...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...mistress when she walks treads on the ground And yet by heav'n I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. 敘事者略帶戲謹式的嘲諷當代許多詩...

...away from Spenser's floral lady. The concluding couplet introduces a commonplace religious comparison: 'And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare' (my emphasis). Shakespeare's sonnet can be read as a cheeky response to...

...lady's supposed attractiveness, but rather a playful tribute, as the concluding couplet makes clear. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. In CXXXI, the following poem, Shakespeare again remarks that, according...