The sonnet is a Shakespearian sonnet, and is divided into 3 quatrains and a rhyming couplet.
The first line of the poem gives us a faint idea of what the poem could be about, he says ‘When my love swears that she is made of truth’ We know from this it is a lover telling us that his partner is promising she is truthful to him. It could also mean that the partner promises that she is virginal and pure. The writer soon makes a contradiction, because he does ‘believe her, though I know she lies.’ He says that he believes her even though he knows she is lying, he could also be trying to fool himself into believing something that isn’t true, so that he feels better. She might think that he is naïve and will believe anything she tells him, ‘she might think me some untutor’d youth,’ She thinks this because she thinks he doesn’t know about the truth, ‘Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties’ Backs this idea up.
The next quatrain starts with the writer saying because of her lies and deception he is ‘vainly thinking that she thinks me young,’ he is hoping that she really does think him young, he tries to make himself believe this. But it is hard for him since he knows that he is rather old, and ‘she knows my days are past the best;’ he knows that it is obvious to her. It seems as if the man may have gave up thinking in vain as we can see from ‘Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue’ he respects her for lying to make him feel better about himself, and because she lies so well. However he cannot be angry at her for lying to him, because ‘On both sides thus is simple truth supprest.’ They are both lying to each other, and it wouldn’t be fair for him to blame it all on her.
In the last quatrain he is wondering why she doesn’t tell him that he is too old, ‘But wherefore say not that I am old?’ He probably wouldn’t mind if she just went ahead and told him, but she might be afraid of the consequences. He doesn’t mind the lying, he thinks ‘love’s best habit is in seeming trust,’ he seems to think that lying is a normal part of love and he says it is the best part of it. He could be trying to make himself believe that it is all a normal part of love so he doesn’t feel bad. He then goes on to, in a way, disagree with himself, because he thinks ‘age in love loves not to have years told’ he is saying age shouldn’t matter in love, no matter how great the age difference.
The rhyming couplet at the end basically sums up the poem.
‘Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,’ can mean two things. The man lying to his wife and her lying to him, and the two still lying in bed together as a result of them not being truthful to each other and not breaking up. The last line, ‘And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be’ means that he is happy with the fact that they are both lying to each other, because it still makes him feel happy.
