Sonnet 141 is one of several poems in the collection that show William Shakespeare to be deeply ill at ease with his lust and his love for his mistress. 

It may easily be argued that all of the Dark Lady Sonnets come over with a greater or lesser degree of ambiguity, with her appearance, her comportment, her smell, her touch, her sound, and most certainly her fidelity, all having either been brought into question or downright decried.

Sonnet 141 does all of the above, summarising these 'thousand errors' his mistress appears to possess and laying them out as a supposedly sensual feast, the like of which he has no appetite for. Yet he still finds his foolish heart drawn to her, and for this, he concludes, he must suffer the pain that he appears to accept as his – perhaps in a somewhat perverse way – due reward.