'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad and in their badness reign.
More verses by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 41: Those Pretty Wrongs That Liberty Commits
- Sonnet 22: My Glass Shall Not Persuade Me I Am Old
- Sonnet 125: Were'T Aught To Me I Bore The Canopy
- Sonnet 99: The Forward Violet Thus Did I Chide
- Sonnet 49: Against That Time, If Ever That Time Come