Sonnet 28 phrase in Sonnet 28 "to please him" refers to one of the torturers, but for a moment the reader has had planted in his thoughts an image of the fair youth as a flattery-craving tyrant. Sonnet 28 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. It consists of 14 lines arranged by the rhyme scheme to form three quatrains (lines 1–12) and a couplet (lines 13–14). The rhyme scheme is: abab cdcd efef gg. It is written in iambic pentameter, a metre based on five feet in each line, with each foot containing two syllables accented weak/strong: The two lines of the
Sonnet 41 that the loss of his mistress did not hurt him badly, because he did not love her, trying not to blame the youth but blaming him still. Sonnet 41 continues the saga with desperate attempts to excuse the youth's behavior, eventually admitting his hurt. In the last of the three (42) the speaker continues his trend of self-deception exemplified in sonnet 41. There are many allusions and textual references in this sonnet taken from other Shakespeare works. They have been helpful in understanding the context and creating our "modern" interpretation of the sonnet. Sonnet 41, lines 5-8: <poem> "Gentle thou