257

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
1564-1616

FROM SONNETS

To the Only Begetter of

These Ensuing Sonnets
MR. W. H. All Happiness
and That Eternity
Promised
By
Our Ever-Living Poet
Wisheth
the Well-Wishing
Adventurer in
Setting Forth
T.T.1

1
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender 0 heir might bear his memory; young
5 But thou, contracted 2 to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial 3 fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
10 And only 0 herald to the gaudy spring, principal; solitary
Within thine own bud buriest thy content, 4
And, tender churl, s mak'st waste in niggarding. 0 hoarding
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

1. Much critical debate focuses on this dedication
and its first set of initials (the second set refers to
the publisher, Thomas Thorpe). "Mr. W. H." may
be William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, or Henry
Wriothesley, earl of Southampton; the former is a
dedicatee of the volume of Shakespeare's plays
known as the First Folio, while the latter is the
dedicatee of Shakespeare's narrative poems Venus
and Adonis and Lucrece. Patrons were often flat-
teringly depicted as "begetters" of poems, and it is
therefore tempting to see an association between
"Mr. W. H." and the beloved young man addressed
in many of Shakespeare's sonnets, especially
because the first seventeen poems in the sequence
stress the young man's need to marry and beget
heirs. No clear evidence, however, identifies a spe-
cific historical person either with the young man
addressed in the sonnets or with the "Dark Lady"
evoked as the third member of the erotic triangle
Shakespeare dramatizes in these poems.
The sonnets evidently circulated in manuscript
for some years before they were first published as
a group in 1609 (a few appeared separately in
anthologies). The ordering of the 154 poems in the
1609 Quarto may or may not reflect authorial
design.
2. Betrothed; also implying withdrawn into,
shrunken (not increased).
3. Of your own (unique) substance.
4. What contents you (marriage and fatherhood)
and also what you contain (potential for father-
hood).
5. Gentle boor.
258 / WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud 0 livery,0 so gazed on now, splendid I clothing
Will be a tottered 0 weed 0 of small worth held. tattered I garment
Then being asked where all thy beauty lies—
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days—
To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an all-eating shame 6 and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use, 7
If thou couldst answer, "This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse" 8 —
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

Look in thy glass 0 and tell the face thou viewest,

Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair 0 if now thou not renewest, condition
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared 9 womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond° will be the tomb foolish
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live rememb'red not to be,
Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

12

When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave 0 day sunk in hideous night; resplendent
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst 0 from heat did canopy the herd, formerly
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier 1 with white and bristly beard,

6. A total disgrace; also, an offense in which the my old age.

beauty of youth has been devoured. 9. Immature; also, unplowed.
7. Investment for profit; also, sexual use. 1. A frame for carrying harvested grain; also, a
8. Shall complete my account and justify me in stand on which a corpse is carried to the grave.
260 / W I L L I A M SHAKESPEARE

20
A woman's face, with nature's own hand painted, 2
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion—
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false 0 women's fashion; deceitful; artificial
5 An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, 0 roving
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue all hues in his controlling, 3
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created,
10 Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,° crazy; infatuated
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure. 4

29
When, in disgrace 0 with fortune and men's eyes, disfavor
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless 0 cries, futile
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
5 Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured 0 like him, like him 5 with friends formed; handsome
possessed,
Desiring this man's art° and that man's scope, 6 skHl
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
10 Haply I think on thee—and then my state, 7
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

2. I.e., not made up with cosmetics.
3. "Controlling" works as a noun and as an adjec-
tive, depending on how one interprets "hue" (form,
complexion, color, and apparition are the main
possibilities). The line has been paraphrased in
many ways, among them: "a man in form, all forms,
i.e., all people, are subject to his power"; "a man
in complexion, he has control over all other com-
plexions, i.e., he causes people to grow pale or
blush"; "a man in appearance, he can present any
appearance he chooses."
4. Interest (as in usury), sexual enjoyment. Mod-
ern editors usually punctuate this line with a
comma after "love," but some recent critics argue
instead for a comma after "use"; we follow the
1609 Quarto in not punctuating the line internally,
thereby allowing for more than one interpretation
of the final couplet.
5. The "him"s here refer to two different men.
6. Freedom, range of ability.
7. Condition, state of mind (setting up the pun in
line 14, where it also means chair of state, throne).
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

SIXTIETH SONNET

LIKE as the waves make towards the pebbled shore

So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time, that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow;
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet, to times in hope, my verse shall stand
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

SIXTY-FOURTH SONNET
WHEN I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
And brass eternal, slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate—
That Time will come and take my Love away:
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

SIXTY-FIFTH SONNET
SINCE brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
 S O N N E T S : 73 / 263

65
Since brass, nor 4 stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage° shall beauty hold a plea, destructive power
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
5 O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wrackfuP siege of batt'ring days, destructive
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack, 0 alas
10 Shall time's best jewel from time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty 5 can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

71
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 6
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
5 Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
Oh, if, I say, you look upon this verse
10 When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs," where late the sweet birds sang.
5 In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,

4. I.e., since there is neither brass nor. member, one stroke for each year he or she had
5. Ravaging of beauty; the Quarto has "or" for "of," lived.
and some modern editors follow that reading. 7. Parts of churches occupied by singers or clergy.
6. The bell rang to announce the death of a parish
 S O N N E T S : 73 / 263

65
Since brass, nor 4 stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage° shall beauty hold a plea, destructive power
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
5 O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wrackfuP siege of batt'ring days, destructive
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack, 0 alas
10 Shall time's best jewel from time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty 5 can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

71
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 6
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
5 Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
Oh, if, I say, you look upon this verse
10 When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs," where late the sweet birds sang.
5 In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,

4. I.e., since there is neither brass nor. member, one stroke for each year he or she had
5. Ravaging of beauty; the Quarto has "or" for "of," lived.
and some modern editors follow that reading. 7. Parts of churches occupied by singers or clergy.
6. The bell rang to announce the death of a parish
264 / WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
10 That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

76
Why is my verse so barren of new pride, 0 adornment
8
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds 9 strange?
5 Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted 0 weed, 0 familiar I clothing
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their, 0 birth, and where they did proceed? the words'
O know, sweet love, I always write of you,
10 And you and love are still my argument. 0 theme
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.

87
Farewell, thou art too dear 1 for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate. 0 value
The charter 0 of thy worth gives thee releasing; privilege; deed
My bonds in thee are all determinate. 0 expired
5 For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent 0 back again is swerving. title
Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
10 Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision 0 growing, error, oversight
Comes home again, on better judgement making. 2
Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter: 3
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

8. Facile innovation; modishness. 1. Precious (i.e., beloved), costly, grievous.

9. Mixture, compound words, literary composi- 2. I.e., on your making a better judgment,
tions. 3. As in a flattering dream.
 S O N N E T S : 130 / 267

126 3
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy pow'r
Dost hold time's fickle glass his sickle hour, 4
Who hast by waning grown, 5 and therein 0 show'st in contrast
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st—
If nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, 0 destruction, ruin
As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace, and wretched minute kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion 6 of her pleasure;
She may detain but not still 0 keep her treasure. always, forever
0
Her audit, though delayed, answered must be, final accounting
And her quietus 0 is to render 0 thee. settlement I surrender

129
Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; 7 and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, 0 cruel, not to trust; brutal
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight:
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof,0 and proved, a very woe; the experience
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; 0 dull grayish brown
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
5 I have seen roses damasked, 0 red and white, variegated
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight

3. An envoy of six couplets, this "sonnet" ends the
part of Shakespeare's sequence that seems ad-
dressed to a young man.
4. Hourglass. Glass: mirror, presumably in which
the viewer can see time's ravaging of beauty.
Sickle: scythe, here in adjectival sense, cutting.
5. Grown more beautiful over time.
6. Darling, favorite, plaything, servile follower,
7. I.e., lust, when put into action, is an expendi-
ture of "spirit" (life, vigor, also semen) in a waste
(desert, with a play on the crotch, or "waist," of
shame).
268 / WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;° ilk
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she° belied with false compare.

135
Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,8
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus;
More than enough am I that vex thee still, 0 always
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe 0 to hide my will in thine? consent
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in° my will no fair acceptance shine? in the case of
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his 0 store; 0 its I reserves
So thou being rich in Will add to thy Will
One will of mine, to make thy large Will more.
Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;9
Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

138
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies, 1
That 0 she might think me some untutored youth, that
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best, 2
Simply 0 I credit her false-speaking tongue: like a simpleton
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust? 3
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
Oh, love's best habit 0 is in seeming trust, clothes; custom
And age in love loves not to have years told. 0 counted
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

8. Here, the word can refer to wishes, carnal
desire, male and female sexual organs, and a lover
named Will (Shakespeare?). Three, possibly four,
sonnets pun on "will"; we follow the 1609 Quarto's
way of printing the word.
9. Do not kill any of your suitors with unkindness.
1. Does not tell the truth, with a pun on "lies" with
men.
2. When this sonnet was first published, in the
anthology The Passionate Pilgrim (1599), Shake-
speare was thirty-five.
3. I.e., why does she not say that she is unfaithful?