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Sonnet 129
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjur'd, 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 prov'd, a very woe;
Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
- William Shakespeare
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May 1787
Demelza . . . Stiff old silk of the dress . . . The hooks. What had got into her? He had been drunk, but was it with liquor? The expense of spirit in a waste of shame is lust in action . . . past reason hated – how did it go? He had not thought of that sonnet last night. The poets had played him false. A strange affair. At least there had been an expense of spirit . . .
- Winston Graham, Ross Poldark: A Poldark Novel 1, Book 2, Chapter 8.
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Chapter 1
September 1793
She mistook the cause of his silence, he said, but she knew now that she wasn't so far off the mark. It was all there in the words he had just spoken.
But of course you're right - I have been in a mood all this week, and for that I… My feeling about Elizabeth's marriage need not be gone into now. That's something I've had to think out - fight out in my own way.
He said something else after that - something about George living at Trenwith - and he told her the good news about Wheal Grace. She tried to smile, but what he had said first... those few short sentences…
Her chest ached and the restless anger that had kept her going since that awful night in May suddenly drained away, leaving her cold and empty. For surely wrapped inside those words was the message that he had finally found some way of moving on with his life, some way of reconciling himself to the loss of his one true love, even though it need not be gone into now. Judas! If he hadn't meant that - if he had meant it - why not discuss his feelings now? Had she not waited long enough for some hint on their future together? On his feeling for her? No, it was clear to her that she, Demelza, would only ever be second best and she didn't even warrant an explanation. There was no way forward for her, she realised, at least, not in this house and not with him.
Later that night as she pinned up her hair, alone in her room except for Jeremy who slept, she looked more closely at herself in the mirror. The woman who stared back was a stranger, with her pinched mouth and her bitter-hard eyes - the look of the last four months, and, she feared, the rest of her life. She wanted her old attitude back - her old lightness, her old happiness - but the tide had washed the sand out from under her feet and now everything was gone.
There was no longer any place for her here at Nampara, she realised, not as wife and not as servant. There would be money aplenty and he could hire whatever help he needed. No more would she would be even a necessary drudge for the man who had her heart but who couldn't give her his in return. God's life! He didn't even want to touch her! Had made no effort to… Not that she would welcome him, not without love. And had he ever truly meant anything he said about love anyway? She could no longer believe it. He had fooled both himself and her, and now it was gone, all gone, and there was no living like this anymore.
"Not in this house, Ross, an' not with you either," she whispered. In that moment, she made up her mind; there was only one way to get back some little part of her old self, to regain a sense of worth…
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References:
Quote in story is from 'Warleggan', Book 4, Chapter 1.