classic theatre

A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

#9

Synopsis:

The poet argues that if the young man refuses to marry for fear of someday leaving behind a grieving widow, he is ignoring the worldwide grief that will be caused if he dies single, leaving behind no heir to his beauty.

Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye

That thou consum’st thyself in single life?

Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;

The world will be thy widow and still weep

That thou no form of thee hast left behind,

When every private widow well may keep,

By children’s eyes, her husband’s shape in mind.

Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend

Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;

But beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,

And, kept unused, the user so destroys it.

 No love toward others in that bosom sits

 That on himself such murd’rous shame commits.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

#8

Synopsis:

The poet observes the young man listening to music without pleasure, and suggests that the young man hears in the harmony produced by the instrument’s individual but conjoined strings an accusation about his refusing to play his part in the concord of “sire and child and happy mother.”

Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,

Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,

By unions married, do offend thine ear,

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,

Resembling sire and child and happy mother

Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing;

 Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

 Sings this to thee: “Thou single wilt prove none.”

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

#7

Synopsis:

This sonnet traces the path of the sun across the sky, noting that mortals gaze in admiration at the rising and the noonday sun. When the sun begins to set, says the poet, it is no longer an attraction. Such is the path that the young man’s life will follow—a blaze of glory followed by descent into obscurity—unless he begets a son.

Lo, in the orient when the gracious light

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

Serving with looks his sacred majesty;

And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,

Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

Attending on his golden pilgrimage.

But when from highmost pitch with weary car

Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,

The eyes, ’fore duteous, now converted are

From his low tract and look another way.

 So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon,

 Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

#5

Synopsis:

In this first of two linked sonnets, the poet compares the young man to summer and its flowers, doomed to be destroyed by winter. Even though summer inevitably dies, he argues, its flowers can be distilled into perfume. The beauty of the flowers and thereby the essence of summer are thus preserved.

Those hours that with gentle work did frame

The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell

Will play the tyrants to the very same

And that unfair which fairly doth excel;

For never-resting time leads summer on

To hideous winter and confounds him there,

Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,

Beauty o’er-snowed and bareness everywhere.

Then, were not summer’s distillation left

A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,

Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,

Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.

 But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,

 Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)

A Sonnet (or short poem) from a collection written by William Shakespeare, published in 1609. 

#4

Synopsis:

The poet returns to the idea of beauty as treasure that should be invested for profit. Here, the young man’s refusal to beget a child is likened to his spending inherited wealth on himself rather than investing it or sharing it generously.

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?

Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,

And being frank, she lends to those are free.

Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

The bounteous largess given thee to give?

Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?

For, having traffic with thyself alone,

Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.

Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,

What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

 Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,

 Which usèd lives th’ executor to be.

(Project Gutenberg, Public Domain)