Sonnet 154: The Little Love-God, Lying Once Asleep

SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived

Sonnet 154 brings to a close William Shakespeare's collection of sonnets, and it does so hand-in-hand with Sonnet 153, of which it is not a continuation, but a reiteration.

Like Sonnet 153, the poem borrows directly from an epigram by 6th century Greek poet Marianus Scholasticus, and tells the story of Cupid who falls asleep in a mountain grove with his Torch of Hymen by his side. One of the goddess Diana's nymphs – in this version the most beautiful of them all – takes the torch and attempts to extinguish it in a nearby well, and in doing so inadvertently creates a hot bath for eternity.

In both versions by William Shakespeare, this becomes a place where men may go to find relief for their sickness or disease, whereby neither of the two sonnets specifies just exactly what kind of disease may be so cured and leaves it somewhat open to interpretation whether Shakespeare means merely the affliction of a love sickness, or whether he is also alluding, as is widely believed, to venereal diseases, most particularly syphilis, for which hot baths were considered to be a remedial measure, if not exactly cure, at the time.