Theme:      Fallibility
Content:    A defence of the subject by the author who is the victim of the subject's betrayal.

• Although the subject is told not to grieve for what he has done, none of the similes assign culpability to the simile subjects: the roses' thorns, the fountains' mud, the moon & sun's clouds & eclipses, and the bud's canker are all distinct from the simile subjects and not their failing.
• The reference to Roses may be a pun on the subject's name who may have been Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton.
• The similes assign beauty and scent (rose), silver (fountains), heavenly stature (moon & sun) and sweetness (bud) to the subject.
• th and t links items that are the cause of badness: thorns, stain, and loathsome.

• The author joins in the subject's guilt by accusing himself of fault, corruption, and Excusing beyond the sin.
• Authorising continues the th alliteration accompanied by t words that do the same: faults, trespass, corrupting,

• The author offers reason to explain the subject's offence which is for the author, the subject's adversary, to plead in the subject's favour against himself.
• Fault is now assigned directly to the subject instead of to men in general.
• Counterpoint between the subject's sensuality and the author's sense.
• The author pleads love for the subject and hate of himself, identifying himself as the metaphorical thorn, mud, cloud, and canker of Q1.
• t alliteration continues: fault and hate.
• Mid-line rhyme of law with war.

• The author offers to be an accomplice to the thief that robbed him of his subject, out of need.
• The sweet quality originally assigned to the subject is now transferred to the thief.
• Counterpoint between the sweet thief that acted sourly.
• The reference to robs may be a pun on the subject's name who may have been Robert Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.