The speaker begins by observing that plain, everyday experience can reveal truths that scholarly reasoning can’t always grasp. He gives the old forensic superstition that a murder victim’s body will start to bleed if the killer comes near. Then he shifts to his own situation: his heart was “slain” long ago by a woman he loved, and now that she is drawing close again, his emotional wounds reopen and bleed just like that fabled corpse. The poem’s mood is bittersweet and slightly wry. There’s pain in the return of old feelings, but also a weary recognition that punishing her would be pointless—it might satisfy justice, but it wouldn’t revive his dead heart. Drayton uses the grim, logical image to explore how love’s injuries can feel as real as physical death, and how the presence of the one who hurt you can make old scars ache afresh.
Sonnet XLVI: Plain-Path'd Experience — Summary
Plain-path'd Experience, th'unlearned's guide, Her simple followers evidently shows Sometimes what Schoolmen scarcely can decide, Nor yet wise Reason absolutely knows. In making trial of a murther wrought, If the vile actors of the heinous deed Near the dead body happily be brought, Oft it hath been prov'd the breathless corse will bleed. She's coming near, that my poor heart hath slain, Long since departed, to the world no more, The ancient wounds no longer can contain, But fall to bleeding as they did before. But what of this? Should she to death be led, It furthers justice, but helps not the dead.