Sonnet 135

The Dark Lady: Desire

Notes

TLN 1876wordplay
“thou hast thy 'Will,' And 'Will' to boot”
'Will' carries three meanings simultaneously throughout this sonnet: (1) the speaker's own name, William; (2) sexual desire or appetite; (3) a legal will or testament. Shakespeare signals the name-sense by capitalizing the word; the poem stacks all three meanings at once, making the argument also a running pun. The word appears thirteen times in fourteen lines.
historical The Fair Youth, the Dark Lady, and the Rival Poet
TLN 1877archaic vocab
“'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus”
'To boot' means in addition, on top of that — a bonus beyond the main amount. 'Over-plus' (also spelled 'overplus') means surplus, more than enough. The line says the mistress already has 'Will' and then some: still more on top of that. The two terms together pile up the sense of excess, setting up the sea-and-rain argument that follows.