Sonnet 71 is the first in a pair of poems which purport to urge the young man to forget the author after his death so as to spare him – the young man – any embarrassment or indeed mockery that having loved or still caring for the then deceased poet might cause him. Both sonnets, but Sonnet 71 in particular, strike an ironic tone, which nevertheless seems founded in an unease on Shakespeare's part about his own reputation and standing in the world. Sonnet 71 thus ushers in a short sequence consisting of this couple of sonnets and the following one, Sonnets 73 & 74, which all concern themselves with William Shakespeare's increasingly strong sense of his mortality and the question of what meaning his life may have in the context of his love for the young man.

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

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