First Quatrain: “Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate”
In sonnet 142, addressing the mistress, the speaker is again complaining about the sad state of their affair. He chortles that his sin is love, a term he uses as a euphemism for lust. Yet as bad as his sin is, the sin of the mistress is worse, because she is guilty of just plain “hate,” which he also euphemizes by qualifying the phrase with “dear virtue.”
Then the speaker exclaims, “O!,” and commands her to compare the sins, which he calls their “state,” and insists that the comparison will reveal his state superior to hers. At least he can euphemize his lust and call it “love”; she cannot convert hate into love, regardless of her disingenuity.
Second Quatrain: “Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine”
The speaker then suggests an alternative that if she concludes the comparison and still prevaricates with “those lips of thine,” it is because her lips have “profan’d their scarlet ornaments.” Again, he is accusing her of giving herself promiscuously to others: she has “seal’d false bond” with other men, to whom he lies as often as she does with him. (Pun intended.)
She has “[r]obb’d others’ beds’ revenues of their rents.” This metaphoric drama likely is a thinly veiled accusation of prostitution. This speaker seems to be dragging his heart and mind through the mud for this woman, and she still treats him with disdain, which he undoubtedly realizes he earns.
Third Quatrain: “Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov’st those”
The speaker speculates that if what she is doing is legal, then his desire for her is also legal. This conjecture is a pretentious way of stating what the speaker already knows: that their relationship is not “lawful.” He is breaking spiritual laws that will keep his soul in bondage, and he knows it. He is sure that she does not know this, because she is bound tightly to worldliness.
So he offers his conditional ploy in order to suggest that she should, therefore, take pity on him; after all, there may come a time when she will also long for pity.
The Couplet: “If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide”
Finally, the speaker asserts that if the woman fails to pity him and remove his pain and suffering in their relationship, she will eventually find herself in the same position he is. She will be denied all pity and comfort as she has denied him. He tells her that her chickens will come home to roost.
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