that a more productive focus of attention might be on the literary society of the time—which may have included small literary associations or academies, and for one of these, the sonnets perhaps were composed. The popular themes would have included the Renaissance philosophy of platonic ideas of Truth and Beauty and Love and the relationship of each to the others. Within Elizabethan national culture and society In Shakespeare's time, the word 'pencil,' means paintbrush, though it can also mean style, or level of skill in painting, or "an agent or medium which brushes, delineates, or colors."(OED 1) Dundas describes the fascination of the English Renaissance poets with painting. Sonnet 24 uses the painter and painting as the extended conceit, pointing out the limits of the painter to capture the accurate image of beauty, and even then that the visual image may show no knowledge of the inward beauty of the heart. Sonnet 101 builds on that philosophy, that neither the painter nor the poet can ever accurately reflect the truth of the loved one's beauty so why not remain silent. Martz extends the discussion by suggesting that the work of Sidney and Shakespeare is analogous to the transition from High Renaissance to Mannerist styles in that they may refer to the ideals of harmonious composition, but focus on the tensions, instabilities and anxieties and (in Shakespeare) darker moods in the images of the subjects depicted in their art. If, however "dyed" (defined as to tinge with color, (OED 1) as of textiles and clothing) as the key metaphor, then the concepts, values and motivations behind the English sumptuary laws become of plausible relevance. Indeed, a more direct reference to the dyer's profession is given in Sonnet 111, "And almost thence my nature is subdued / to what it works in, like the dyer's hand[.]" Here in Sonnet 101 as in others in the sequence Shakespeare can be seen as making reference to the "anxiety about the emulation of betters" that drove the regulation of apparel and its coloring. Exegesis Quatrain 1 In the preceding Sonnet 100, the poet literally asks, "Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long / to speak of that which gives thee all thy might?" (Sonnet 100, 1-2), and then implores, "Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem" (Sonnet 100, 5) itself/the poet, by inspiring him his pen with "both skill and argument," (Sonnet 100, 8).