Sonnet 41

The first two lines of Sonnet 41 in the 1609 Quarto

Q1 Q2 Q3 C	Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits, When I am sometime absent from thy heart, Thy beauty and thy years full well befits, For still temptation follows where thou art. Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won, Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed; And when a woman woos, what woman’s son Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed? Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear, And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth, Who lead thee in their riot even there Where thou art forc’d to break a twofold truth, Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee, Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.	4 8 12 14
	—William Shakespeare

Q1

Q2

Q3

C

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;
And when a woman woos, what woman’s son
Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed?
Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forc’d to break a twofold truth,
Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.

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8

12

14

Sonnet 41 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a part of the Fair Youth section of the sonnets addressed to an unnamed young man. While the exact date of the composition is unknown, it was originally published in the 1609 Quarto along with the rest of the sonnets.

Within the sonnet, the speaker excuses the Fair Youth's amorous activity due to his youth and attractiveness toward women, but also chides him for betraying the speaker by sleeping with his mistress. It is the second in a set of three sonnets (40, 41, 42) that dwell on this betrayal of the speaker. This sonnet is also notable for the textual references made to Shakespeare's other works. The sonnet is written in the typical Shakespearean sonnet form, containing 14 lines of iambic pentameter and ending in a rhymed couplet.

Shakespeare's sonnets conform to the English or Shakespearean sonnet form. The form consists of fourteen lines structured as three quatrains and a couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg and written in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. While Shakespeare's versification maintains the English sonnet form, Shakespeare often rhetorically alludes to the form of Petrarchan sonnets with an octave (two quatrains) followed by a sestet (six lines), between which a "turn" or volta occurs, which signals a change in the tone, mood, or stance of the poem. The first line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

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