to undo the damage Shakespeare has done to his reader's faith that he indeed loves his "dusky mistress." Steele's article offers Stephen Booth's paraphrasing of the couplet: "I think that my love is as rare as any woman belied by false compare." Helen Vendler, who is also referenced in Steele's article states that the final couplet would read; "In all, by heaven, I think my love as rare/ As any she conceived for compare." All three of these authors; Steele, Booth, and Vendler believe that in this couplet, Shakespeare is responding to Petrarchan imagery because other sonneteers actively misrepresent, or "belie" their mistress' beauty. See also Shakespeare's sonnets References Further reading British poems Sonnets by William Shakespeare