Sonnet 120 again finds the poet/speaker conversing with his Muse. The reader has observed the various stances the speaker has taken over the course of the sonnet sequence, from blaming the Muse for his flaws to accepting the blame himself, and even sharing the blame.
First Quatrain: “That you were once unkind befriends me now”
The speaker advises his Muse that the earlier grievance perpetrated by her now “befriends [him],” that is, he is able to perceive an advantage to that earlier unkindness. He confesses that he endured “sorrow” as a result of the Muse’s treatment and yet avers that despite his own “transgression” which he was required to acknowledge, the fact remains that it is quite natural for him to suffer “Unless my nerves were brass or hammer’d steel.” Being only human, he possesses normal physical organs that mental anguish may brunt.
Second Quatrain: “For if you were by my unkindness shaken”
The speaker then offers a conjecture regarding the reciprocal suffering of the Muse. He suspects that if she felt as much sorrow as he did, then he knows by comparison that she “pass’d a hell of time.” His own suffering allows him to empathize with the suffering of his Muse.
Remembering that the Muse and the speaker are in reality the same, the reader understands that the speaker again is dramatizing his situation as if he were a split personality. He must make this split in order to take a separate stance from the Muse and thus be able to portray his feelings.
The speaker then reports that he has never backed down from complaining about any ill-treatment he has undergone at the hands of the sometimes-too-quiet Muse. He feels no guilt in labeling those down times “your crime.” He feels the crime of omission is as sure as the crime of commission.
Third Quatrain: “O! that our night of woe might have remember’d”
The speaker then offers a full-throated exclamation, “O! that our night of woe might have remember’d / My deepest sense.” He remembers “how hard true sorrow hits” through his “deepest sense.” But that night of woe belongs to both the speaker and the Muse; he declares “our night of woe.”
He again empathizes with his Muse, knowing that the sorrow is mutually shared. But he then avers that they both finally partake of “the humble salve” that soothes and remedies the pain for both parties.
The Couplet: “But that your trespass now becomes a fee”
The speaker then reminds the Muse that her “trespass” has allowed him the freedom to trespass against her. But such is not the better way, so he transforms the agreement to forgiveness flowing both ways: his error he will ransom for her error, and she will do the same.
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