Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare: poem analysis & meaning

Sonnet 130 the full poem, lines numbered

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red, than her lips red:

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

5I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

10That music hath a far more pleasing sound:

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,

As any she belied with false compare.

The poem in 60 seconds

Love poems of Shakespeare’s day told a woman that her eyes were suns and her lips were coral. This sonnet’s speaker says plainly that his mistress’s are not. For twelve lines the speaker seems to be listing her faults, and then two lines turn the whole joke around.

The speaker describes the woman he loves by listing the flattering comparisons she does not match. Her eyes are nothing like the sun, and coral is much redder than her lips. If snow is white, her breasts are dun, a dull grayish brown, and if hairs are wires, black wires grow on her head. He has seen roses mingled red and white, but he sees no such roses in her cheeks. Some perfumes give more delight than her breath. He loves to hear her speak, yet he knows that music sounds far better. He admits he has never seen a goddess walk, and says that his mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. Then the poem turns. By heaven, he says, he thinks his love, the woman he loves, is as rare as any woman who has been misrepresented by false comparisons. She needs no inflated praise, and she is as precious as any woman celebrated in more flattering poems.

Speaker & situation

SpeakerA lover speaking in the first person. He calls the woman “my mistress” in lines 1, 8 and 12, a word that in Shakespeare’s English could simply mean the woman a man loved or courted. The poem gives neither of them a name.

Addressed toNo listener is named. The speaker talks about his mistress, never to her, as if explaining himself to readers who know the usual love poems. Readers often group this sonnet with Sonnets 127 to 152, which many take to concern a woman critics call the “dark lady.” That label comes from later readers, not from the poems, so it is a reading rather than a fact.

OccasionNo single event. The sonnet answers a fashion: English poets of the 1590s wrote sonnet sequences full of extravagant praise in the manner of the Italian poet Petrarch. The poem was first printed in 1609 in Shake-speares Sonnets, and the date it was written is not known.

ToneTeasing and blunt for twelve lines, delivered with a straight face that makes the jokes land. In the couplet the tone turns warm and serious, sworn “by heaven.”

Form & sound

FormShakespearean sonnet; fourteen lines made of three quatrains and a closing couplet, printed here as a single block.

MeterIambic pentameter, five beats to a line. Line 2 opens on a stressed syllable, “Coral,” and line 4 sets two heavy stresses side by side in “black wires,” so the least flattering details get extra weight.

Rhyme schemeABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The pairs are sun / dun, red / head, white / delight, cheeks / reeks, know / go, sound / ground, and the couplet rare / compare.

StructureThe first quatrain packs one failed comparison into each line: eyes, lips, breasts and hair. The second and third quatrains slow down and give each comparison two lines (cheeks, breath, voice, walk). The couplet, opening with “And yet,” turns from what she is not to what the speaker thinks of her.

SoundRepetition sharpens the joke. Line 2 says “red” twice, line 4 says “wires” twice, and the word “mistress” returns in lines 1, 8 and 12, each time in a line about a comparison she does not match.

Line by line what each part says and does

1

Lines 1–4

Eyes, lips, breasts and hair

The speaker says his mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun and that coral is far redder than her lips. If snow is white, her breasts are dun, a dull grayish brown. If hairs are wires, black wires grow on her head.

How it worksEach line takes a stock comparison from love poetry and refuses it. Poets of the time often likened a fair woman’s hair to golden wire, so “black wires” turns the compliment into a plain, almost clumsy picture.
2

Lines 5–8

Roses and perfume

He has seen roses “damask’d, red and white,” which most editors take to mean streaked or mingled with both colors, but he sees no such roses in her cheeks. Some perfumes give more delight than the breath that comes from his mistress.

How it worksThe comparisons now take two lines each, which slows the list down. The verb “reeks” sounds harsh today, but in Shakespeare’s English it could simply mean to give off vapor, so line 8 may be less of an insult than it seems.
3

Lines 9–12

Voice and walk

The speaker loves to hear her speak, yet he knows that music has a far more pleasing sound. He grants that he has never seen a goddess walk, and says that his mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

How it worksLine 9 is the first plain statement of affection, slipped in before another concession. Lines 11 and 12 bring the goddess of love poetry down to earth: this woman is human, and her feet touch the ground.
4

Lines 13–14

And yet

The speaker swears by heaven that he thinks his love as rare as any woman misrepresented by false comparisons.

How it worksThe couplet reveals the real target of the joke. The flattering poems, not the mistress, are what the sonnet has been mocking, because their comparisons “belied,” or lied about, the women they praised.

The turn

Lines 13

For twelve lines the speaker lists comparisons his mistress fails to match, and a reader may think he is mocking her. Line 13 turns with “And yet by heaven.” He declares his love as rare as any, and the list becomes an attack on false praise rather than on the woman.

Literary devices with line numbers

Parody of the blazon

A blazon is a catalogue of a beloved’s features, each compared to something precious, a habit English poets took from Petrarch. Lines 1 to 12 run through the same catalogue (eyes, lips, breasts, hair, cheeks, breath, voice, walk) but refuse every comparison, so the sonnet copies the convention in order to mock it.

Negated simile

In line 1, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” sets up a simile and cancels it in the same breath. Line 2 does the same with coral, which is “far more red” than her lips. From the first line, the reader knows this love poem will not flatter.

Conditional statements

Lines 3 and 4 both open with “If,” and line 3 answers with “why then.” The mock-logical form makes the speaker sound like someone testing the old comparisons one by one and finding them false.

Anticlimax

In line 11 the speaker raises the loftiest comparison of all, a goddess, and in line 12 he drops to the plainest fact: “My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.” The fall from heaven to earth is deliberate and comic, and it makes her human.

Plain word choice

“Dun” in line 3 names a dull grayish brown, a flat and unpoetic color. “Reeks” in line 8 could simply mean to give off vapor in Shakespeare’s day, and “belied” in line 14 means misrepresented. The plain words suit a speaker who refuses decoration.

Volta in the couplet

Lines 13 and 14 turn the poem with “And yet.” The oath “by heaven” gives the ending the weight of a vow, and the phrase “false compare” in line 14 names what the first twelve lines have been exposing.

Themes in Sonnet 130

Honest love over flattering praiseThe falseness of poetic conventionReal beauty and ideal beautyPoetry about poetry

Honest love over flattering praise

The speaker loves a real woman, not a list of treasures. The couplet claims she is as rare as any woman praised in verse, which suggests that love does not depend on pretending the beloved is perfect.

The falseness of poetic convention

The sonnet argues that the fashionable comparisons of love poetry lie. Line 14 calls them “false compare,” and the women they praised were “belied” by them, misrepresented rather than honored.

Real beauty and ideal beauty

Love poetry of the time pictured an ideal of beauty: golden hair, snowy skin, red lips, the walk of a goddess. The mistress has black hair, her breasts are dun rather than white, and she walks on the ground. The poem sets the living woman against the ideal and sides with the woman.

Poetry about poetry

Much of the sonnet is aimed at other poems. By mocking their comparisons, Shakespeare asks readers to notice how love poems are built and whether their praise means anything.

Images and symbols

The sun, coral, snow and roses

These stock images stand for the ideal beauty of love poetry: brightness, redness, whiteness and bloom. By measuring the mistress against them and finding them wrong, the poem shows how little they have to do with a real person.

The ground

In line 12 the mistress “treads on the ground.” The ground stands for the ordinary human world, set against the goddess of line 11, and the speaker’s love belongs to that world.

Tensions

Convention vs. honesty. The speaker writes inside a sonnet tradition built on flattering comparisons, yet he refuses to use them. That tension drives the poem until the couplet settles it in favor of honest praise.

Insult or compliment. Readers disagree about how kind the poem is. Some hear warm, teasing affection throughout. Others hear real mockery of the woman that the couplet only partly repairs.

The ending

How Sonnet 130 ends, explained

The couplet changes how the first twelve lines read. After listing every way his mistress fails the usual comparisons, the speaker swears “by heaven” that he thinks his love as rare as “any she belied with false compare.” Here “she” is a noun meaning a woman, and “belied” means lied about. The women praised in other poems, he suggests, were misrepresented by comparisons no real person could match. His mistress needs no such lies, and she is just as precious. The most common reading takes the couplet as sincere. On this view the whole sonnet is a love poem in disguise: it clears away the stock praise so that the final claim can be believed. A second reading stresses satire. Its main target is the sonnet fashion itself, and the mistress serves mostly as the occasion for a joke at other poets’ expense. A third reading hears more edge. Words like “dun” and “reeks” still sting, and some readers feel the couplet rescues the woman only partly, or that the poem praises the speaker’s honesty more than it praises her. The last word, “compare,” names the poem’s real subject, comparison itself.

“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;”

Line 1. The opening denies the most familiar compliment in love poetry and sets the pattern for the next eleven lines.

“If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.”

Line 4. Poets often compared a fair beloved’s hair to golden wire. Keeping the metaphor but making the wires black turns the compliment into an awkward literal picture.

“I grant I never saw a goddess go; / My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:”

Lines 11–12. “Go” means walk. The speaker brings the goddess of love poetry down to earth, and the plain second line insists that his mistress is human.

“And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, / As any she belied with false compare.”

Lines 13–14. The turn. “She” works as a noun meaning woman, and “belied with false compare” means misrepresented by false comparisons. The couplet declares his beloved as rare as any woman praised in flattering verse.

Common misreadings

MythThe speaker is saying his mistress is ugly.

ActuallyHe says she does not match exaggerated comparisons, which no real woman could. The couplet (lines 13–14) declares her as rare as any woman praised in flattering poems, so the poem attacks false praise rather than her looks.

MythLine 8 means her breath stinks.

ActuallyIn Shakespeare’s English, “reek” could simply mean to give off vapor, so many editors read “reeks” as “is breathed out.” The modern sense of a bad smell makes the line harsher than it probably sounded, though perfume is still ranked above her breath.

MythBecause it mocks Petrarchan comparisons, the poem is a Petrarchan sonnet.

ActuallyIt is a Shakespearean sonnet: three quatrains and a couplet rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, with the turn in line 13. It borrows Petrarchan images only to reject them.

AP practice a poetry prompt in the exam's style

In Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130,” a speaker describes the woman he loves by listing the flattering comparisons she fails to match. Read the poem carefully, then write an essay that analyzes how Shakespeare uses literary elements and techniques to convey a complex perspective on love and the language used to praise it.

What a strong response notices

The negated comparisons in lines 1–4 (“nothing like the sun,” “black wires”) and how they overturn a reader’s expectations of a love poem.
The slower pace of lines 5–12, where each comparison takes two lines, and the plain word choices “dun” (line 3) and “reeks” (line 8).
The first direct statement of affection, “I love to hear her speak,” in line 9, placed among the concessions.
The anticlimax of lines 11–12, where the goddess of love poetry gives way to a woman who “treads on the ground.”
The volta in lines 13–14 and how “false compare” recasts the whole catalogue as a criticism of flattering poetry.

Practice prompt written by StoryBites, not taken from a College Board exam. See the AP Literature free-response guide for how answers are scored.

Test yourself

1. According to line 1, what are the mistress’s eyes “nothing like”?

2. What color is the mistress’s hair, according to line 4?

3. What does “go” mean in line 11?

4. Where does the sonnet turn?

5. What does “belied with false compare” mean in line 14?

Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know

tap to flip

Answer

Explain it like I’m 12

A man writes a poem about the woman he loves. Love poems back then often said a woman’s eyes shone like the sun and her lips were as red as coral. This poet says her eyes are nothing like the sun and her lips are not that red. He admits she is not a goddess and that she walks on the ground like everyone else. At the end he says she is just as special as any woman other poets praised with over-the-top compliments. The joke is on poets who exaggerate, not on her.

Compare & connect

Sonnet 73

William Shakespeare

Another sonnet from the same 1609 collection, in the same form. There the speaker compares his aging self to autumn, twilight and a dying fire, and the couplet again turns toward love.

Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare

In the balcony scene Romeo compares Juliet to the sun, the very comparison this sonnet refuses. The play shows the fashionable language of love from the inside.

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

John Donne

Donne also turns away from the showy “tear-floods” and “sigh-tempests” of conventional lovers, and he replaces them with startling comparisons of his own, such as a drawing compass.

Discussion and essay prompts:

💬 Discussion questions

What is the meaning of Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare
Is Sonnet 130 an insult or a compliment
How does Sonnet 130 parody the Petrarchan blazon
How does Sonnet 130 explore the theme of honest love over flattering praise?
How does Sonnet 130 explore the theme of the falseness of poetic convention?
What is the central conflict in Sonnet 130, and how does it shape the ending?

✎ Essay prompts

Analyze how William Shakespeare develops the theme of honest love over flattering praise in Sonnet 130. Support your argument with specific evidence from the text.
Examine the significance of the sun, coral, snow and roses in Sonnet 130. What does it represent, and how does it deepen the work’s meaning?
How does William Shakespeare use parody of the blazon to shape the reader’s experience of Sonnet 130?
Some readers assume that the speaker is saying his mistress is ugly. Argue for or against this interpretation, using evidence from the text.

Key questions students ask

What is the meaning of Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare
Is Sonnet 130 an insult or a compliment
How does Sonnet 130 parody the Petrarchan blazon
What does My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun mean
Where is the volta in Sonnet 130
Who is the dark lady in Shakespeare’s sonnets

Analysis is original StoryBites commentary. The poem is printed from Project Gutenberg’s modern-spelling text of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (first published in 1609). The poem is in the public domain.