Sonnet 6

Then let not winters wragged hand deface,

In thee thy summer ere thou be distil'd:

Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed.

That use is not forbidden usury.

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

That's for thy selfe to breed an other thee,

Or ten times happier be it ten for one,

Ten times thy selfe were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee,

Then what could deathe doe if thou should'st depart,

Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not selfe-wilde for thou arte much too faire.

To be deaths conquest and make worms thine heire.

Sonnet 5 - Meaning and Commentary

The time that it took to gently create

The beautiful face and eyes that everyone looks at,

That time act pitiless and cruel to that same face,

And unfairly take away your gifts, which you fairly received.

For never stopping time takes summer to its end

Which is ugly winter which destroys it (summer)

Like a tree whose once flowing sap is stopped, and whose vibrant leaves have fallen

All her beauty is covered in snow, and all is barren.

Then if the drops of summer (like rose-water*) were not the most pure parts extracted and kept

Like a prisoner in jail, kept in a cell made of ice (winter frozen)

Beauty's fruit (or result) and beauty itself are deprived

So that neither current beauty nor a memory of it exists.

But flowers purified and kept, though winter comes to whither them,

Lose their appearance, their essential parts still exist.

A seasonal sonnet! Here I am in New York City in September, waiting for that seasonal "click" that Carrie Bradshaw talks about, that I longed for in Los Angeles, and I reach a little couplet of seasonal sonnets. Before I was exiled from Brooklyn, and in the brief time where I knew my misery had just begun, I ran every day in Prospect Park. The winter that I could feel quickly dissipating, was my first and harsh. On one particular day, I was running in the rain, feeling like a trooper when I noticed new daffodils being pelted relentlessly by the falling drops. How little they knew that the pain was their very sustenance. The water falling upon them and ripping their new little petals would be everything to make them strong and survive their little lives.

Anyway. Seasons. I. Love. Them.

"Those hours that with gentle work did frame

The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell

Will play tyrants to the very same

And that unfair which fairly doth excel" (1-4)

Shakespeare opens this seasonally rich sonnet by reminding the subject about the fierceness of time. It took long hours to create his unique beauty. Those same hours will slowly tear that beauty away from him as in Sonnets 2 and 3, reducing his "beauties field" to "deep trenches" (2.2).

Shakespeare calls time a tyrant, a pitiless, cruel, hard, despotic or lawless ruler (here I am combining both definitions from my beloved lexicon). Shakespeare personifies time as if she were a woman, fickle; at one moment gentle in creation, the other unfairly destroying that which she created.

For never-resting time leads summer on

To hideous winter and confounds him there

Sex is hardly hinted at in this sonnet, and a wonder why not. The seasons are sexes and time a fickle lover. At first a creator, then a flirt, leading the poor beautiful youth to old age's ruin.

I love this metaphor. Summer as Time's ignorant love, led unknowing into "hideous" old age (winter) and then left there to die. Anyone who has been spurned by love understands this. Love, once blooming and full of promise, suddenly becomes rotten and dead.

Sap-checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,

Beauty o'ersnowed and bareness everywhere.

I leave you with pictures...a thousand words. My first fall in Brooklyn, NY:

Can you not see lusty leaves?

...and my first winter, not three weeks later:

Dried up and bare. Leaves "quite gone."

Then were not summer's distillation left

A liquid pris'ner pent in walls of glass,

Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,

Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.

"Summer's distillation" means the evaporation of the pure youth of the season frozen by winter. We have the water in the ice to look upon and see what it once was. Distillate is also how perfume is made. Rosewater is made by the process of evaporation and the perfume is held in a vile made of glass, hence "walls of glass." If there is no memory of summer, kept by some process that then holds it in time, the beauty is wasted, without any remembrance of it.

But flowers though they with winter meet,

Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.

This sonnet is straightforward. I am thinking about my theory that Shakespeare, as Francis Meres put it, "sugared sonnets among his private friends" as a kind of joke and a means to help his friend Wriothesley through troubled times. A sonnet like this is much more subtle than Sonnet 3 or 4. In fact. They are clearly for different audiences. There is nothing laughable or bawdy in this sonnet. Shakespeare wastes only one line praising the beauty of our youth. For most of the poem he weaves an intricate sonnet involving an affair between summer and winter, where summer is cuckolded. It makes sense for a piece like this to be handed in to the Lord Chamberlain. It does not make sense to show him sonnet 3 or 4. That the sonnets were written at the same time, I cannot say, however they are clearly not all written for the same purpose.

Sonnet 5

Those hours that with gentle worke did frame,

The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell

Will play the tirants to the very same,

And that unfaire which fairely doth excell:

For never resting time leads Summer on,

To hideious winter and confounds him there,

Sap checkt with frost and lustie leav's quite gon.

Beauty ore-snowed and barenes everywhere,

Then were not summers distillation left

A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,

Beauties effect with beauty were bereft,

Nor it nor noe rememberance what it was.

But flowers distil'd though they with winter meete,

Leese but their show, their substances still lives sweet.

Sonnet 4 - Meaning

Wasteful beauty, why do you spend

All of your talents on yourself?

Nature does not give her gifts for the keeping, but lends them for a short while

And because is liberal with her gifts, she doesnt even charge for her services.

Then, beautiful stingy guy, why do you misuse

The plentiful gift, that was given in hopes you would share it?

Moneylender who does not gain anything from it, why do you

Spend so much money, and have nothing left to live on?

For spending only on yourself

You do cheat yourself.

Then how when it is your time to die,

What reasonable final account can you leave?

Your wasted beauty will die with you

Which if you had used it, would have taken care of all your posthumous affairs.

Money equals masturbation. Usury, legacy, audit, spending, lending.

Disagree with me? These are the procreation sonnets. They are about procreation. If you thought they were about banking you belong in another field. My research finds that scholars have missed this metaphor, possibly purposefully. I am no genius, but perhaps I am more willing to admit truth than others.

Money = masturbation.

Thats what this poem is about. Is there anything else in the world? Apparently not. After all, if you have money and a dominant hand to pleasure yourself with, you are pretty much set. The youth apparently thought so. Shakespeare tries to sway him from this lifestyle.

Money = Masturbation.

He SPENDS on himself. Get it? He TRAFFIKS WITH HIMSELF ALONE... come ON!

In Sonnet 4, Shakepeare has made a metaphor equating usury to prostitution, with carefully chosen key words.

Remember:

The profession of usury = The profession of sex

Usurer = Prostitute (this is especially important later)

Money = Sperm

Read it again.

Unthrifty lovelinesse why dost thou spend,

Upon thy self thy beauties legacy?

Unthrifty loveliness (wasteful with beautiful money/sperm), why do you spend, meaning (according to my Lexicon): afford, bestow, lend, employ. Employ? How does one EMPLOY his loveliness upon himself? Its subtle and clear. Employ, meaning "to make use of" your "beauty's legacy." What else is beauty's legacy except sperm? These two words are the key to the masturbation metaphor. He spends his good genes upon himself and wastes them.

Natures bequest gives nothing but doth lend,

And being franck she lends to those are free:

Then beautious niggard why doost thou abuse,

The bountious largesse given thee to give?

A "bequest" is simply a legacy or a disposition in a will. NATURE'S bequest implies that which the man inherited freely from nature; his godgiven talents, which is apparently a ridiculous abundance of beauty. Unlike a great sum of money inherited from a deceased grandfather, Nature does not give these "bequests" to keep or put in the bank, but lends them, for a terminal amount of time. Shakespeare is reminding the youth of the ubiquitous idea that beauty fades. (See every other sonnet in the list.) Imagine that mother nature has given you a disgusting amount of money in her will, with the understanding that the money that is not saved, shared, used to buy a house, travel or given to charity would be taken away in say fortie winters. Instead, it is as if you burn a dollar a day, dropping the ash into the toilet. You abuse it by not sharing it. You wont use it but you wont give it to others. Bastard.

Profitles userer why doost thou use

So great a summe of summes yet canst not live?

Profitless usurer = profitless prostitute

What is a profitless prostitute? How might a prostitute waste his talents on himself?

Oh, we are mad at you now. Profitless usurer! A moneylender! And you make no money! Remember money = sperm? A SPERMLENDER, with NO PROFIT FROM YOUR EXPENDITURES. You only lend your sperm to yourself (on yourself...see line one) and you use "so great a summe of summes," read, A LOT this way. Why do you waste so much of your sperm (which is worth twice its weight in gold, apparently) on YOURSELF??? Lets be clear:

Professional masturbator. Why do you masturbate

So much sperm on your self, yet use none for procreation?

For having traffike with thy selfe alone,

Thou of thy selfe thy sweet sellfe dost deceave,

Then how when nature calles thee to be gone,

What acceptable Audit canst thou leave?

So we know he is a professional masturbator, (i.e. Profitless usurer), trafficing (doing "business" with) himself alone. He is being sexual only with himself. Because he does this, he cheats himself because when nature takes him away (takes that inheritance away, that golden sperm), what can you leave behind in turn? He is a prostitute, employed as such. Yet only works with himself. Pays himself for his own sexual abilities. All his training, schooling, life experiences have made him the perfect sexual partner, and yet he uses his talents on himself. He traffics with himself alone. Spending his sperm/money in a cycle, never using it, and when Nature comes back to collect that which she lent him, he will have nothing to show.

Thy unus'd beauty must be tomb'd with thee,

Which used lives th' executor to be.

All that glorious, bountiful sperm will be tombed with you, it will be inside you when you die, unused. However, if you had used it, when you die, the sperm (which would have been your heir) would have been your executor, purveyor over your will, and been able to pass on these gifts so that they would continue on earth forever.

Sonnet 4

Unthrifty lovelinesse why dost thou spend,

Upon thy self thy beauties legacy?

Natures bequest gives nothing but doth lend,

And being franck she lends to those are free:

Then beautious niggard why doost thou abuse,

The bountious largesse given thee to give?

Profitles userer why doost thou use

So great a summe of summes yet canst not live?

For having traffike with thy selfe alone,

Thou of thy selfe thy sweet sellfe dost deceave,

Then how when nature calles thee to be gone,

What acceptable Audit canst thou leave?

Thy unus'd beauty must be tomb'd with thee,

Which used lives th' executor to be.

Sonnet 3

Look in thy glasse and tell the face thou vewest,

Now is the time that face should forme an other,

Whose fresh repaire if now thow not renewest,

Thou doo'st beguile the world, unblessed some mother.

For where is she so faire whole uneared wombe

Distaines the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tombe

Of his selfe love to stop posterity?

Thou art thy mothers glasse and she in thee

Calls backe the lovely Aprill of her prime,

So thou through windowes of thine age shalt see,

Dispight of wrinkles this thy goulden time.

But if thou live remembered not to be,

Die single and thine image dies with thee.

Meaning

Commentary

Commentary - Sonnet 3

Very unique is this third sonnet.

This is the only Procreation Sonnet that considers the female of the species concerning the young man. These first seventeen sonnets are supposedly written to encourage the "sweet youth" to marry, and two lines are devoted to the woman who might be his bride. Not only does Shakespeare waste few words on women in his alleged attempt to encourage his friend to choose one for a life partnership, the precious few words used to bring light to their plight are anonymous, and downright disrespectful: “...where is she so fair whose uneared womb/ Distains the tillage of thy husbandry?” In essence, "It doesn't need to be love, just pick a pretty girl. Who would refuse you?" Then in line 9, his own mother is mentioned, but only as a tool for selfishness. She gave him beauty and can look upon him and remember her youth. Doesn't he want the same thing?

How could Shakespeare be so misogynistic and short sighted? It brings into question the purpose for writing these sonnets. Many scholars hypothesize that there an is a young man in the picture, to whom both Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece and possibly the sonnets (in code) are passionately dedicated. Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southhampton was ninteen, and a documented patron of the arts. The speculation goes that a Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth's lord treasurer, wanted the young Wriothesley to marry his granddaughter. Lord Burghley took Wriotheseley in as his ward when his father died, educated him at Cambridge and raised him to manhood. Wriothesley refused the match, though he faced (and paid) a large fine, condemning the institution of marriage. Scholars think that in the years before Wriothesley came of age, at twenty-one, the Lord did everything he could to change his mind, and perhaps poetry was one tactic. A poem exists by John Clapham called Narcissis warning that self love leads to death. The poem is dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. That it was commissioned or of free will is any one's guess, but the young Earl was clearly being pressured on all sides to marry the granddaughter of the most powerful man in England.

He was being pressured to marry.

And yet, not one of the sonnets mentions marriage.

Could it be that a very powerful Lord would commission a master poet to produce seventeen sonnets with the intent to persuade his ward to marry, and Shakespeare produced what amounts to “Seventeen Reasons to Have Casual Sex?” Could they have been written as opposition to Clapham’s poem? Or is it more likely that Shakespeare, clearly friendly with the Earl, would write seventeen procreation sonnets to mock the situation. Could he have written seventeen satires set upon comforting the Earl and making light of his situation: "Do not marry, my friend, but do spread your beautiful seed. Your narcissism lies not in your decision not to share your life with a partner (have many partners! who would deny you?) but in your refusal to recreate your image in a child."

Francis Meres, a known author, wrote in 1598 that Shakespeare, "surged sonnets among his private friends." Imagine two friends, who are perhaps lovers, enjoying the latest in the set of joke poetry one has written to comfort the other. Wriothesley faced a huge debt and pressure from a man who who had great influence on his life. I do not deny the love relationship between the young man and Shakespeare (which blossoms quickly and fiercely at sonnet 18), but the purpose of the first sonnets, I contend, was a means to comfort a worried friend. They are beautiful farce after farce, that praise the good qualities in a loved one, and muse at the immense stakes Lord Burghley and Clapham have bestowed upon him. Narcissis warns that selfishness and singlehood leads to death. The sonnets mock Clapham’s opinion: "Die single and thine image dies with thee.”

Consider this also:

"...the truest poetry is the most feigning, and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign" - As You Like It (Act III.iii.15-17).

Furthermore, it not possible that the man who created such remarkable, admirable female characters as Rosalind, Beatrice, Juliet, Cordelia, Portia, Desdemona and many others could have a such a blase opinion of women. True, this is the author whose words Hamlet utters the notorious phrase in anger, "Frailty, thy name is woman," (I.ii.316) though in that soliloquy he also rails against the world as a whole: "How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/ Seemes to me all the uses of this world?" (I.ii.303-304) and we do not accuse Shakespeare of world hating. This same character, later in the play, marks that his grief for Ophelia's death could "Conjure the wandring Starres, and [make] them stand/Like wonder-wounded hearers" (V.i.2480-2481), and then offers to be buried with her. The man knows what it means to love a woman.

If he wished to impell a man to marry a powerful Lord’s granddaughter, why choose to bait him with perils of chasitity? Why not persuade the youth on the advantages of love? No one could write about love like Shakespeare. Why not beat him over the head with:

Portia:

"How all other passions fleet to ayre,

As doubtfull thoughts, and rash imbrac'd despaire:

And shuddering feare, and greene-eyed jealousie.

O love be moderate, allay thy extasie,

In measure raine thy joy, scant this excesse,

I feele too much thy blessing make it lesse." - (The Merchant of Venice III.ii. 228-233).

or Antony:

"Heere is my space:

Kingdomes are clay: Our dungie earth alike

Feeeds Beats as man; the Nobleness of life

Is to do thus: when such a mutuall paire,

And such a twaine can doo't, in which I binde

On paine of punishment, the world to weete

We stand up Peerelesse." (Antony and Cleopatra I.i.39-45)

Othello:

"It gives me wonder great, as my content

To see you heere before me.

Oh my Soules Joy:

If after every Tempest, come such Calmes,

May the windes blow, till they have waken'd death:

And let the labouring Barke climbe hills of Seas

Olympus high: and duck againe as low,

As hell's from Heaven. If it were now to dye,

'Twere now to be most happy. For I feare,

My Soule hath her consent so absolute,

That not another comfort like to this,

Succeeds in unknowne Fate." (Othello II.i.205-214)

or Romeo:

"With loves light wings

Did I ore-perch these walls,

For stony limits cannot hold Love out,

And what Love can do, that dares Love attempt" (Romeo and Juliet II.i.829-833)

Why choose to bait him with his own beauty, and encourage him incessantly simply to reproduce, reducing the woman's part in it to an "uneared womb" when he had oaths of love at his fingertips? He did not want the young Earl to marry. The sonnets encourage the subject away from marriage. That a specific subject exists, I do not deny. That it is Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton, is very probable. That the first seventeen sonnets were commissioned as a means of changing the young earl's mind toward marriage, I vehemently deny the possibility. They are more likely a series of satires on his friend's situation. Each day he might have met the earl and showed him his newest installment, comforting the man who had made a hard decision and was paying for it.

Meaning - Sonnet 3

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou vewest,

Now is the time that face should forme an other,

Whose fresh repaire if thou not renewst,

Thou doo'st beguile the world, unblesse some mother.

Rather than guide his Narcissus’ face away from the water, he demands the youth marvel at his glorious reflection. “Look at your beautiful face in the mirror and say to yourself that it is time to admit that your glory must be multiplied.” You are now in "fresh repair," or in perfect condition, but if you do not choose to renew yourself, you will "beguile" or "cheat" the world, and the woman who would bear your children. In the first two sonnets, it has been established that this man would be depriving the world if he has no children, and for a brief moment the considerations of the woman are brought into it. If he chooses to be chaste, he will “unblesse some mother.” Unbless is an interesting choice of words. Fate has already "blessed" her with his child and should he continue his stubbornness, he will rob her of that destiny. Not only is he hoarding all his worth while the rest of the world starves, but he is tampering with God’s plan. The point is not to mess with the plan.

For where is she so faire whose un-eard wombe

Distaines the tillage of thy husbandry?

Then Shakespeare goes on a strange tangent; the youth doesn't know that he can have any woman. Does he say to choose wisely someone who would match his beauty, or someone talented so the child might, with a good match, succeed his father? No. It’s, “What pretty virgin would refuse your talents in lovemaking?” "Where is she so fair whose uneared womb/ Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?" What lady will reject you? This line is pretty magical in its overt sexual implications. The act of sex is has become the act of farming. The woman's womb is now an untilled field, waiting be “plowed” by a professional. Ploughing is a metaphor for sex. She is a virgin field and he has the abilities of a professional farmer, for “husbandry” implies a profession. Consider the meadow metaphor in Sonnet 2: "digge deep trenches in thy beauty's field" (2,2). There, digging and ploughing desecrate a beautiful surface. In sonnet 3, a woman's "uneared" womb is will not refuse a good “tilling.” Take any girl you like, none will refuse your shovel. “Digge deep” in them, and plant your seed for growing. That the sonnets might have been commissioned to encourage the young man to marry a specific granddaughter of some high ranking person seems unlikely to me, when women are treated thus in the poetry.

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

Of his self-love to stop posterity?

Who is he that is so foolish with loving of himself, that he will die to stop the conception of his descendants? This part of the text perhaps alludes to the Biblical of Onan whose father commanded him to have sexual intercourse with his deceased brother's wife, Tamar, so to produce an heir. Onan complied, and did have sex with Tamar, but before he ejaculated inside her, he “pulled out” (as we say in modern vernacular) and to be more crude, “finished himself off,” rather masturbated himself to fruition.

"But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord's sight; so he put him to death" (Gen. 38.9-10).

I guess we found the guy who would be so foolish as to die rather than produce heirs.

"Death of Onan" Frank Lanjšček

Thou art thy mother's glasse and she in thee

Calls back the lovely Aprill of her prime,

So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,

Dispight of wrinkles this thy golden time.

Your mother gave you beauty that the world might see her youth in you. You should do the same, so that when you are old, you can remember the wrinkle-free days of your youth. This is the relentless repetition, that warns the youth to beware the perils of his impending old age.

But if thou live remembred not to be,

Die single and thine Image dies with thee.

The attitude is a little harsh here, a little passive aggressive, almost daring: "Fine. Be that way. If you decided to live with no vision or memory of your wonderful youth that is so valuable, fine. Die single then, fool, and no one will remember you."

Sonnet 2

When fortie Winters shall beseige thy brow,

And digge deep trenches in thy beauties field,

Thy youthes proud livery so gaz'd on now,

Will be a totter'd weed of smal worth held:

Then being askt, where all thy beautie lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty daies,

To say within thine owne deep sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame and thriftlesse praise.

How much more praise deserv'd thy beauties use,

If thou couldst answere this faire child of mine,

Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse

Prooving his beautie by succession thine,

This were to be new made when thou art ould,

And see thy blood warme when thou feel'st it cold.

Meaning and Commentary - Sonnet 2

My translation:

After you have lived forty years,

And your beautiful face is covered in deep wrinkles,

Your youthful good looks, that everyone admires,

Will become nothing but a trembling old dried up weed.

When people ask you where all your beauty went,

And where, too, is all that sex appeal you used to have,

To have to reply, "Sucked into myself and gone,"

Is such a damned pity, and wasteful way to eulogize your lost beauty.

Your beauty would deserve even more commendation,

If you could answer, "This, my beautiful son or daughter,

Pays the debt of my loss of beauty, and makes the appropriate apologies for my old age"

Which would prove that your beauty still lives in your child.

So you would begin a new life when you are old,

And you would live on in him, even when you are dead.

nate kaye - flickr

click here for source

In Sonnet 2, the author begs the subject to consider that beauty does not last, and old age withers even the most beautiful creatures: "When forty Winters shall beseige thy brow, /And digge deep trenches in thy beauties field." "Winters" is capitalized and, upon the reading of it aloud, should be given great weight. The author has three other seasons to choose from, and he chooses winter; the hardest, darkest time. It is not the summers' heat and spring rains that age us, it is the winter's cold, frigid, cracked iciness that puts trenches in our brows.

Digge deep. Once again, alliteration and elongation, such as in selfe substantiall fewell (1.6). The word dig is onomatopoetic and can be visceral in the saying of it. It's a sweaty man bearing a shovel, carving out the earth, throwing the worms and dirt behind him. Say it five times slowly and you will literally feel like you are digging. Digge deep trenches in thy beauties field. Imagine a flower filled meadow wrecked by the trenches of war. How great a loss is youth! I am twenty seven and in the summer of mine, I would say, and already do not have the blemishless face I had five years ago. Little fine lines have appeared around my eyes and forehead. These things come faster than you think. Consider those in your family who have lost the beauties of their youths, "Oh your grandma used to be so beautiful." Think of actresses like Dakota Fanning, Emma Stone, Kristin Stewart. Or think of Candace Bergen, Cybil Shepherd, and Elizabeth Taylor!! Loss of beauty must be excruciating! These once beautiful faces are now wrought with the scars of life. Shakespeare mercilessly continues this metaphor, prophesying that the gorgeous flowers that now grace the meadow of his face will one day become totter'd weed[s] that have no worth.

young hollywood doomed to grow old

Aside: Some translations have taken it upon themselves to go against the 1609 quarto and have changed "totter'd" to "tattered." Because "livery" is the subject of this description, the adjective, be it "tatter'd," now makes reference to his fancy clothes (proud livery), rather than his looks. This interrupts the metaphor and changes meaning mid sentence. I disagree mightily with this arrogant supposition. Reason number one: I like to stay as close to the quarto as possible. When one begins to assume that Shakespeare didn't mean to write this or that, he opens up an entire new can of worms. Number two: The metaphor flows beautifully through the entire thought: his face is a fresh, spring field which, after enough winters, will be reduced to a trembling weed. I suppose I could compromise and allow a double-entendre here, but that does not excuse changing the word. Tottered means trembling, Tattered means frayed. Reason number three: Alexander Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary, defines "livery" in this case not as "dress or garb" but as "outward appearance, aspect." Case closed.

source

source

We have established that losing one's youthful good looks to old age is a painful experience. Shakespeare warns his subject, being askt, where all thy beautie lies, you should have a rebuttle ready. Maybe this seems absurd. Who is going to say, "Oh, such a pity you are old when you used to be so beautiful. Where did it go?" Everyone, and if they don't say it they will think it. Did you see Candace Bergen in Sex and the City the Movie Pt 1? She looked old, and overweight and wrinkly. It is the painful truth. When people gain a lot of weight, or get sick, you think others don't make comments? I live in New York City. People comment on strangers all the time. Catcalls abound. You think fat people don't get made fun of to their face? When you are old and ugly, people will look at pictures of you and say, "You were so beautiful, Cybil Shepherd. What happened?" or, "Everyone wanted to do you, man. You were sexy. Where did that beauty go?" If you're hot now, you have it coming for you. Just a fact. Or worse...

Where all the treasure of thy lustie daies. These sonnets are undeniably written to a man. What is the treasure of lust to a man? His penis. I have been alluding to women losing their beauty. A man losing the treasure of [his] lust? He can't get it up, people. Oh, old age. What a thing to look forward to.

How are you going to protect yourself from these nosy jerks? What do you do when you have a woman in bed and you know she longs for the treasure of your lusty days? If you have no children to whom you have bestowed your beauty, you have to shrug your shoulders and say, "Within mine own deepe sunken eyes," lost forever, and because you have no more "treasure," this beauty will never be recovered. "What a waste!" sayeth Shakespeare, "Your beauty is better than anyone living. It deserves reproduction and further praise in copy!" How much better would it be if you could, instead give your accuser a wry smile, because they have probably always been very fat, and never had the amazing talent of being able to produce a sexy heir, and say, "Well, I gave my beauty to my kid since it was mine to give him, and so it lives on!"

Shakespeare answers what the ideal response would be: "this faire child of mine, /Shall sum my count and make my old excuse." The nosy, fat asker of where beauty lies, has is now referred to as a creditor to whom a debt is owed. Remember Sonnet 1: "this glutton be, /to eat the world's due." The youth is so uniquely and strangely beautiful, that he owes the world a child in whom that beauty can live on. The creditor who asks where all thy beautie lies, is knocking at your door ready to repossess your house for the beauty that you owe him. How can you say to him, "I used it up on life." You might as well say, "Vegas." How much better would it be to bring out Susie or Johnny or Hamnet and say, "Here, sir. Because I have invested my talents in a stock that is growing, I can pay that debt to you and the world and then some. This shall sum up my count rather, pay the debt on my account, and you and I are square."

Shakespeare concludes his poem with a familiar tactic, the very same we saw in Sonnet 1; appeal to his mortality. Reproduce and you live on forever. Do not reproduce and you will die. This means of persuadingthe youth to marry is repeated relentlessly in the last couplet for each of these first seventeen sonnets, although there is an abrupt transition in sixteen and seventeen that are the beginnings of a swift change in the author's heart.

Sonnet I

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauties Rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heire might beare his memory:

But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed'st thy lights flame with selfe substantiall fewell,

Making a famine where aboundance lies,

Thy selfe thy foe, to thy sweet selfe too cruell:

Thou that art now the worlds fresh ornament,

And only herauld to the gaudy spring,

Within thine owne bud buriest thy content,

And tender chorle makest waft in niggarding:

Pitty the world, or else this glutton be,

To eate the worlds due, by the grave and thee.

Meaning and Commentary

Misspellings? Italics? Random Capitalizations?

Meaning and Commentary - Sonnet 1

My translation:

The world wants more beautiful beings to procreate

So that the perfect example of beauty will live on forever,

And as this perfection gets older and the beauty fades,

A handsome son or daughter will be a reminder of that perfection.

But you being a selfish narcissist, are married to your own face,

And service only yourself with masturbation,

Leaving the rest of the world starving while you feast and overindulge.

These actions are masochistic, you are hurting yourself too, you know.

You who are, now, the most beautiful being the world has to offer

The unique one who can bring spring out of winter,

You keep your talents all to yourself,

And, gentle boor (sweet miser), waste them in this way.

Too bad for the rest of us, because this selfish person (ahem. YOU),

Will die, and as if in cahoots with death, your talents are wasted twice.

This sonnet is about the selfishness of masturbation. Seriously. If you are going to be squeamish you should probably stay away from Shakespeare. If not, read on:

1. "Selfe substantiall fewell." Most scholar's seem confused by these words, "How a candle is self sustaining I am sure I have no idea," they proclaim and move on. A candle melts and is gone, but where did Shakespeare write candle? The line is "thy light's flame." Semen, however, is self substance and fuel for all life. The author is persuading a beautiful young man to procreate by appealing to his ego and praising his good looks. We are talking about having a child here, which can only be done by having sex (in those days), and yet this selfish boy chooses to waste his semen on himself. He is "contracted," as in married, betrothed, and in love with his own eyes. He, like Narcissus before him, stares in the mirror and masturbates, wasting his semen and thereby robbing the world of his beautiful children. Shakespeare calls this masochism: "to thy sweets self too cruel." It is a dirty joke played underneath an otherwise confusing metaphor.

2. "Within thine own bud, buriest thy content," is another masturbation metaphor, however the historians seem to agree on this. Content is a double-entendre: substance and pleasure. Not quite as exciting as the first. Shakespeare tells the youth that he is the most beautiful being ever created, with unique and priceless talents, and yet he pleasures himself alone selfishly when he should be procreating, which would be to the benefit of all.

Another Point:

It isn't nearly as exciting as sexual self satisfaction, but it is infinitely important to notice the attitude toward the possibility of immortality in the sonnets; especially the first seventeen. In Sonnet 1, he brings attention to the subject's mortality, urging him to come to terms with the inevitability of death. He alludes to death three times in a fourteen line poem: "beauty's rose might never die" (2), "but as the Riper should by time decease" (3), and "by the grave and thee" (14). The point is this: there is no immortality beyond procreation. You will die and leave nothing for us to remember you by. This is travesty given your greatness.

His mind been severely changed by Sonnet 18.

Misspellings? Italics? Random Capitalizations?

I refuse to print the sonnets in "normal text." The letter e added to the end of a word is there for a reason. The fact that "substantiall" is elongated and "selfe" and "fewell," the same, are extremely important notes from the author to the reader. An educated actor, upon being presented with a part for a Shakespearean play knows to look to the First Folio. That is where you will find the text print naked like this. No Penguin bullshit or Folgers coffee whatever. First Folio only, and of course the Quarto for sonnets and poems. Otherwise you miss out on endless secrets that the author has left for his actor. Each letter is important.

Self substantial fuel. Selfe substantiall fewell. These are the most important words in the poem. How do I know? Shakespeare tells me so. He has elongated them. They are meant to be relished in the mouth like chocolate or first coffee in the morning, fine wine, the lips of a lover, sweat, sex: everything. The alliteration in self and substantial are exciting enough. Rub them together with fuel and combine. Perfection.

Rose. Rose. Italicized and Capitalized. You lose it completely when you read the poem alone in some gaudy transposed version. You don't have the poem anymore. You have mush.

I refuse. You can read the words. You know what they are, and then some. You know what they are and you know they are important.

Ahem. That being said.

A Guide to Shakespeare's Sonnets - An Introduction

"We have not reprinted the Sonnets, &c. of Shakespeare, because the strongest act of Parliament that could be framed, would fail to compel readers into their service..." - George Steevens (publisher).

In the wake of a ridiculously hurtful breakup I have turned my energies to The Sonnets. No act of Parliament has led me here. Rather that misery loves company, and so I came to the most reliable source of love-worn misery, the master poet of courtly love, Mr. William Shakespeare. To quell the fires of my burning ache, I dove in to the libraries of Manhattan to discover the background surrounding these exquisite poems.

So much friggin' mystery!

Love triangles, homosexuality, whores, and the painful competition of artistic and sexual rivalry surround these 154 sonnets in a fog that, although scholar after scholar has archaeologically delved into finding the answers, each one dispiritedly admits that their educated speculation will have to satisfy. The sum of which these thousand questions come down to two words.

Why and whom?

Thus, in the asylum of my little Lower East Side Apartment, my misery and I will attempt to study these professions of passion, and maybe come to some conclusions of my own...