Sonnet 154 - Context

Context

Sonnet 153 and 154 are used as a statement to address the conflict within the love triangle. The Dark Lady is the object of desire from sonnet 127 to 152. The sonnets revolve around the love triangle between the poet and the Dark Lady who is in love with the young man. The young man maybe pursued by the poet also. According to Levin, there is a connection between these Dark Lady sonnets to sonnets 153 and 154 by “slight but telling verbal echoes” that are present within both sonnets in addition to sonnet 152 having the “same two rhyme words in the couplet as are found in the couplet 153”. These sonnets are confirmed as being part of the Quatro volume which re-enforces Levin’s claim.

Sonnets 153 and 154 use Greek mythology to portray the roles that the individuals have within the love triangle. Both sonnets involve Cupid, the god of love, and Diana, the virgin goddess of hunt. In sonnet 153, Cupid falls asleep, a virgin nymph takes the torch from cupid and tries to extinguish the fire but "she only succeeds in turning the water into a boiling fountain". In Sonnet 154, Cupid falls asleep and the torch is taken by the most beautiful nymph who tries to put it out in a nearby well but does not succeed. Drawing from both effects of these actions performed by both nymphs, both sonnets arrive at same conclusion: “Water cannot quench love". In connecting the sonnets to the love triangle, there is a sense of determination in satisfying ones urges for love for the torch is the phallic symbol according to Levin. No matter how hard these three troubled lovers try to satisfy their urges,their need for love grows stronger. Cupid is the god of love and is in the midst of love just as the young man is in the midst of the love triangle between the poet and the Dark Lady. In sonnet 153, a virgin nymph takes the torch which corresponds to the young man getting engaged to the virgin which "briefly interrupts the cycle of passion and betrayals in the love triangle that the sonnet cycle has traced”. The torch still turns the fountain into a boiling fountain and for Levin this portrays the young man’s drive to "heat the desire of others". The love triangle will be severed for a certain time and will form again due to the young man’s sexual tendencies. In sonnet 154, the most beautiful nymph takes the torch and tries to extinguish the torch in the well and also fails. In sonnet 154,The beautiful nymph is the virgin that will now marry the young man for now "seeing that she can have for herself "that fire" (154.5) that previously she had to share with "many Legions of true hearts" (154.6), seizes "advantage" (153.2) by picking up the young man's brand and quenching it in "the could vallie-fountain of that ground"—that is, in her virgin vagina”. There is still a small possibility that the young man will commit adultery but Levin states that this is also related to Hymen, the God of love. The act of setting the torch in the well indicates that the young man will settle with virgins propositions that is "suggested by her vow, which was to "keep" not maidenhood but "chast life" (154.3)”.

Levin describes the stages of the young man and his dissociation from the love triangle. As the young man departs,the poet will have a chance to rekindle his love with the Dark Lady:"the fair young man is fulfilled in his marriage, creating the possibility, however remote, that the speaker, in the absence of his young rival, will be granted restorative sexual relations with the mistress". The question of who is being loved by whom within the love triangle is quite controversial. Levin states that the young man and the poet are competing for the Dark Lady's affection. Sauer, on the other hand, claims that there is a connection between the love of the Dark lady for the young man and the love of the poet for the Dark Lady and the young man. Sonnet 154 addresses the love that the poet has for this young man in which the young man becomes the Dark Lady's fixture of desire. Sauer states that the Dark Lady may have stolen this young man away from the poet as the " Young Man or Lovely boy becomes the subject of desire for the Dark Lady, too, and the poet feels increasingly alienated as the Dark Lady 'steals' the Fair Young Man from him”. Levin on the other hands states that the poet feels that the Dark lady may have ran off with the young man and left him with his desire for her that is unfulfilled "for the poet, the Dark Lady becomes the occasion for fiction making: she becomes the emblem of unchecked desire, passion, and frustration, but also a symbol of mystery”.