Theme:      Unwanted gift
Content:    An apology to the subject for passing on their gift of a book of tables that the author did not need or want - possibly originally the blank book givven by the author to the subject in Sonnet 77. One of the most verbally diverse of all the sonnets.

• tables is the gift of a book of tables from the subject to the author which he had no need of and has passed on to another. The tables were evidently compiled by the subject himself.
• The author claims he will actively remember the book's contents for eternity which would be better than the idle existence of the book itself.
• The principle of the author perpetually retaining memory of the book's contents within his brain is reinforced by all the words containing the word in: within...brain...lasting...remain.
• The ability of the author to remember the subject without the aid of the gift is also reinforced in the plethora of words that contain the restorative prefix re- or contain the letters re: are...charactered...remain...nature...record...poore (Quarto spelling)...retention...deare (Quarto spelling)...score...Therefore...receive...more...remember...Were.
• lasting expands to all date which in turn expands to eternity.

• The author now reconsiders what he has just said in Q1 and accepts that his memory of the book's contents will obviously only last as long as he has his faculties.
• The expansion of lasting...all date...eternity in Q1 is now reversed to least...so long as...oblivion.

• tallies, together with tables, reveals that the nature of the book's contents was mathematical, technical or scientific - the kind of book that is specialised in nature and not necessarily of direct use to the author but perhaps to someone with interest in that field.
• Sir Robert Dudley who was a professional mariner (party to the successful Cadiz expedition) is known to have compiled navigational tables of professional competence in the late 1590's (see note below).
• to give them from me confirms that the book given as a gift was given away by the author.
• To is the highest occurring word in this sonnet (occurring 9 times) and is used to convey many alternative actions of the author, such as to score...to give...to trust...to keep...to remember.
• The references to Thy gift, thy tables and thy record in Q1 and Q2 are now replaced by thy dear love.

• The author claims that to retain the gift of the book would imply that the author was forgetful by nature and needed the book to assist him in remembering the subject - a cute reverse excuse for having passed on the gift.
• Multiple meaning of adjunct is employed in respect of adjunct being the gift that was unwanted and the author being an adjunct who is subordinate to the subject. The grammatical meaning of adjunct does not appear to be employed.
• The author and subject are joined in the final rhyme of thee and me.

Sir Robert Dudley (1574-1649), titular Duke of Northumberland, Earl of Warwick and son of the Earl of Leicester was a professional mariner and party to the successful 1596 Cadiz expedition with Essex for which he was knighted. He is known to have compiled navigational tables of professional competence in 1595 as part of his West Indies expedition that are considered milestones in naval cartography. He himself described these as "a volume on the true and real art of navigation, with many curious mathematical and astronomical figures, and other things never before seen, such as nautical instruments for the observation of the variations of longitude and latitude, and others for the horizontal and spiral navigation, and about the Great Circles". These marine-science tables, along with other works, were eventually published in Dell’ Arcano del Mare in 1646-7.

As well as the reference to "tables" in this sonnet, there are references to "astronomy" in Sonnet 14, the Pole Star in Sonnet 116 and copious maritime images: Sonnet 80 in particular portrays the subject's pre-eminence on the seas and might contain a pun on the ship that Dudley voyaged to the West Indies on in 1595 called The Bear. These references all connect with Dudley's profession and writings. Robert Dudley may also be being punned on in the sonnets that use variants of the word "rob".

In 1596, Dudley married Alice Leigh, which may be the wedding that inspired the writing of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1595-6, a play that contains an apparent reference to the Earl of Leicester’s entertainment of the Queen in 1575 at Kenilworth Castle, which Dudley inherited in 1589.

Dudley's father, the Earl of Leicester, died in 1588 when Dudley was just 14, which may be the past tense circumstance for Shakespeare to write "You had a father, let your son say so" in Sonnet 13, particularly if the series of 17 sonnets encouraging the Young Man to have children were given on the subject's 17th. birthday, three years after his father had died.

Dudley's mother, Lady Douglas Sheffield, was renowned for her beauty with contemporaries like George Peele in 1595 describing Dudley as "Venus's son" which bears a striking correlation to Sonnet 3's "Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee" and Sonnet 20's "A woman's face with nature's own hand painted".

Dudley was the illegitimate son of Leicester and Sheffield who struggled for years to establish his inheritance. Had his father, the Earl of Leicester (a favourite of Elizabeth I), gone on to marry Elizabeth, Dudley would then have been the Queen's step-son. This may be being referred to in Sonnet 124's "If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for fortune's bastard be unfathered".

As such, Dudley is a noteworthy candidate for the subject of this sonnet and others.