experienced readers of the sequence, as it is followed by a far more striking sonnet, 94, and such readers might always be tempted to turn to the utterly unformulaic sonnet that follows. Structure Sonnet 93 is notionally an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. However, in terms of its syntactical units, sonnet 93 breaks down into 6 lines, another 6, then the closing couplet. It still follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 5th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter: × / × / × / × / × / For there can live no hatred in thine eye, (93.5) / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus. The meter demands a few variant pronunciations: line 2's "deceivèd" has three syllables, and line 9's "heaven" functions as one. Notes References British poems Sonnets by William Shakespeare