Sonnet 30 up of fourteen lines in three quatrains and a couplet, rhyming "abab cdcd efef gg". While using the rhyming and metrical structure of the 'English' or 'Surreyan' sonnet, Shakespeare often also reflected the rhetorical form of the Italian form also known as the Petrarchan sonnet. It divides the sonnet into two parts: the "octet" (the first eight lines) usually states and develops the subject, while the "sestet" (the last six lines) winds up to a climax. Thus a change in emphasis, known as the "volta", occurs between the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth lines —
Sonnet 99 appears as one syllable (in lines 7, 10, and 15). Line 13's "eate" equals modern past tense "ate". As to its fifteen lines, sonnet structure has never been absolutely fixed, and Sidney Lee adduces many examples of fifteen line sonnets. An extra line is particularly common in linked sonnets, and this sonnet is linked to 98; Malone ended 98 with a colon to demonstrate the connection. However, other scholars have remarked on the clumsiness of the first line and suggested that the quarto text represents an unrevised draft that found its way into print. Edward Massey and others asserted that