Sonnet 23 and then his collection of poems to a play. Sonnet 23 is considered an English or Shakespearean Sonnet. It contains 14 iambic pentameter lines. The rhyme scheme is "abab cdcd efef gg". The form consists of three quatrains and a couplet. All of the lines, including the fifth line are examples of iambic pentameter: After the octave (the first two quatrains) there is often a change referred to as a volta. In Sonnet 23 the volta is line nine's suggestion. "For fear of trust" has drawn different, though not necessarily contradictory, glosses. Nicolaus Delius has it "from want of self-confidence,"
Sonnet 118 beginning with the third quatrain. Traditionally the administering of emetics, the trope worked in Sonnet 118, had three purposes: to renew the palate, to forestall the onset of sickness, and to counteract poison. The sonnet also picks up the motif of "palate", "cup", and "poison", left off at the end of Sonnet 114. The first pair of lines describes how "we our pallat urge"; "urge" means to 'intensify' or 'sharpen' the taste, but the word was used also of distillations which are 'urged' to a degree that a compound is yielded. "Appetites" are sharpened or made more acute ("more keen")