to me:

3 The better angel is a man right fair,

The better angel is a man of great beauty,

4 The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.

The worse spirit is a dark-skinned woman.

5 To win me soon to hell my female evil

To pull me quickly to hell, my female temptation

6 Tempteth my better angel from my side,

Tempts my better angel away from my side,

7 And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,

And she wants to ruin my virtuous one so he becomes wicked,

8 Wooing his purity with her foul pride.

Seducing his purity with her disgusting pride.

Volta The volta shifts from describing the battle (lines 1–8) to the speaker's admission of doubt and helplessness (lines 9–14). He cannot determine if his good angel has been lost.

9 And whether that my angel be turned fiend

And whether my angel has been turned into a demon

10 Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;

I may suspect, yet cannot say for certain;

11 But being both from me both to each friend,

But since both come from me and are friends to each other,

12 I guess one angel in another’s hell.

I suppose one of my angels has fallen into the other's grasp.

Wordplay: “one angel in another's hell”

Sexual wordplay: 'hell' as female genitalia; the fair man is literally and spiritually trapped in the Dark Lady.

13 Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,

But this I will never know, I will just live in doubt,

14 Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

Until my bad angel burns my good one away.

The Theology of Temptation

The sonnet draws on Christian angelology and demonic temptation. The Dark Lady is explicitly 'evil,' a 'spirit' of despair. The Fair Youth is the 'better angel,' a 'saint.' Yet the boundary between salvation and damnation is permeable—the woman's 'foul pride' can 'corrupt' the man's 'purity.' This theological framework suggests that virtue itself is fragile, easily seduced by corruption.

'One Angel in Another's Hell': Carnal Pun

Line 12 is sexually suggestive. 'Hell' was Elizabethan slang for the female genitalia. The image of one angel trapped in another's 'hell' implies sexual entanglement and suggests the woman has literally ensnared the fair man. The physical bond may have become demonic possession.

If this happened today

Like the anxiety of watching a good friend fall under the spell of a toxic person, fearing that the person you trusted has been corrupted. You cannot prove it, only suspect it; you are left in anguished uncertainty.

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