Sonnet 3 form of a Shakespearean sonnet: fourteen decasyllabic, iambic pentameter lines, that form three quatrains and a concluding rhyming couplet. It follows the form's rhyme scheme: "abab cdcd efef gg". Each line of the first quatrain of Sonnet 3 exhibits a final extrametrical syllable or "feminine ending". The first line additionally exhibits an initial reversal: In this sonnet, the poet is urging the 'fair youth' to preserve something of himself and something of the image he sees in the mirror by fathering a child, "Now is the time that face should form another". The message is reiterated in the last lines
Sonnet 16 'sow' it (compare Sonnet 15 where it is used of grafting) so that it can give birth to the youth's "living flowers," self-generated new copies. Interpretation of the sonnet is said to hinge on the third quatrain (lines 9-12), which is generally regarded as obscure. Edmond Malone suggested that "lines of life" refers to children, with a pun on line as bloodline. This reading was accepted by Edward Dowden and others. Also, "repair" can mean to make anew or newly father (re + père), which may be relevant. But as well, "lines of life" can mean the length of life,