The sonnet begins with the speaker comparing parts of his mistress’ body to beautiful objects. He finds that her body is less attractive than the thing to which it’s being compared. For example, he writes that her eyes aren’t as bright as the sun, and her breath isn’t like perfume—in fact, it “reeks.” These comparisons at first seem to paint a portrait of a woman who is not very appealing. She is lacklustre in comparison to the beauty of roses, snow, or music, which implies that the speaker might be able to find more beauty and pleasure in the everyday things that surround him than in the woman he loves. The comparisons, in other words, seem to degrade her value.
The poem’s final two lines cement the interpretation that the comparisons are not meant to be degrading to the speaker’s mistress or to the love that they share. When the speaker claims that he finds “his love” as beautiful as any other woman “belied with false compare,” he’s making the point that no one’s eyes are as beautiful as the sun and everyone’s breath smells kind of bad, and that, therefore, such comparisons are not actually a useful way to think about beauty or love. The speaker concludes that, even if his mistress cannot be credibly compared to the typical imagery of love poems, his love is still real and valuable, and his mistress is still beautiful. In this way, Shakespeare suggests that love and beauty should not be understood through abstract comparisons, but rather should be valued for being real and flawed.
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