Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour’d ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil,
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell:
Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
In plain English
I'm caught between two people who pull me in opposite directions. One is a beautiful man who guides me toward goodness; the other is a dark woman who tempts me toward ruin. She's trying to seduce him away from me and corrupt his virtue with her shamelessness.
I suspect she may have already turned him against me—made him betray his better nature. But I can't be certain. What I do know is that they're now together, away from me, and I fear she's drawn him into her destructive orbit.
I'll never know the full truth, and that uncertainty will haunt me. The only way this ends is if her corruption burns through his goodness entirely—if she destroys him completely, or if he finally breaks free.
