i 7 2 Shakspeare 



as physicians speak of recovery to sick men near 

 death, lest otherwise his patience give way and he 

 speak ill of her. So overpowering is his passion, 

 so abject his thrall, that he protests he is desperate 

 and, being past cure, is past care. To his mind, 

 what is worst in her exceeds the best in others, 

 and he loves her the more the more he hears and 

 sees just cause why he should hate her — 



O, though I love what others do abhor, 

 With others thou should'st not abhor my state ! 

 If thy unworthiness raised love in me, 

 More worthy I to be beloved of thee. 



The very extravagance of enthralling passion 

 this, were his wail to be interpreted literally, 

 albeit the exhibition of a truth exemplified every 

 day by the spectacle of two mutually enchanted 

 lovers, never able to get too close to one another, 

 however little in either to attract, or however 

 much to repel, dispassionate onlookers wondering 

 see. But his woeful plaint was not meant literally, 

 it is just an instructive instance teaching how 

 prettily he used a little experience for large re- 

 flective and artistic effects. Feeling that he sees 

 so falsely as to worship his mistress's defects, he 

 asks whether, after all, it is really his eye that is 

 at fault and not rather his judgment which judges 

 falsely what his eye sees aright, but is forced to 

 acknowledge, as the wiser sense of the world 

 well denotes, 



Love's eye is not so true as all men's ; no, 

 How can it ? 



