Sonnet 120: That You Were Once Unkind Befriends Me Now
SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, RelivedShow Notes
With Sonnet 120 William Shakespeare draws a line under the explanations and excuses offered throughout the previous three sonnets for his own infidelities in relation to his young man, and simply reminds himself now of how awful he felt when his lover treated him in a similar way on those occasions when it was him who was sleeping around with other people. The conclusion Shakespeare comes to is that they both in turn have been through hell, and that their respective debt to each other for each other's transgressions now must surely cancel itself out.
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Following an established tradition at the time, William Shakespeare furnishes his collection of 154 Sonnets with a poetic Complaint that acts as a coda to the series.
Sonnet 154 brings to a close William Shakespeare's collection of sonnets, and it does so hand-in-hand with Sonnet 153, of which it is not a continuation, but a reiteration.