AG: Then the next…He’s gone through all these emotional baths with his boyfriend, and is commenting on his own foolery, his own idiocy in getting involved so deeply and getting himself committed so much to love, that it’s a big trap. So… The way he says it is interesting. It’s a rant. (Sonnet 129) – “The expense of spirit in a waste of shame/Is lust in action” – The expansive breath or spirit in “a waste of shame” (like he was in some S & M scene, slave-master relation, begging, pleading, announcing, trumpeting, prophesying that it was going to last forever, then the next minute sticking his ass out, then the next minute getting on his knees, and the next minute waiting like a slave, and the next minute threatening, calling him “a dirty lily”, like “a festering lily” [“Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds”] . So, finally, it’s getting pretty far-out, even for Shakespeare
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
It’s a great rant. But the most intelligent..well, one of the most intelligent lines in Shakspeare, I think, is “On purpose laid to make the taker mad” – Love is a bait, a bait, trap, laid “on purpose” (so the taker takes it and goes mad) – “On purpose laid to make the taker mad” (But dig the sounds – “On purpose laid to make the taker mad” – fantastic melopoeia – “On purpose laid to make the taker mad” – a fantastic witty language and real simple – “On purpose laid/ to make/the taker mad” – Funny. It’s sort of like a weird slogan that goes in one ear and out the other – zap! – you know, “On purpose laid to make the taker mad” – And there’s a lot of funny little lines like “Past reason hated..” “Past reason hunted. Past reason hated” – (“Past reason” meaning unreasonably hunted and unreasonably hated)
[Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately seventy-one-and-a-quarter minutes in and concluding at approximately seventy-four minutes in]