Notes on the first Sonnet are here.
[1] When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
[2] And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
[3] Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
[4] Will be a tattered weed of small worth held.
[5] Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
[6] Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
[7] To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes
[8] Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
[9] How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use
[10] If thou couldst answer “This fair child of mine
[11] Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,”
[12] Proving his beauty by succession thine.
[13] This were to be new made when thou art old
[14] And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
The first stanza raises the issue to be addressed:
[1] When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
[2] And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
[3] Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
[4] Will be a tattered weed of small worth held.
The basic idea here is simple enough: When grow older, your physical beauty will wear out. He expands this idea along two lines: The primary image is of a field which has been over used. The field will have forty years, but forty “winters”. There will be no spring or summer to rejuvenate the field, only years of snow and death.
The only hint of planting is in the plowing. Shakespeare makes even this unhelpful. There are not ploughed fields but “trenches”. The use of three accented syllables in a row and the alliteration on the Ds/T underscore the point:
and DIG DEEP TRENches
There will be nothing of value in the field at the end, merely “tattered weed”.
But he complicates this image of a field with the image of a “livery”:
Thy youth’s proud livery
Calling beauty the livery of youth makes instant sense: beauty is a custom of nobility worn by the youth. But Shakespeare has body of work which demonstrates a fascination with words. Livery as a custom is out-of-place in an abandoned field.
We could solve this issue by thinking of the livery as the original costume of the field – which is possible.
However, there is another possibility suggested by the origin of the word
- 1300, “household allowance of any kind (food, provisions, clothing) to retainers or servants,” from Anglo-French livere(late 13c.; Old French liveree, Modern French livrée), “allowance, ration, pay,” originally “(clothes) delivered by a master to his retinue,” from fem. past participle of livrer“to dispense, deliver, hand over,” from Latin liberare “to set free” (see liberate).
The sense later was reduced to “servants’ rations” and “provender for horses” (mid-15c.). The former led to the meaning “distinctive clothing given to servants” (early 14c.); the latter now is obsolete, unless livery stable (1705) survives. Related: Liveried.
A farm field is something which would yield a living. But over run and unproductive, it would cease to yield a living. The poem’s object has used beauty as a living: he makes a livery off the custom of his beauty. And thus, livery has dual usage.
The concept of livery as costume may suggest the adjective of the fourth line: “tattered”. It is unusual to think of a field as “tattered”; although that makes perfect sense of clothing.
One more thing: note that the winters will “besiege”. They will come as an army; and thus in the livery of a king. You and your livery will lose.
Second Stanza
[5] Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
[6] Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
[7] To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes
[8] Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
The question: What happened to your beauty/your treasure: your costume and living? What answer will you have then: It lies within these deep-sunken eyes. Here, can’t you see it?
That will merely be “all-eating shame” (a shame which devours everything) and a praise which does not profit.
If you allow your beauty to be lost, you will not merely lose your beauty; you will be covered in praise.
Thus, the first two stanza develop the problem which the poem seeks to resolve.
Note this is the basic structure of persuasion: set up an issue and then provide a resolution. Well, Shakespeare, if you’re so smart; what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to never get old? How could that happen?
Third Stanza
[9] How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use
[10] If thou couldst answer “This fair child of mine
[11] Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,”
[12] Proving his beauty by succession thine
If you had a child, you could point this child (who would be beautiful). This will solve two points: First, you would display your beauty. Second, you prove your present beauty by maintaining it in the future, in this child.
Rather than allowing your beauty to whither, like someone who misuses a farm; but your beauty to use and have a child.
The word “succession” is interesting here. Succession has to do with inheritance (and is used that way in Sonnet 127, the only other use of that word by Shakespeare). Whether Shakespeare would have made the association of the word to the throne, I can’t tell. Although the question of succession is a theme in some plays.
The Couplet
This is really a brilliant end to the poem, because it picks up the strands of the poem
[13] This were to be new made when thou art old
[14] And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
Here the winter and forty years of the first line return as “old” and “cold”. Here is the succession and child in “thy warm blood”. The blood is cold in him; just as the forty winters will dig deep trenches in your beauty. But your field will also be productive. The blood which is cold in your body will be warm in the successor’s body: and that blood will be “thy blood”.
Also to return to the besieging winters: A war draws blood; and blood which runs cold is death. But here the besieging army of time will be overcome in the warm blood of a child.
It is a strange at one level to bear a child so that will replace me.
memoirandremains 