Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever, longing still by William Shakespeare

Full Text

My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed,
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

Overview

Sonnet 147 is Shakespeare's most brutal self-diagnosis. Love becomes fever, desire becomes death, and reason—the internal physician—has abandoned the patient. This is addiction literature: he knows she destroys him, yet he "approve[s]" (proves through experience) that desire is death. The final couplet delivers the devastating reversal: he swore she was fair and bright, but she's "black as hell, as dark as night." The Dark Lady is named at last—not through description but through moral judgment. The poem is a confession of madness and a curse disguised as self-criticism. It's one of the bleakest things Shakespeare ever wrote.

Line-by-Line Analysis

Lines 1-4

Love as fever—not warmth but sickness. "Longing still" means always craving. The paradox: he feeds on what makes him sicker, pleasing an "uncertain sickly appetite." This is the logic of addiction. The disease and the cure are the same thing, which is no cure at all.

Lines 5-8

Reason appears as a physician who gives up. "Angry that his prescriptions are not kept"—the patient won't follow doctor's orders. So reason "hath left me." Without reason, he proves by experience ("approve") what medical wisdom ("physic") said to avoid: "Desire is death."

Lines 9-12

"Past cure" / "past care"—a pun. Incurable and beyond caring. "Frantic-mad with evermore unrest"—insomnia and obsession. His thoughts are "as madmen's are, / At random from the truth"—disconnected from reality, "vainly expressed." He knows he's raving.

Lines 13-14

The couplet explodes. "I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright"—I said you were beautiful, I believed it. "Who art as black as hell, as dark as night"—but you're actually evil. "Black" and "dark" link to the Dark Lady but also to moral condemnation. Fair/dark, bright/night—the antitheses are absolute.

Themes

• Love as sickness/addiction
• Reason versus desire
• Self-destruction through obsession
• Madness and truth
• The Dark Lady as moral darkness

Literary Devices

Extended Metaphor

Love as fever, reason as physician — The medical conceit runs throughout—love is disease, reason is abandoned doctor, the speaker is incurable patient.

Antithesis

"fair" / "black as hell," "bright" / "dark as night" — The final couplet pairs opposites to show the gap between illusion and reality.

Pun

"Past cure I am, now reason is past care" — Cure/care play on incurable and uncaring—he can't be healed and no longer tries.

Historical Context

This sonnet comes near the end of the Dark Lady sequence, where the relationship has clearly soured. The fever metaphor echoes Elizabethan medical theory (love as humoral imbalance). "Black as hell" recalls the racial and moral coding of the period—darkness as both complexion and character. The poem anticipates later addiction literature in its clear-eyed account of compulsive self-destruction.