invariably summarises the general intention of
the preceding twelve lines. The concluding couplets of these two sonnets
cxxxv.-vi., in which Shakespeare has been alleged to acknowledge a rival
of his own name in his suit for a lady's favour, are consequently the
touchstone by which the theory of 'more Wills than one' must be tested.
As we have just seen, the situation is summarily embodied in the first
couplet thus:

Let no unkind no fair beseechers kill;
Think all but one, and me in that one--Will.

It is re-embodied in the second couplet thus:

Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
And then thou lovest me--for my name is Will.

The whole significance of both couplets resides in the twice-repeated
fact that one, and only one, of the lady's lovers is named Will, and that
that one is the writer. To assume that the poet had a rival of his own
name is to denude both couplets of all point. 'Will,' we have learned
from the earlier lines of both sonnets, is the lady's ruling passion.
Punning mock-logic brings the poet in either sonnet to the ultimate
conclusion that one of her lovers may, above all others, reasonably claim
her love on the ground that his name of Will is the name of her ruling
passion. Thus his pretension to her affections rests, he punningly
assures her, on a strictly logical basis.

Sonnet cxxxiv. Meaning of Sonnet cxliii.

Unreasonable as any other interpretation of these sonnets (cxxxv.-vi.)
seems to be, I believe it far more fatuous to seek in the single and
isolated use of the word 'will' in each of the sonnets cxxxiv. and
cxliii. any confirmation of the theory of a rival suitor named Will.

Sonnet cxxxiv. runs:

So now I have confess'd that he is thine,
And I myself am mortgaged to thy will. {425}
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still.
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous and he is kind.
He learn'd but surety-like to write for me,
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use,
And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me;
He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

Here the poet describes himself as 'mortgaged to the lady's will' (_i.e._
to her personality, in wh