Endnotes
-
In the first printing of this sonnet in 1609, the printer here repeats “My sinful earth” instead of “Why feed’st.” This is considered to be an error, as the repetition of the last words in the previous line—a common type of typesetting oversight called an “eye skip error”—breaks the sonnet’s meter. Shakespeare’s original intent has been lost, and modern scholars have a variety of theories on what it might have been. Since the word “feed” is used in the following lines, scholars have proposed “Why feed’st” as a possible correction. Other guesses made by scholars include “Thrall to,” “Fool’d by,” “Hemm’d by,” “Foil’d by,” “Fenced by,” “Flatt’ring,” “Spoiled by,” “Lord of,” and “Pressed by.” —Alex Cabal ↩