Analysis of Sonnet 151: Love is too young to know what conscience is

William Shakespeare 1564 (Stratford-upon-Avon) – 1616 (Stratford-upon-Avon)



Love is too young to know what conscience is;
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
    No want of conscience hold it that I call,
    Her "love" for whose dear love I rise and fall.


Scheme ABCDEFEFGHGHII
Poetic Form
Metre 1111111101 1111101111 1101011101 1101111111 1101011101 11011111010 1111110111 10011111010 1101111111 1101011111 1101011111 1101011111 1111011111 0111111101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 610
Words 121
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 467
Words per stanza (avg) 119
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
100

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". more…

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