First Quatrain: “That god forbid, that made me first your slave”
In sonnet 58, in a somewhat sarcastic tone, the speaker accosts his muse with the notion that far be it from him (the poet/speaker) to try to control the muse. He cognizes that he remains, by God’s grace, a slave of the muse, a position he does not disdain. Nevertheless, he would have the muse perform more accommodatingly and provide him nourishment of thought and inspiration more in line with his own schedule.
However, he knows he is merely a “vassal” of the muse, and his own “account of hours” will never move the muse to act. He might even make things worse by his craving, which will probably be “bound to stay [her] leisure.”
Second Quatrain: “O! let me suffer, being at your beck”
Since there is no cure, the speaker goes on to exaggerate his lot, melodramatically asserting, “O! let me suffer, being at your beck.” He will always remain at the beck and call of the muse, so he exclaims that he will go ahead and suffer it. He is “imprison’d” by the free will of the muse.
The speaker knows me must possess and exhibit “patience.” He knows he is required to “tame” his suffering heart. Each time the muse plays coy, he must “bide each check” and not become disconcerted by the muse’s seeming fickleness.
Third Quatrain: “Be where you list, your charter is so strong”
Whatever the muse does must be accepted, because its force is soul force, and the mere human cannot understand or control such force or even begin to comprehend its relationship to time. Only the muse can “privilege [her] time / To what [she] will.”
So while the speaker can complain, he can also create his poems based on the supposed frustrating schedule of the creative force, and he chides the muse with exaggerated blame, even referring to it as a “crime.” But he insists that the crime belongs only to the muse; he may suffer it but he does not have to accept blame for it.
The Couplet: “I am to wait, though waiting so be hell”
By the couplet—“I am to wait, though waiting so be hell, / Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well”— the speaker has cooled down. He hates waiting on the criminally-terminal schedule, but “though waiting” seems like hell to him, he will not ultimately blame her but accept her pleasure whether it suit him “ill or well.”
Other Shakespeare articles: Who is Shakespeare?
Sonnet Commentaries: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 73, 96, 116, 126, 130, 138
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