Theme:      Unworthy Love
Content:    A superficially simple sonnet that reveals great complexity and meaning once the central theme of the author's mistress being a whore is established.

• O (being a regular pun by Shakespeare on female genitalia) foregrounds the sexual nature of this sonnet.
• power contains an almost complete anagram of "whore" alluding to the power that such a person sways over the author.
• swear may also allude to "whore", more so in the Quarto spelling: swere.
• To make me give the lie to my true sight alludes again to the Dark Lady whom the author sees as beautiful but others do not.

• this becoming of things ill indicates the subject is again the Dark Lady who is "not counted fair" by others.
• thy deeds refers to what the mistress does that causes others to think less of her. What it is she does is most revealed in the next quatrain.
• skill alludes to the woman's proficiency in her occupation which causes the author to regard her worst as better than others' best: she is expert in the world's oldest profession.
• worst again alludes to "whore" as does warrantise and Whence.

• thee more is immediately followed by the different but phonetically identical The more.
• The emphasis on the word more in the first two lines may be alluding to the woman's complexion, or even her name. In this Dark Lady sonnet it may be a pun on the word moor, as per Othello the moor, referring to a person with dark skin. Also, some commentators believe the dark lady was Luce Morgan so the more word may allude to Morgan.
  
• This quatrain strongly alludes to the Dark Lady being a prostitute, as has been alluded to in other sonnets.
• The word abhor puns on the word "whore" and in line 11 appeals for the mistress not to whore with others because he loves her.
• In line 12 the second abhor again puns on "whore" and appeals for her not to reduce his status with her whoring.
• Who again alludes to "whore", as might how.
• The first line of this quatrain in fact starts with Who and ends with re reaffirming the quatrain being literally enveloped by the word Whore.
• The last line in this quatrain also has the word Whore running right through it: With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.
• The central issue of "whoring" is further reinforced via assonance by more giving every line a phonetic beat driving home the issue: "more...more...abhor...abhor".
• hear also alludes to "whore".
• though contains an allusion to "whore" (hough)
• others contains an anagram of "hore" which again alludes to the woman's whoring.
• O intensifies the sexual nature of this quatrain as in Q1.

• The worst of Q2 and the references to whoring in Q3 now morph to unworthiness and worthy in the couplet, both containing anagrams of "whore" as well as assonance with whore via wor.
• The mistress's unworthiness makes the author worthy as though the original worth of the woman transfers to the author as she degrades herself through whoring, in effect the author needs the woman.
• raised love describes graphic sexual arousal in the author as well as romance.