Sonnet 100
# Sonnet 100

Sonnet 100 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

## Structure

Sonnet 100 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 5th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

    / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus.

The 3rd line exhibits a common metrical variant, the initial reversal, which is also present in lines 4, 7, and potentially 9:

The 13th line generates a somewhat complex rhythm, incorporating an initial and a mid-line reversal, as well as two non-ictic stresses ("love" and "wastes"):

