Notes for Shakespeare's Sonnet 110


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Shakespeare's
Sonnet
110

2. motley: the clothes of a professional fool; a fool who wears motley.

3. gored: wounded deeply.

4. Made old offences of affections new: transgressed against old friendships by my conduct with new friendships.

5. truth: constancy; fidelity.

6. askance and strangely: obliquely and coldly; sidewise and mistrustfully.

7. blenches: turning of the eyes aside; swerving away (from constancy).

8. worse essays: inferior experiments (in friendship).

10-11. will grind / On newer proof: will sharpen or whet with new experience.

11. try: test.