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.

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 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.