Sonnet 138 “When my Love Swears that she is Made of Truth“ by Shakespeare (read by Tom O’Bedlam)

It’s a typical Shakespearean sonnet in the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, the last two lines being a rhyming couplet. The first eight lines are called the octave and they state the problem which is resolved or explained in the sestet, the final six lines. The puns seem trite now, but wit had to start somewhere, sometime. Words change their meanings subtly and constantly. The double meaning of “lies“ is obvious, “told“ meant both communicated and counted, as when Milton says, “Every Shepherd tells h