SONNET 140	PARAPHRASE
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press	Be as wise as you are cruel; do not test
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;	My patient silence with too much disrespect;
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express	In case sorrow forces me to speak and the words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.	How my pain grew out of your lack of pity.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,	If I can give you some advice - it would be better,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;	To tell me you love me, even though you do not,
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,	(I am like) those fretful sick men, nearing death,
No news but health from their physicians know;	Who want to hear only about their recovery from their physicians.
For if I should despair, I should grow mad,	For if I start to despair, I will go mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee:	And in my madness I might speak ill of you;
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,	Now that this world, which sees only negative things, has become so evil,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be,	Evil slanderers are believed by evil people.
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,	So that I may not become such a slanderer, nor you be so slandered,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.	You must look straight ahead with your eyes, even though your heart may stray.