Sonnets 127, 130, 144: Beauty; The Young Man & The Dark Lady

"In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slander’d with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on nature’s power,
Fairing the foul with art’s false borrow’d face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress’ brows are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so." (Shakespeare's Sonnets, 127)

In my opinion, I would say that the poet describes his “mistress” (line 9) both in comparison with nature and in opposite with it, in artificial terms; a mix, a kind of cross breed description.

“Raven black” (ibid) is to me a comparison with the colour of the plumage of the bird of prey: nature, or his “mistress” has cultured – coloured – her eyelashes; to help the reader understand that “dun” is a paler shade of white (!) the poet uses a colour from nature, “white as snow” (130.3); “black wires grow on her head” (130.4) must refer to something growing in nature, maybe twigs:

"My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare." (Shakespeare's Sonnets, 130)

Well, even the poet's counterpoints of beauty are in comparison with nature: “eyes nothing like the sun [nature] ” (130.1), “no such roses [nature] see I in her cheeks” (130.6).

When the poet counterpoints the breath of his "mistress" and the timber of her voice he uses cultural artefacts: “perfumes [culture] is there more delight” (130.7), “music [culture] hath far more pleasing sound” (130.10).

I interpret “a woman coloured ill” (144.4) literally, her skin, given by Nature (by birth) or by Culture (by cosmetics), contrasting the phrase with the previous “a man right fair [by Nature...]” (144.3):

"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 end
Suspect I may, but 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." (Shakespeare's Sonnets, 144)