Sonnet 146
See the ‘My sinful earth’ bit at the end of the first line repeated at the start of the second?
Some editors replace the repeated words with dots like this: [...].
Wikipedia talks about it here.
I remember being amazed when I found out about this: I had read the sonnet many time without realising there was any problem. I also began to realise how much of an invisible influence editors had been having on Shakespeare, without me realising. I started wanted to get back to the source material.
If I was forced to guess, I would imagine that the second line was supposed to start with an ‘M’. That way the compositors eye could easily wander to the wrong place.
