Sonnet 20: A Woman’s Face With Nature’s Own Hand Painted
Written By William Shakespeare
This sonnet was published by Shakespeare in 1609. As most people identify, sonnet 1 – 126 of Shakespeare’s collection of 154 sonnets were all addressed to an unmentioned young man who is known as ‘Fair Youth‘. Then sonnet 127 – 154 were also addressed to a woman who is identified to be brunette. This sonnet ‘A Woman’s Face With Nature’s Own Hand Painted’ presents Fair Youth as ‘master-mistress’ of Shakespeare’s passion. The speaker claimed that, his beloved is possessed by a woman’s beauty and a form of a man. Therefore, he is seen to be mor faithful than almost all women. Sonnet 20 entails sexual duality and homoeroticism.
Poem
A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change as is false women’s fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created,
Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.
Poet Nazir is a writer and an editor here on ThePoetsHub. Outside this space, he works as a poet, screenwriter, author, relationship adviser and a reader. He is also the founder & lead director of PNSP Studios, a film production firm.
