Sonnet 96: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness

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

With Sonnet 96 William Shakespeare concludes the extraordinary group of sonnets that deal with his young lover's infidelity.

Easing off on the harsh criticism of the young man's behaviour voiced in Sonnet 95, he here brings in a new conciliatory tone which acknowledges that the young man's powers of attracting other people are great and that he could seduce any number of them, but ending on a plea not to do so for the sake of both, and reiterating, for the first time since Sonnet 36, the words 'I love thee', whereby, at first glance perplexingly, it is not only these three words that are repeated here, but the closing couplet in its entirety.