Among Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, Sonnet 58 stands out as a portrait of quiet suffering—a study of love transformed into servitude.
The poem belongs to the Fair Youth sequence, a series of works in which the poet addresses a young man of striking beauty and high social standing. Yet, beneath the surface of admiration and devotion, the speaker in this sonnet exposes a deep unease about power, patience, and personal freedom.
The Poem (Sonnet 58)
That god forbid that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!
O! let me suffer (being at your beck)
The imprisoned absence of your liberty;
And patience tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.
A Slave to Love
The sonnet opens with an invocation—“That god forbid that made me first your slave”—which immediately sets the tone of pious irony. The speaker blames the divine power that made him a “slave” to love and forbids him even the right to question his master’s actions. In that single line, Shakespeare binds together love, fate, and subjugation.
The poet’s devotion is absolute. He cannot control or even think to control the beloved’s “times of pleasure.” Nor can he ask for “the account of hours,” a phrase that captures both the passage of time and the ache of waiting. The beloved enjoys freedom, while the speaker endures captivity—an emotional imprisonment disguised as loyalty. Love here is not a mutual exchange but a contract written in unequal terms, binding one soul to another’s leisure.
The Dignity of Suffering
What makes Sonnet 58 remarkable is its restraint. The speaker does not rebel; he begs to “suffer” quietly, calling his endurance “patience tame to sufferance.” The repetition of soft sounds—patience, sufferance, bide—mirrors the weary calm of someone who has accepted pain as a condition of love. The poet transforms his waiting into a kind of discipline, as though obedience were the only way to preserve dignity.
In this way, Shakespeare turns emotional endurance into an art form. The speaker’s patience is not weakness—it is control. Every line, every heartbeat of iambic pentameter, keeps the chaos of feeling in check. His restraint becomes his strength, even as he admits that waiting “so be hell.”
A Charter of Freedom
Midway through the poem, the imagery shifts from servitude to law. The beloved’s liberty becomes a “charter,” a royal document granting him the right to do whatever he pleases. He may “privilege his time” and even “pardon” himself for his own “self-doing crime.” The language is both admiring and biting. On one hand, the speaker acknowledges the beloved’s beauty and authority; on the other, he exposes the arrogance that power breeds.
In Elizabethan England, a “charter” was the ultimate symbol of privilege—a legal safeguard for those who ruled. By granting his beloved such a metaphor, the speaker elevates him to near-divine status, yet the irony is clear: the youth’s “crimes” are forgiven only because he is the one doing the pardoning. Shakespeare’s tone here is subtle, wavering between reverence and moral discomfort.
Love’s Quiet Irony
What begins as humble devotion ends as something far more ambiguous. “I am to wait,” the speaker concedes in the final couplet, “though waiting so be hell, / Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.” On the surface, it sounds like resignation. Yet beneath the calm lies a quiet accusation: if the beloved’s pleasure may be “ill or well,” then the poet recognizes that it can also be cruel.
That tension—between obedience and awareness—drives the sonnet’s emotional power. The poet has mastered the art of saying everything while pretending to say nothing. His humility becomes a weapon; his silence, a form of resistance. In loving without complaint, he exposes the imbalance that love has wrought.
The Paradox of Power
Sonnet 58 reflects not only a personal relationship but also the world Shakespeare lived in. The poem’s language of slavery, vassalage, and privilege echoes the hierarchies of Renaissance England, where patronage shaped both art and affection. To love someone of higher rank was to navigate a system of dependence. The poet’s “bond” to the youth thus carries social weight: it mirrors the relationship between artist and patron, between voice and silence.
At the same time, the sonnet transcends its historical moment. The struggle it depicts—between love and pride, freedom and restraint—feels deeply human. The speaker knows he is trapped by affection, yet he transforms that captivity into poetry. In doing so, he reclaims a kind of power the beloved cannot touch: the ability to define the experience, to give pain a voice that endures.
Conclusion: The Strength in Submission
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 58 is a quiet masterpiece of emotional control. It dramatizes the torment of waiting, the humiliation of loving someone untouchable, and the strange solace found in endurance. The poet’s language, rich with legal and political imagery, turns personal suffering into universal reflection.
What makes the poem unforgettable is its honesty. There is no false heroism, no rebellion that resolves the pain. Instead, there is acceptance—a recognition that love often demands patience, and that patience can itself become a kind of art. In the stillness of waiting, Shakespeare’s speaker finds his dignity. His words are not the cries of a victim but the measured confession of someone who has learned that even submission can have grace.