Sonnet 95: How Sweet and Lovely Dost Thou Make the Shame

SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived

With his astoundingly forthright Sonnet 95, William Shakespeare admonishes his young lover in the most uncompromising terms yet, and he rounds off his salvo with another stern warning that even someone as privileged and exalted as he can go too far. It forms the culmination of a progression in tone and stance that has been underway since Sonnet 87, from almost mourning the loss of his lover, to pleading for the end, if it is to come, to come soon, to reminding the young man of their union and an apparently declared devotion to each other, to effectively claiming his entitlement to the young man's fidelity, to this: a direct condemnation of his character and conduct.