Late at an inn, the speaker and personified Love swap proverbs like a verbal duel. He opens with an optimistic cliché—“In Love there is no lack”—and Love immediately returns fire with “Fair words make fools.” Their exchange continues, hope parrying with caution: boldness gets answered by warnings against haste, hard work in love is dismissed as a burden if carried too far. Each retort is a familiar piece of folk wisdom, but strung together they become a tiresome loop. The mood is witty yet edged with frustration, as if both know that none of these sayings captures the real mess of loving someone. They part exactly as they met, calling themselves fools. The final line lands with a shrug—two people armed with nothing but proverbs might argue forever and still get nowhere.
Sonnet LIX: As Love and I — Summary
As Love and I, late harbor'd in one inn, With proverbs thus each other entertain: "In Love there is no lack," thus I begin; "Fair words make fools," replieth he again; "Who spares to speak doth spare to speed," quoth I; "As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow"; "Fortune assists the boldest," I reply; "A hasty man," quoth he, "ne'er wanted woe"; "Labor is light where Love," quoth I, "doth pay"; Saith he, "Light burden's heavy, if far borne"; Quoth I, "The main lost, cast the bye away"; "You have spun a fair thread," he replies in scorn. And having thus awhile each other thwarted, Fools as we met, so fools again we parted.