Sonnet notes 23

Sonnet 110, line 10: “A God in love, to whom I am confin’d”

After having to deny a charge of idolatry in Sonnet 105, it seems odd to find the poet referring to the Young Man as a God five sonnets later. But here it seems to be used metaphorically—the Young Man is the apotheosis of Love and so it is that the poet says he is confin’d to him. Another odd choice of words, but the sense seems clear: he may have gone here and there and sold cheap what is most dear, but his love remains confin’d to the Young Man. Those others were mere blenches (sidetracks), they carried no weight. They meant nothing to him. He is like a straying husband who asks to be welcomed back. But since Sonnet 20 took sex off the table, Sonnet 110 emphasizes that infidelity in love need not be sexual. Betrayal can take many forms; the excuses sound the same.