Sonnets, p.1
Sonnets, page 1
NO FEAR SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Hamlet
Henry IV, Parts One and Two
Henry V
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
Sonnets
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Twelfth Night
NO FEAR SHAKESPEARE
SONNETS
© 2004 by SparkNotes Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
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The original text and translation for this edition were prepared by John Crowther.
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ISBN: 978-1-4114-7933-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616.
Sonnets / [edited by John Crowther].
p. cm. — (No fear Shakespeare)
ISBN 1-4114-0219-7
1. Sonnets, English. I. Crowther, John (John C.) II. Title.
PR2848.A2C76 2004
821’.3—dc22
2004015832
There’s matter in these sighs, these profound heaves.
You must translate: ’tis fit we understand them.
(Hamlet, 4.1.1–2)
FEAR
NOT.
Have you ever found yourself looking at a Shakespeare play, then down at the footnotes, then back at the play, and still not understanding? You know what the individual words mean, but they don’t add up. SparkNotes’ No Fear Shakespeare will help you break through all that. Put the pieces together with our easy-to-read translations. Soon you’ll be reading Shakespeare’s own words fearlessly—and actually enjoying it.
No Fear Shakespeare pairs Shakespeare’s language with translations into modern English-the kind of English people actually speak today. When Shakespeare’s words make your head spin, our translations will help you sort out what’s happening, who’s saying what, and why.
ORIGINAL DEDICATION
TO. THE. ONLY. BEGETTER. OF.
THESE. ENSUING. SONNETS.
Mr. W.H. ALL HAPPINESS.
AND. THAT. ETERNITY.
PROMISED.
BY.
OUR. EVER-LASTING. POET.
WISHETH.
THE. WELL-WISHING.
ADVENTURER. IN.
SETTING.
FORTH.
T.T.
The capital letters and the periods after every word may have been intended to make the dedication resemble an ancient Roman inscription in stone, suggesting that the sonnets are meant to last forever. The idea that the sonnets will outlast stone monuments and inscriptions recurs throughout the sonnets.
In publishing these sonnets, the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, wishes the man who inspired them, Mr. W. H., to receive the happiness and eternal fame promised him by the immortal poet who wrote them.
The identity of Mr. W.H. is unknown. The initials could simply be a misprint for W.Sh. (William Shakespeare), or they could refer to the person who inspired the sonnets—possibly the young man the sonnets refer to. The most popular guesses regarding the young man’s identity are Henry Wriothesly, earl of Southampton, and William Herbert, earl of Pembroke.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Sonnet 1
Sonnet 2
Sonnet 3
Sonnet 4
Sonnet 5
Sonnet 6
Sonnet 7
Sonnet 8
Sonnet 9
Sonnet 10
Sonnet 11
Sonnet 12
Sonnet 13
Sonnet 14
Sonnet 15
Sonnet 16
Sonnet 17
Sonnet 18
Sonnet 19
Sonnet 20
Sonnet 21
Sonnet 22
Sonnet 23
Sonnet 24
Sonnet 25
Sonnet 26
Sonnet 27
Sonnet 28
Sonnet 29
Sonnet 30
Sonnet 31
Sonnet 32
Sonnet 33
Sonnet 34
Sonnet 35
Sonnet 36
Sonnet 37
Sonnet 38
Sonnet 39
Sonnet 40
Sonnet 41
Sonnet 42
Sonnet 43
Sonnet 44
Sonnet 45
Sonnet 46
Sonnet 47
Sonnet 48
Sonnet 49
Sonnet 50
Sonnet 51
Sonnet 52
Sonnet 53
Sonnet 54
Sonnet 55
Sonnet 56
Sonnet 57
Sonnet 58
Sonnet 59
Sonnet 60
Sonnet 61
Sonnet 62
Sonnet 63
Sonnet 64
Sonnet 65
Sonnet 66
Sonnet 67
Sonnet 68
Sonnet 69
Sonnet 70
Sonnet 71
Sonnet 72
Sonnet 73
Sonnet 74
Sonnet 75
Sonnet 76
Sonnet 77
Sonnet 78
Sonnet 79
Sonnet 80
Sonnet 81
Sonnet 82
Sonnet 83
Sonnet 84
Sonnet 85
Sonnet 86
Sonnet 87
Sonnet 88
Sonnet 89
Sonnet 90
Sonnet 91
Sonnet 92
Sonnet 93
Sonnet 94
Sonnet 95
Sonnet 96
Sonnet 97
Sonnet 98
Sonnet 99
Sonnet 100
Sonnet 101
Sonnet 102
Sonnet 103
Sonnet 104
Sonnet 105
Sonnet 106
Sonnet 107
Sonnet 108
Sonnet 109
Sonnet 110
Sonnet 111
Sonnet 112
Sonnet 113
Sonnet 114
Sonnet 115
Sonnet 116
Sonnet 117
Sonnet 118
Sonnet 119
Sonnet 120
Sonnet 121
Sonnet 122
Sonnet 123
Sonnet 124
Sonnet 125
Sonnet 126
Sonnet 127
Sonnet 128
Sonnet 129
Sonnet 130
Sonnet 131
Sonnet 132
Sonnet 133
Sonnet 134
Sonnet 135
Sonnet 136
Sonnet 137
Sonnet 138
Sonnet 139
Sonnet 140
Sonnet 141
Sonnet 142
Sonnet 143
Sonnet 144
Sonnet 145
Sonnet 146
Sonnet 147
Sonnet 148
Sonnet 149
Sonnet 150
Sonnet 151
Sonnet 152
Sonnet 153
Sonnet 154
Sparknotes Literature Guide
1
ORIGINAL TEXT
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease
His tender heir might bear his memory.
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial 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
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
1
MODERN TEXT
We want the most beautiful people to have children, so their beauty will be preserved forever—when the parent dies, the child he leaves behind will remind us of his beauty. But you, in love with your own pretty eyes, are letting your beauty burn itself out. You’re starving the world of your beauty rather than spreading the wealth around. You’re acting like your own worst enemy! Right now you’re the best-looking thing in the world, the only person as beautiful as springtime. But your beauty is like a new bud, and you’re letting it die before it can develop and bring you true happiness. You’re a young man, but you act like an old miser—you’re wasting your beauty by hoarding it and keeping it to yourself! Take pity on the rest of us, or this is how you’ll be remembered: as the greedy pig who hogged his own beauty and took it with him to the grave.
2
ORIGINAL TEXT
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held.
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 and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use
If thou couldst answer, “This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,”
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.
2
MODERN TEXT
When forty years have gone by and carved deep wrinkles in your forehead, your youthful beauty, which everyone likes to look at now, will be worth little. Then, when someone asks you where all your beauty is—all the treasure of your virile youth—if you were to say that it’s all there in your withered face and sunken eyes, that would be an all-consuming shame and nothing to be proud of. You’d have a much better excuse if, decades from now, you could say you spent your beauty and youth raising a child. If someone were to ask you why you looked so old, you could say, “The effort I spent raising this beautiful child explains the sorry old state I’m in”—and meanwhile your child’s beauty would be a new incarnation of your own! Having a beautiful child would be like being born again in old age, with the blood that flows coldly in your old veins becoming warm again in his.
3
ORIGINAL TEXT
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
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 remembered not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
3
MODERN TEXT
Look in your mirror and tell the face you see that it’s time to father a child. Your face is fresh and healthy now, but if you don’t reproduce it, you’ll be cheating the world and cursing a woman who would happily be your child’s mother. After all, do you think there’s a woman out there so beautiful that she’d refuse to have your child? And what man would be so foolish as to allow his own self-absorption to stop himself from fathering children? You are like a mirror to your own mother, and when she looks at you she can gaze back at the lovely springtime of her youth. In the same way, when you are old and wrinkled, you’ll be able to look at your child and see yourself in your prime. But if you choose not to have a child to remember you, you’ll die alone and leave no memory of your own image.
4
ORIGINAL TEXT
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.
4
MODERN TEXT
You wasteful lovely person, why are you spending all of your beauty on yourself? Nature doesn’t give us anything; she only lends us the gifts we get at birth, and, being generous herself, she lends the most to people who are generous themselves. So, you beautiful miser, why do you abuse the bountiful gifts that were given to you to share with others? Why do you insist on being such a bad investor, using up the immense treasure you have to offer the world but unable to support yourself or preserve your memory? By only having dealings with yourself, you’re cheating yourself out of the best part of yourself. Then how, when nature says it’s time for you to go, will you be able to give an acceptable account of how you spent your time and beauty? Your unused beauty will have to be buried with you. But if you used that beauty now, it would stay behind once you were gone and preserve your legacy.
5
ORIGINAL TEXT
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.
5
MODERN TEXT
The same process that over time shaped your wonderful face, so that now everybody loves to look at you, will eventually destroy that face, making ugly what is now surpassingly beautiful. For never-resting Time takes summer by the hand, leads him into horrifying winter, and destroys him there—freezing his sap, removing his full leaves, covering up his beauty with snow, and turning everything bare. If we didn’t have perfume distilled from summer flowers to keep in a jar, the effects of summer would vanish at the end of the season. Without perfume, we’d have no way of remembering the summer itself or its beauty. But the flowers used to make perfume lose only their outward beauty when winter comes; their beautiful scent lives on sweetly.
6
ORIGINAL TEXT
Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled.
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 thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one.
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee.
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.
6
MODERN TEXT
(Continuing from Sonnet 5) So don’t let wintry old age destroy your summer beauty before your essence has been preserved. Make some woman pregnant and pass on your beauty before it dies with you. It’s unfair to charge exorbitant interest on a loan. But if you lend a woman your body, she’ll be only too happy to pay you back with a child. Having a child—making another version of yourself—will make you happy. Having ten children will make you ten times as happy. What power would death have over you if you left children behind to keep your legacy alive? Don’t be willful and selfish—you’re much too beautiful to be conquered by death, with nothing left of you but a corpse devoured by worms.
7
ORIGINAL TEXT
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,
