As the reader has experienced from sonnets 18 through 126, the speaker in sonnet 133 creates a persona of his soul in order to reflect upon and dramatize the activity of his talent and ambition. In that section of the sonnets, the speaker variously addresses his Muse, his poems, or himself—all of whom are the same entity, the only difference being the differing aspects of the same soul. In sonnet 133, the speaker refers to his Muse-Talent-Soul as his friend, who is being affected by the dark lady’s behavior.
First Quatrain: “Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan”
The speaker brings down a curse on “that heart” of the dark lady, not only for making his heart “to groan,” but also for the “deep wound” she causes in both his “friend” and himself. He queries, isn’t it enough that you torment me? must you also cause my Muse, who is “my sweet’st friend” to suffer?
The speaker is probably finding his musings invaded with thoughts of the mistress, and because of his intense infatuation with her, he feels his creations are suffering. The complaint resembles the one wherein he would chide his Muse for abandoning him, implying that he could not write without her, yet he continued to make poems about that very topic.
Second Quatrain: “Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken”
The speaker then refers explicitly to the cruelty of the lady for affecting his Muse/writing; he claims that she has taken him from himself, and also “my next self thou harder has engross’d.” The self that is closest to him is that triumvirate of Muse-Talent-Soul, which constitutes his life, including his working life.
When the lady disrupts the speaker’s tripartite entity, she causes him to be “forsaken” by everything and everyone: “Of him, myself, and thee, I am forsaken.” And he thus is “torment[ed] thrice threefold.”
Third Quatrain: “Prison my heart in thy steel bosom’s ward”
In the third quatrain, the speaker commands the lady to go ahead and lock him up in “[her] steel bosom’s ward,” but let him be able to extricate his Muse from her clutches. He wants to retain control over whatever his own heart “guard[s].” He wants to keep his Muse in his own “jail” so that she cannot “use rigour” in that jail.
The Couplet: “And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee”
But the speaker contends that the lady will continue to imprison him, and because he deems that he belongs to her, all “that is in me,” including that triumvirate of Muse-Talent-Soul, also is confined in her jail and under her spell.
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