No more be griev’d at that which thou hast done: Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud; Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

481214 William Shakespeare's Sonnet 35 is part of the Fair Youth sequence, commonly agreed to be addressed to a young man; more narrowly, it is part of a sequence running from 33 to 42, in which the speaker considers a sin committed against him by the young man, which the speaker struggles to forgive.

It follows the form's rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is written in a type of metre called iambic pentameter based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions.

It is commonly regarded as exemplary of Shakespeare's skill at evoking ambivalence and at creating complex personae.

He says, "This sonnet is a variation of Shakespeare's habits of damning with fulsome praise and of making flattering accusations.

There are 3 main points to discuss with this issue: the problem of ambiguity in the writing, the possibility of applying an anachronistic view of love and consequently mistaking these sonnets homoerotic, and finally the implications of Shakespeare's life and homosexual tendencies.

Paul Hammond argues the difficulty in pinning down the sexual language lies in the intentional ambiguity.

First, one must keep in mind that in the early modern period the death penalty was still in effect for sodomy, so it was extremely important that writers remain vague to protect their own lives.

Keeping the language ambiguous enabled multiple interpretations of the writings without the danger of being branded as homosexual.

Additionally, "sodomy" and "sodomite" in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have a radically different meaning than modern perceptions.

Hammond states, "The words 'love', 'lover', and 'friend' in the Sonnets have no single or unambiguous meanings, but are continually being redefined, refelt, reimagined.

"[7] Carl D. Atkins argues that readers are misinterpreting the type of love depicted in the sonnets as homosexual.

The sonnets are writing about a pure platonic form of love and modern readers are injecting too much sexual politics into his or her criticism.

Atkins sees the sonnets more as a chronicle of underlying emotions experienced by lovers of all kinds whether it is heterosexual, homosexual or passionate friendship: adoration, longing, jealousy, disappointment, grief, reconciliation, and understanding.

Both men work with the idea that the sonnets are being addressed to a man of high rank and both were considered to be attractive.