This and the following sonnet may refer to the incident described in sonnets 40–42.
35. 8. Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are. Not only the meaning of this line but the correctness of the text itself is a debated question. Q. reads 'their' for 'thy' in both instances; Bullen reads: 'Excusing their sins more than thy sins are.' The present reading is the one most generally adopted. This line and the preceding one may be paraphrased: I am corrupting myself in condoning your fault, for I am so anxious to exculpate you that I offer for you excuses out of all proportion to your sins.
35. 9. sense. Not 'reason' but rather 'the senses, the feelings.' The poet's own feelings urge him to excuse the guilt of his friend.
36. 13, 14. But do not so; I love thee in such sort As thou being mine, mine is thy good report. But do not dishonor yourself (by showing me kindness in the eyes of the world), for my love has so completely taken possession of you that your good name, your honor, belongs to me. (Note that this same couplet occurs at the close of sonnet 96.)
37. 5–7. Apparently the youth Shakespeare praises is better born, richer, and handsomer than the poet; yet these lines do not prove him to be one of the nobility.
39. 13, 14. And that thou teachest how to make one twain, By praising him here who doth hence remain. This may be paraphrased: And because, Absence, you teach me to make of one person two—my friend is away from me and yet I may call him before my memory and seem while praising him to enjoy his presence.
40. There is nothing to prove that the woman of sonnets 40–42 is the 'dark' woman of sonnets 127 ff.
40. 8. By wilful taste of what thyself refusest. Dowden paraphrases this: 'By an unlawful union
