Theme:      Soul
Content:    A magnificent, complex sonnet that centres on the battle between the soul's earthly indulgences or after-life survival.

• The Quarto reading of line 2, "My sinfull earth these rebbell powres that thee array'' is evidently corrupt, the compositor probably being responsible for the repetition of "My sinfull earth" from the preceding line. Various suggestions have been made as to what should begin this line including:
• “Thrall to...” by analogy with The Rape of Lucrece, lines 722-28: "She says her subjects with foul insurrection Have battered down her consecrated wall, And by their mortal fault brought in subjection Her immortality, and made her thrall To living death and pain perpetual, Which in her prescience she controlled still, But her foresight could not forestall their will."
• “Fool'd by...”
• “Lord of...”
• “Press'd by...”
• “Why feed'st...”
• “Feeding...”, which seems the most likely given the variant references elsewhere to feeding.
• The author has the debilitating dichotomy of feeling inner pain whilst wanting or needing to maintain outward appearances.
• Biblical allusion in those on earth being sinners.
• Play on "pain" in both his inward pineing and his outward Painting.
• Suggestion of him experiencing inner death alluded to in dearth.
• There is a heavy emphasis on the internalising of thought and feelings in this sonnet as portrayed by the many in words: sinful, pine, within, Painting, having, fading, inheritors, pine, divine, in, selling, Within, dying.
• The external view of the author is also referenced though by words such as outward and without.
• soul is explicitly referenced throughout this sonnet and is also alluded to here via assonance in so.

• soul is phonetically alluded to in so large and via assonance in so.
• The author can rationalise the time and effort he wastes on his ageing outward appearance (metaphorically represented by fading mansion with mansion possibly alluding also to man) but cannot stop himself.
• As in previous sonnets there is no Christian after-life in Shakespeare's sonnets. He sees his destiny as death and the dreaded worms who ultimately have the last feed.
• The outward dimension of the author is alluded to in excess.
• sin is alluded to in worms in.
• If Feeding is the correct missing word in line 2 then it is now morphed to fading.

• soul again explicitly referenced and alluded to in reverse in loss and via assonance in selling.
• Further play on "pain" in pine.
• The allusions to death may be echoed by the suggestion of "grave" in aggravate.
• Redemption may be at hand though in Buy terms divine by tolerating the earthly dross.
• His outward appearance may be fading but his internal soul can still benefit from feeding the rebel powers (sensual desire).
• fading now morphs to fed.

• soul is partially represented again in So but no full explicit reference is present as it is dying, is subsequently swamped by death and will not survive.
• fed now morphs to feed and feeds.
• Then sandwiches Q3 and the couplet.