229k views
0 votes
Select the correct text in the passage.

In William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, the speaker lists the qualities that his mistress lacks. In which two lines is there a change or a twist that
tells the reader that the speaker accepts his mistress despite her supposed flaws?
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses seel in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,--
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
Reset
Next

User Sampo
by
5.2k points

1 Answer

4 votes

Answer: The last two lines from Sonnet 130 tell us that the speaker accepts his mistress despite her supposed flaws.

Step-by-step explanation:

Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 is a humorous response to Petrarchan conventions of love poetry.

The speaker makes a number of comparisons between his loved one and different things, but tells us that she has nothing in common with them. Her eyes are ''nothing like the sun'', music is much more pleasing than the sound of her voice, unlike a goddess, his mistress walks on the ground, etc. However, the tone changes in the last two lines:

And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,

As any she belied with false compare.

At the end of the poem, he admits that his love for her is as strong as love of other poets who flatter their mistresses with false comparisons. Although he does not over-exaggerate in describing her beauty, it does not mean that his love is not strong enough.

User Ptay
by
5.2k points