Sonnets XL-XLIII suggest that the friend has drawn away the poet's mistress.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty.
Such are
The pretty wrongs that liberty commits.
The suffering poet appears to bear no malice, it must be admitted. Thenceforward there are regrets for the absence of the friend, beautiful reflections, promises of immortality in verse, till (LXVII) the poet hears that the friend keeps bad company, and though (LXX) this may be an envious slander, the poet has his doubts. In LXVIII-XCIII the poet feels that the patron is preferring other minstrels, and one of these he applauds for
the proud full sail of his great verse.
This singer is inspired by
that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence.[8]
Here are personal allusions to some facts, or jests, which we cannot hope to discover: the rival poet has been guessed at as Barnabe Barnes ("Parthenope and Parthenophil," 1593), who certainly wrote a sonnet on the inspiration of Southampton's eyes. Others think that George Chapman, the translator of Homer, is the rival whom Shakespeare writes of admiringly. In XCV-XCVI the poet recurs to the stories which "spot the beauty of thy budding name". In CIV he has loved his friend for three years,