In his astonishingly frank Sonnet 133 William Shakespeare attempts to come to terms with the fact that his young lover is also having an affair with his mistress. The sonnet in one fell swoop answers two principal questions: first, what 'black deeds' of his Dark Lady's he may be referring to in the closing couplet of Sonnet 131, and second, who the woman might be that appears in the crisis which besets his relationship with the young man between Sonnets 33 and 42. And while there is of course no external, cast-iron proof that these sonnets do constellate to form a coherent picture, Sonnet 133 is in fact only the first of several sonnets to strongly suggest they do. What it leaves no doubt about, and what subsequent sonnets will make even more explicitly clear, is that William Shakespeare is for the second time in the collection talking about a relationship that has turned triangular.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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