When my love swears she is made of truth

Shakespeare here does not just address his lover’s lies to him, and I’m getting the feeling that she’s probably cheating on him, but that sometimes in life it’s easier to believe in a fantasy than in real life.  Shakespeare believes in his lover’s words, even though he knows them to be false.  Intellectually, he knows that it can’t be true, but emotionally, he it’s just easier to pretend that they are.

And it’s not just his lover that is having some problems with telling the truth, but so too does the speaker.  He knows that he is getting older, and that his best days are behind him.  He has hit and gone past his prime, but he not only refuses to acknowledge that fact, but lies about it to himself as well as to his loved one.  And it brings to mind the question, why is it exactly that he must lie about that, and why is it that his lover lies about being faithful?  His answer is that love itself is inherently deceitful.  That love disguises itself as trustworthy, but in reality it is often by necessity inherently false. 

Both the speaker and his lover are aware of the fact that they are lying to each other, but neither cares very much, partially because old people don’t like to be informed of their ever-increasing age, but mostly because, by lying to each other, it allows them to ignore their respective weaknesses, for one, the guilt of cheating on the other, for the other, his age.

Age seems to be the biggest factor to the speaker, almost as if he is simply glad to have love despite his age.  But, though he has love, he seems very detached from her, given that he shows little concern for her lying and cheating.  At its most base, the poem is concerned with the speaker’s insecurities about his own advancing age, and his need to not only lie to himself about its existence and the complications and weaknesses it brings, but his need to lie to others in order to decrease his own ability to acknowledge it.  By lying to each other, they in fact relieve their own burdens by pretending that the burdens don’t exist.  Sometimes it’s just easier to believe in the dream.

In fact, in line thirteen, the speaker goes so far as to say that the reason that he is together with his lover is because they are lying, their very relationship is the vehicle through which he tries to purge his insecurities.  He does this through what I think is a rather clever double meaning with “lie.”  Additionally, part of the reason that he seems to agree with her lies is that he wants to seem inexperienced to her, like a younger man would be.  He doesn’t just lie to her directly about his best days being behind him, but he lies to her through his pretended belief in her own falsities.  This, of course, doesn’t really work, but she too, suppresses the truth in order for them to continue their rather stupid repartee.