Sonnet 129 is a typical Shakespearean sonnet in form, written in iambic pentameter with twelve lines rhymed abab, cdcd, efef, and a closing couplet rhymed gg. Unlike the majority of William Shakespeare’s sonnets, however, it is not addressed to a particular individual but is directed to an audience, as a sermon is.

The first line is the only one that presents any difficulty in interpretation. Shakespeare sometimes compressed a large meaning into few words, creating an impressionistic effect. Although this opening line appears a bit garbled, it is easy enough to understand and well suited to the mood of the poem. It creates the impression of a mind overwhelmed by a whirlwind of bitter reflections.

He is obviously talking about sexual lust. The first line states that lust is shameful and spiritually debilitating. The rest of the poem simply expands upon this idea. The torrent of adjectives and short descriptive phrases that follows suggests the different ways in which sexual lust can lead to tragic outcomes. The reader may evoke specific illustrations from personal experience or from the world’s literature which, from the Bible and Greek mythology to modern novels such as Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), is full of warnings against lust.

Each word or phrase in the opening lines suggests different scenarios. For example, the word “perjur’d” suggests the lies men tell women, the most common being...