Theme:      Rival Poet
Content:    A further flattering account of his Rival's poetic abilities that progressively diminishes the Rival's standing and ultimately holds the subject to account for the predicament.

• A return to the shipping analogy of 80 to describe his Rival.
• Pointedly describes the birthplace of his thoughts as now being their tomb. His thoughts have fully matured and ripened but are unborn.
• Further identifies a single Rival: consistent with 2 poets competing for a patron; incompatible with the subject being the sovereign.
• Mid-line alliteration of proud and prize connects the Rival to the subject.
• Possible pun on a ship's prow in proud.
• A quatrain aggrandising the Rival and belittling himself and separately identifying the Rival, Subject, Author and Author's Poetry in the first 4 lines, respectively: his…you…my…they.

• Contrasts the author's own mortal, human qualities with his Rival's apparent supernatural capabilities that have vanquished him. Finality in this account: the author has been metaphorically killed off.
• Reference yet again to spirit, as per 80 & 85, may again allude to George Chapman as the Rival who claimed the spirit of Homer directly inspired him. The references in this sonnet are central to the Rival's talents making that possibility much stronger.
• Chapman dedicated several of his works to the Earl of Essex, e.g. "Achilles Shield", whom Shakespeare strongly appears to have had sympathies for.
• Curiously, perhaps in an allusion to Shakespeare, in Chapman's dedicatory sonnet to Sir Thomas Walsingham he describes his own "All Fools" comedy as the "least allow'd birth of my shaken brain".
• Chapman makes several spiritual and maritime allusions in his own works that closely resemble the imagery in this sonnet, e.g. The Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron Act 3, Scene 1: "Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea Loves t' have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind."

• After 2 earlier questions, an emphatic rejection that neither his Rival's nor his Rival's apparent spiritual aids actually impress him.
• Now diminishes the Rival's status as a poet who needs external assistance to be a Rival.
• Recovery of the author's ego and greater clarity in the author's thinking.
• Reduction of subject matter in this quatrain to just the Rival and Author: his…me…he…my.

• Demeans the Rival by now saying the Rival is fooled by the influence of the spirit, which has now become a simple ghost.
• Pun on gull: meaning "to fool" and "an unfledged bird" linking back to the "added feathers to the learned's wing" of 78.
• Makes the Rival a lesser adversary in his own right/write by teaming the Rival with an apparent spirit/ghost.
• Consolidation of the subject matter in this quatrain to just the Rival and Author: He…him…my…I.
• Further emphatic rejection that his Rival didn't silence him.

• After all the questions, the author now explains that his silence was due to the simple fact that his Rival wrote about his subject.
• It is not the Rival who is to blame, it is the subject allowing the Rival that is mortifying.
• Resolution of the 4 components of the sonnet in the final couplet: your…his, line…I/mine.
• The whole sonnet is very retrospective in view: all commentary is in the past tense as though it is an explanation or apology for events that have long gone. The only present tense is the Which nightly gulls him with intelligence signifying that the Rival is still active in this task.