Hughes, William Hammond, William Hathaway. It is perfectly evident that Shakespeare must have had many friends whose very names, to say nothing of initials, Time has effaced. All that can be said with certainty of the hero of these sonnets is that he was a youth of better birth and fortune than Shakespeare and that his encouragement and friendship, at a certain period in the poet's career, won Shakespeare's praise and devotion. In his gratitude, Shakespeare, as he said, built in these sonnets an enduring monument; unfortunately for us T. T. wrote its inscription. The best short account of this whole controversy is found in Alden's variorum edition of the sonnets, pp. 464–471, prepared by Frank E. Hill.
13. T. T. Thomas Thorpe. Lee describes him as a stationer's assistant, 'holding his own with difficulty for some thirty years in the lowest ranks of the London publishing trade. He merely traded in the "copy" which he procured how he could.' See also R. B. McKerrow, Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers, p. 265 f.
Sonnets
1. These first seventeen sonnets are addressed to a beautiful youth whose identity is still a subject of conjecture. They urge him by flattery, expostulation, and argument to marry and perpetuate his beauty in a child.
1. 6. Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel. Like a candle, you feed your flame by burning your own substance; or, you feed your eyes (light's flame) on the sight of yourself—you see only yourself.
1. 11. content. In this line, this word may also mean 'your whole being.'
1. 13, 14. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. This may
