Theme:      Menage à trois
Content:    The female subject is a lover to both the author and his friend. The author is prepared to forfeit himself in the hope that the woman's relationship with the friend will also help restore the author's friendship with him. A sonnet based on legal terminology, as though a crime has been committed.

• There is a preponderance of words containing the word or in this sonnet that seem to be reinforcing the choices that the characters have in this sonnet of choosing between one lover or the other.
• In line 2 the poet is saying that his self (i.e. his will as alluded to by his name, his genitalia) is bound to her will, a euphemism for the female genitalia. A repeat of the word will in this line would be clumsy so necessitates the alternative "my self",
• Line 3 plays on the author's name of will which is fully developed in the following sonnets. "My self" is the first meaning of "will" as in his person or name whilst "that other mine" is the second meaning of "will" as in his genitalia.
• Line 4 confirms this by saying that the Dark Lady will restore wilt to the full will, thereby making the author complete again, both nominally and sexually.

• Clear criticism of the woman by calling her covetous, a word that also anticipates the next quatrain's use and abuse in its us, as does surety.

• statute also contains the key letters of use and abuse, as does putt'st..
• Further criticism of the woman by calling her a usurer.
• The act of use morphs into a cause to sue and then abuse.
• Mid-line rhyme of lose and abuse.
• The author levels all the criticism at the intervening female lover. He has no criticism of the friend whom he describes as kind compared to his own unkind.

• No presence of any or-word in the couplet concluding that there are no choices left as the friend has been lost.
• The couplet repeats the rhyme of me and free already used in Q2.
• The sexual punning is concluded with a pun on "hole" in whole.