Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 is perhaps the most unique of all of Shakespeare’s work. In this sonnet he abandons the use of his usual dreamy ideas of love and beauty and speaks more of the darker side of love; the ugliness and filth of love. From the very beginning of the sonnet, the reader can tell this is not the average Shakespearean play. He uses comparisons that would lead us to believe that the woman he is describing as ugly, the woman, however is a metaphore for love as a general, however. “My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun”; the dark lady mentioned in the first line is ironic because Shakespeare’s ladies in the stories are rarely thought of as anything less than the most beautiful creatures of the time. He continues on in the next few lines also comparing her to other elements of nature, yet in a negative manner. She has no red in her lips, her skin lacks luster, and generally her physical elements are not pretty to behold.
In line four: “I have seen roses damask'd, red and white”, the poem starts to have deeper meaning; though uncertain this line could be an allusion to the rose known as the York and Lancaster variety, which the House of Tudor adopted as its symbol after the War of the Roses. The York and Lancaster rose is red and white streaked, symbolic of the union of the Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York. For example: compare The Taming of the Shrew: "Such war of white and red within her cheeks!" (4.5.32). Shakespeare mentions the damask rose often in his plays. It also appears in Twelfth Night: She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek (2.4.118).
Through the use of rough language in regards to his mistress Shakespeare portrays realistic love, one that is in existence simply because, it makes no sense, it is not pretty, and yet it still is.
This element of the unwavering, nonsensical nature of love continues on as through the rest of sonnet 130 Shakespeare continues to distinguish all the qualities his mistress lacks. The line: ‘I love to hear her speak, yet well I know; that music hath a far more pleasing sound’, shows that love in a sense is an element of our soul that is blind, the reason for its occurrence, unknown even to those that it affects.
The Sonnet 130, is one very unique and does not follow the pattern of Shakespeare’s other work. By using comparisons to point out the flaws of his muse, he solidifies, through metaphor, the idea of the sloppiness and fickle nature of love. Ending with the line: “As any she belied with false compare”. The meaning of this line, is that we cannot compare a woman to nature, or any element, because when dealing with the aspect of love, even the most sensible becomes irrational, the most observant, blind. That to love with a true love, is to see each and every flaw and love still, with unwavering trust in that love, that it will never die.