Theme:     Floral analogy
Content:   A memorable sonnet developing the Lily and Rose imagery from 98. Diminished by the probability that its material is strongly copied from Constable’s original, though curiously (and uniquely) containing 15 lines (line 1 being the extra one). Perhaps the 15 lines combined with this sonnet's number of 99, yields the sonnet's year of composition that the author wished to signal for some now-lost reason: 1599. It may have been one of the versions of sonnets destined for (but not eventually printed in) The Passionate Pilgrim, published notably in 1599. The subject is defined as the source of the fragrance and complexion of flowers. Shakespeare goes on to parody himself (and others) on this in 130.

• Chiding the bold violet for stealing its fragrance from another.
• Beautifully introduces his subject as the victim of the alleged theft by comparing their breath with the fragrance of the violet.
• Extends the metaphor by correlating the flower’s complexion with that of the subject.
• Further extends the floral metaphor in line 6 but now the author addresses the subject rather than the flowers.
• Heavy s alliteration.
• Assonance between marjoram and stol’n.
• Possible pun on vanity in veins.
• The Quarto has dyed spelled as died, suggesting in its rhyme that pride dies.
• Other poems in the series tell the subject that they have a temporary lease on beauty; here the flowers have stolen these features outright, never to be returned.

• Repeat of the breath theft from Q1 perhaps diminishes the sonnet’s quality a little but sets up the rhyme with death.
• The third rose commits a triple robbery: two colours and fragrance.
• The Quarto spells One as Our, presumably a compositor’s hash-up.

• The eventual demise of the flower by canker for the robbery of the subject’s qualities.
• The red and white roses live on in shame and fear for committing a single offence but the variegated rose dies for committing the triple offence of stealing both the subject’s colours and, paradoxically, the subject’s life-giving breath: a kind of Shakespearean “3 strikes and you’re out” rule.
• Eye-rhyme of eat in death.
• Pride is associated with the thieving variegated rose as it was with the violet in Q1.
• There may be a specious message for the subject here that pride comes before a fall. The criticism of the flowers’ complexion and fragrance could be directed at their act of theft but also at the ostentatious pride with which they display it, something the subject may also be guilty of.

• Natural conclusion to the theme of the sonnet with stolen or steal appearing in every quatrain of the sonnet as in the couplet.
• Apparently, no other flowers but these have stolen from the subject.
• The Quarto spells colour as culler, possibly a pun on the various meanings of cull: to gather flowers; to choose the best of; to kill.