Analysis of Sonnet 154The little god of love that once lay asleep, Laid his heart-inflaming mark by his side, While many a nymph who swore to keep a life caste they came stumbling; but in her virginal hand the most beautiful devotee took that fire which many legions of sincere hearts had warmed, and thus the general of ardent desire slept disarmed by a virgin hand. She extinguished this brand in a cool well near, which from Love the fire took perpetual heat, creating a bath and a healing remedy for sick men. But I, the slave of my mistress, came there to be cured; and thereby I demonstrate: The fire of love heats water, water does not cool love. This sonnet appears to be another version of 153 rather than one of a series. These two sonnets, two interpretations of the same ideas, could prove or disprove Shakespeare's authorship. Only twice did Shakespeare rewrite any of his sonnets, both 138 and 144 appearing slightly changed in _The Passionate Pilgrim_. These are evidence of Shakespeare's rewrites, but the only problem is that if one wants to prove authorship on these grounds, excessive revision remains a factor; that is, Shakespeare rewrote the two sonnets by changing only a few words and not the entire sonnet. These seem to be the problems in citing Shakespeare as an author, but at the same time disproving him as an author. If I were to argue Shakespeare's authorship, I would correlate "the bath's help" with the allusion to "The Wife of the Bath's Tale" in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Shakespeare used Chaucer as a source in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ (from "The King's Tale" and "The Miller's Tale"), _Troilus and Cressida_ (from _Troilus and Criseyde) and _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ (from "The Tale of the knight"). Since Shakespeare once used Chaucer as a reference for help, I suppose that "bath help" could be an homage to Chaucer and therefore a possible source or allusion. But this remains on tenuous grounds due to the possibility that it simply means a basin full of water.