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Notes Shakespeare Sonnet 11

28 Monday Oct 2019

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Sonnet 11:

[1]       As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow’st

[2]       In one of thine, from that which thou departest;

[3]       And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow’st

[4]       Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.

[5]       Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;

[6]       Without this, folly, age, and cold decay.

[7]       If all were minded so, the times should cease,

[8]       And threescore year would make the world away.

[9]       Let those whom nature hath not made for store,

[10]     Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish;

[11]     Look whom she best endowed she gave the more,

[12]     Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish.

[13]     She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby

[14]     Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

Summary

Again, the poem contends for the object of the poem to marry and have children. The variant in this instance is that “nature” has given him something which has a duty to reproduce. It is a good to you and a proper response to what you have received. The poem works by means of balance and order.

First Stanza
[1]       As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow’st

[2]       In one of thine, from that which thou departest;

[3]       And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow’st

[4]       Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.

Even though Shakespeare writes well before Isaac Newton announcement of an “equal and opposite reaction”, he uses that idea of a balance in nature itself. The speed by which you should see to your reproduction is marked by the speed by which you are dying. You should be bringing a child into this world from which you are “departing.” Then as you are leaving youth, you can look back to your child who will be in youth while you are departing youth; he will then be in life, when you depart life. Thus this is a balance in speed and position.

Second Stanza:

[5]       Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;

[6]       Without this, folly, age, and cold decay.

[7]       If all were minded so, the times should cease,

[8]       And threescore year would make the world away.

This stanza is evenly balanced between two pairs of line. First is the distinction between wisdom and folly; between increase and decay: to bear a child is wisdom, beauty and increase. To refuse this is “cold decay”.  If you will think of where he lives and the quality of insulation and clothing, you can understand why cold is a serious negative for Shakespeare. He lived during the “Little Ice Age” (look it up).

Shakespeare then notes the result of such an idea: If everyone thought as you did, then a short number of years, there would be no people left. Anti-natalism and the idea that human beings were someone unnatural and a blight upon the earth was obviously not a thought of Shakespeare.

Third Stanza:

[9]       Let those whom nature hath not made for store,

[10]     Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish;

[11]     Look whom she best endowed she gave the more,

[12]     Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish.

Perhaps there are people whom it would be best if they did not reproduce: “harsh, featureless, rude” should not have children. We will meet these monsters in Shakespeare’s plays.

But as for you: Nature has given to you the best, which entails in you a duty to reproduce that gift. You have a duty to “cherish” that “bounty” which was given to you.

Couplet

[13]     She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby

[14]     Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

“She” is nature: the seal she carved is the beauty of the poem’s object. A seal was used to produce a print: think a seal pressed into wax. The wax reproduces the seal. He was given the seal to print copies of that seal, not to permit that copy to cease with him.

The duty of marrying and having a child is a duty to nature. When a woman is pregnant or when we see a couple pushing their baby in a stroller, there is a sort of affinity which is different than when we are one alone. I noticed it often in my wife’s pregnancy, the way people who speak, the people who wished to see the baby. There is something lovely and joyous in that. It is that affinity which Shakespeare is seeking to awaken in his friend.

 

 

 

Shakespeare Sonnet 10, Notes

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

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[1]       For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any,

[2]       Who for thyself art so unprovident.

[3]       Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,

[4]       But that thou none lov’st is most evident.

[5]       For thou art so possessed with murd’rous hate

[6]       That ’gainst thyself thou stick’st not to conspire,

[7]       Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

[8]       Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

[9]       O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind.

[10]     Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?

[11]     Be as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

[12]     Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove.

[13]     Make thee another self for love of me,

[14]     That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

 

Introduction:

This sonnet continues with the theme of the prior sonnets: a direct encouragement to marry and have children. As Benedick will say at the end of Much Ado About Nothing, “Prince, thou art sad. Get thee a wife, get thee a wife.”

The effect of these many sonnets seems to be the sort of work done by a composer who produces many “variations on a theme”. While it could be that Shakespeare really had some profound personal concern which drove these poems, they are much too clever. A series of poems working over a similar theme with both variety and continuity would be a bit of showing off by a young poet. I know others have their elaborate theories, but this theory at least runs true to life: young man wants to make a name for himself. That does not mean that there was no an actual recipient of the poems, only this extended theme looks like artistry. Other sonnets seem far more personal and autobiographical. But that is a question which cannot be answered.

Here the sonnet makes the argument in terms of love: You are loved by many; but you love none in return. In fact, you are filled with hate, both toward yourself and to others – because you don’t care what happens to yourself.

This really is not as much of a stretch as it might seem. A man who commits suicide when faced with financial ruin who leaves behind his wife and children acts in a way that does not care for his family. His self-directed concerns overweigh his duty and love to family. The way the event is experienced by others is as a kind of hate toward them: you don’t care what happens to us.

And so, Shakespeare pleads with the object of the poem: put aside your hatred for yourself and others; rather show love – at least toward me: marry and have a child.

First Stanza

[1]       For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any,

[2]       Who for thyself art so unprovident.

[3]       Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,

[4]       But that thou none lov’st is most evident.

“For shame”: Because of shame. Example. The Geneva Bible notes for Psalm 44:15 (“All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face”) read, “I dare not lift up mine head for shame.” Or Titus Adronicus, “Ah, now thou turn’st away thy face for shame.” But here it seems the tone seems more defiant, “I dare you to deny.” Shame, because you should love others.

The thought of lines 1-2, “You plainly don’t love others, because you are wasting yourself.” You are unprovident.

You are loved my many – you must admit that. But you don’t love anyone in return.

Most evident: beyond question. It’s obvious.

Second Stanza

[5]       For thou art so possessed with murd’rous hate

[6]       That ’gainst thyself thou stick’st not to conspire,

[7]       Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

[8]       Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

This is an interesting image: Your refusal to have an heir is “murd’rous hate”. It hate so extraordinary that is directed against yourself.

Thou stick’st not: you don’t hestitate

To conspire: with yourself to kill yourself.

You should be desiring to repair – reproduce – but you are bent on destroying: because death will destroy you. It is a “roof” perhaps because a family line is a “house”.

 

Third Stanza

[9]       O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind.

[10]     Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?

[11]     Be as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

[12]     Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove.

Line 9 is a very Shakespearean dual use of a single word: change. It is a clever line, but it is perhaps out of place in this stanza. The rest of the stanza takes a related but different emphasis: Your conduct in this respect should be as loving and gracious as it is otherwise.

“Fairer lodged”: better cared for as guest. Why do you provide more care for hatred than love?

And if you don’t care for others, at least care for yourself.

Couplet

[13]     Make thee another self for love of me,

[14]     That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

The poem ends with a final plea: If you can’t be persuaded to action for others; and if you don’t care what happens to yourself; at least you should act for me.

The last line also contains a misstep: That beauty still may live in thine: That is, that your beauty will continue in your progeny: “thine”, thy children. This concludes the argument of the poem.

But the final phrase “or thee” – needed for the rhyme — is contradicted by the thrust of the poem.  It is precisely because beauty will not live “in thee” that Shakespeare is pleading with him to marry.

 

 

Thomas Hardy To Life

05 Saturday Oct 2019

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TO LIFE

O life with the sad seared face,

I weary of seeing thee,

And thy draggled cloak,

and thy hobbling pace,

And thy too-forced pleasantry!

I know what thou would’st tell

Of Death, Time, Destiny-

I have known it long, and know, too, well

What it all means for me.

But canst thou not array

Thyself in rare disguise,

And feign like truth, for one mad day,

That Earth is Paradise?

I’ll tune me to the mood,

And run with thee till eve;

And maybe what as interlude

I feign, I shall believe!

Shakespeare Sonnet 9, Notes

27 Friday Sep 2019

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womanweep

(Weeping Woman, Pablo Picasso)

Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye

That thou consum’st thyself in single life?

Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;

The world will be thy widow and still weep

That thou no form of thee hast left behind,

When every private widow well may keep,

By children’s eyes, her husband’s shape in mind.

Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend

Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;

But beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,

And, kept unused, the user so destroys it.

No love toward others in that bosom sits

That on himself such murd’rous shame commits.

 

 

Introduction

This poem continues the theme of the previous sonnets; namely, an encouragement to marry and have children. The return to the theme is here taken my means to two related metaphors. First, Shakespeare raises a potential objection: If you will not marry because you do not want to leave a widow who will weep at your death, you are wrong. Even if you do not leave a particular woman as your widow, you will leave the world as a widow. Moreover, even if you leave a widow, when you leave a child behind you leave a consolation for the widow. But if you die without children, you leave no solace to others.

Therefore, your objection does not really flow from a love of others. Instead, this waste of beauty, beauty which does not reproduce is really selfishness rather than selflessness.

First Stanza

[1]       Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye

[2]       That thou consum’st thyself in single life?

[3]       Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

[4]       The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;

Is it really because you are afraid to leave a widow, that you are refusing to marry and have children? No.

Wet a widow: a useful example of alliteration: the repetition of the w’s draws the two words together in a single concept.

Raising the issue of selfishness, notice “thou consum’st thyself in single life”. You are devouring yourself by being single.

Issueless: without issue, without a child.

Hap: happenstance, luck.

Makeless: without a mate, spouse. And so, the world itself will weep just like a woman who has lost her husband (thus is makeless).

If you die without a wife, you still be mourned.

 

Second Stanza

[5]       The world will be thy widow and still weep

[6]       That thou no form of thee hast left behind,

[7]       When every private widow well may keep,

[8]       By children’s eyes, her husband’s shape in mind.

The first line ends with a double accent:  STILL WEEP. This double accent slows down the reading and creates an emphasis: weeping is unavoidable.

The sorrow will be that you have not left your “form” behind in a child.

Thus, the world will be worse off than an actual widow. A “private widow” will at least have a child in whom she can see her husband’s form. And by seeing the child, can keep her husband in mind. But you having left nothing make that impossible for all.

 

Third Stanza

[9]       Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend

[10]     Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;

[11]     But beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,

[12]     And, kept unused, the user so destroys it.

An “unthrift” would be one who misuses money. To be thrifty is to take care with money.

SHIFTS but his PLACE: If a fool wastes all his money, it does not hurt the broader world, “for still the world enjoys it.” The world gets use of the money. The fool is the only one affected. He “shifts his place” in the world.

It is different if you destroy beauty. While the money remains in the world, beauty consumed disappears. If the user does not beget children, he “destroys” the beauty.

 

Couplet

[13]     No love toward others in that bosom sits

[14]     That on himself such murd’rous shame commits

The couplet returns to the ostensible objection raised in the first line. You claim that it is really “love” toward a potential widow that keeps you from marrying. I will not marry, because I don’t want to break a woman’s heart by dying. But that is not how the world works. You really do not love others by refusing to marry. You are simply murdering your own self, your beauty, your family that never is or will be; all in the name of trying to spare them.

 

Edward Taylor, Meditation 26, My Noble Lord

19 Thursday Sep 2019

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Edward Taylor Meditation 26

Reference, Acts 5:31

31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

My noble Lord, thy nothing servant I

Am for thy sake out with my heart, that holds,

So little love for such a Lord: I cry

How should I be but angry thus to see

My heart so hidebound in her acts to thee?

 

Thou art a golden theme; but I am lean

A leaden orator upon the same.

Thy golden web excels my dozie beam

Whose linsy-wolsy loom deserves thy blame.

It’s all defiled, unbiased too by sin:

An hearty wish for thee’s scarce shot therein.

 

It pities me who pity cannot show

That such a worthy theme abused should be.

I am undone, unless thy pardons do

Undo my sin I did, undoing me.

My sins are great, and grievous ones, therefore

Carbuncle mountains can’t wipe out their score.

 

But thou, my Lord, does a free pardon bring.

Thou giv’st forgiveness: yet my heart through sin,

Hath naught but naught to file thy gift  up in.

An hurden haump doth chafe a silken skin.

Although I pardons beg, I scare can see,

When thou giv’st pardons, I give praise to thee.

 

O bad at best! What am I then at worst?

I want a pardon, and when pardon’d, want

A thankful heart: both which thou dost disbursed.

Giv’st both, or neither: for which Lord I pant.

Two such good things at once! Methinks I could

Avenge my heart, lest it should neither hold.

 

Lord tap mine eyes, seeing such grace in thee

So little doth affect my graceless soul.

And take my tears in lieu of thanks of me,

New make my heart: then take it for thy toll.

Thy pardons then will make my heart to sing

It Mictham-David: with sweet joy within.

 

 

The first stanza:

My noble Lord, thy nothing servant I

Am for thy sake out with my heart, that holds,

So little love for such a Lord: I cry

How should I be but angry thus to see

My heart so hidebound in her acts to thee?

Taylor meditates upon the proposition that Jesus has been exalted to give repentance and forgiveness of sins. The exaltation of Jesus comes upon the death and resurrection of Jesus, which comes upon the Incarnation of the Son of God. The reference to Acts comes from a sermon by Peter. The preceding verse in this sermon reads: “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.”Acts 5:30 (ESV)

He begins with the contrast between Jesus – My Noble Lord; and himself, thy nothing servant. He condemns himself seeing himself so little moved when contemplating such a matter.  This condemnation for not responding appropriate to the knowledge of God’s love in Christ, is the primary concern of the poem. It is a bit of self-examination and self-rebuke, and thereon, a plea for pardon.

He prays for a heart that will weep that it cares so little for the goodness of God, and that such weeping will be received in sincere repentance. And then, having been forgiven anew for his sinful lack of a proper response to God’s goodness will become a present basis for rejoicing.

We see here, that those within the Puritan tradition placed a great emphasis not just upon intellectual apprehension but also upon due affections, that is, emotions and desires. As would be written by Jonathan Edwards in the next generation after Taylor:

True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.

Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, ed. John E. Smith and Harry S. Stout, Revised edition., vol. 2, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 95.

In line two, the accent must fall heavily upon the word “out”; it is an imperative:

Am for thy sake OUT with my heart, that holds,

Remove a heart that holds so little love.

Hidebound: this is an especially useful adjective to describe a heart which cannot fill with the expansive joy and love fit for the occasion. The flesh and skin have closed about his heart and it cannot swell with joy.

Second Stanza:

 Thou art a golden theme; but I am lean

A leaden orator upon the same.

Thy golden web excels my dozy beam

Whose linsy-wolsy loom deserves thy blame.

It’s all defiled, unbiased too by sin:

An hearty wish for thee’s scarce shot therein.

The word “lean” picks up the image of “hidebound” which originally referred to cattle whose skin had grown taunt over a famished body.

God is gold; I am lead. Gold is celestial; lead is dull and earth-bound. He cannot speak in a manner fit.

He then turns abruptly to the imagery of weaving.

The cloth to be woven is a “golden web”. However, the poem’s “loom deserves thy blame” – condemnation.

The beam of the loom is dozy (slow, stupid).

“Linsey-woolsey” was originally referred to a textile made of linen and wool. But it was used figuratively to refer to something as being confused or nonsensical. The poet’s loom – his poem – is all confused and not fit for the beautiful garment which should be produced.

Sin has infected the process and thus the poem won’t go correctly.

This is critical consideration in the poet’s argument. Sin is not merely some particular bad act; sin is also a disease, a corruption of his entire frame. He is not a man who occasionally sins. He is a man who is constantly affected by sin. The sin is so pervasive that it affects his ability to even express the appropriate emotions.

To make this seem not so strange, consider a circumstance where someone witnesses a great horror or tragedy and yet does not respond with appropriate emotions. They laugh at seeing a death; they feel no compassion at seeing great suffering. We consider such people to be “wrong.”

Taylor is saying: this theme is far greater than any other theme I could consider. This should bring me to soaring notes of golden joy. But sin has obscured my ability. Indeed, it is a sin for me to not even care rightly about this.

Third Stanza:

It pities me who pity cannot show

That such a worthy theme abused should be.

I am undone, unless thy pardons do

Undo my sin I did, undoing me.

My sins are great, and grievous ones, therefore

Carbuncle mountains can’t wipe out their score.

I need pity in my state; and yet, ironically, I do not express the right pity over such a thought, that Christ had died for me. I need pity from you God, because I am in sin that I do not have a heart which expresses pity as I should. Note in the first line that “pity” carries the accent, which throws great emphasis on the word:

it PITies ME WHO PITy cannot SHOW

I need pity, and in danger of judgment “I am undone”.

Here, the irony intensifies: Taylor begins to mediate upon the forgiveness of Christ. He see that he does not have the proper affections when considering the subject. He thus falls into new sin when contemplating the forgiveness of his sins, which necessitates the need for forgiveness again:

   Unless thy pardons do

Undo my sin I did

A carbuncle mountain would be an entire mountain of ruby. (See, e.g, Hawthorne, “The Great Carbuncle”; Fitzgeard, “A Diamond as Big as the Ritz.”) My sin is so great that nothing in creation can answer for their debt.

 

Fourth Stanza 

But thou, my Lord, does a free pardon bring.

Thou giv’st forgiveness: yet my heart through sin,

Hath naught but naught to file thy gift up in.

An hurden haump doth chafe a silken skin.

Although I pardons beg, I scare can see,

When thou giv’st pardons, I give praise to thee.

 The trouble becomes more acute because even though God does give forgiveness, the poet’s heart is not fit to receive forgiveness. He is a “nothing servant” with a “heart through sin, /Hath naught but naught”.

I was unable to find any use of the phrase “hurden haump” except in this poem. What we do know from context, it must be something which would ruin in the finest of things (silk would be extraordinary expensive and rare).

Finally, even though he is begging for pardon, he realizes his heart will still lack the praise which is due or the pardon received.

Fifth Stanza:

O bad at best! What am I then at worst?

I want a pardon, and when pardon’d, want

A thankful heart: both which thou dost disbursed.

Giv’st both, or neither: for which Lord I pant.

Two such good things at once! Methinks I could

Avenge my heart, lest it should neither hold.

At best, when contemplating this theme, I am “bad”. But what if I am at my worst? First, I want – lack – a pardon. I need a pardon. And then upon receiving the pardon I need, I “want” – lack – a heart which will express the thankfulness due. I can only have a thankful heart, if you God give it to me. Therefore, he prays for both a pardon for his sin and a heart which will express the proper thankfulness in response to the forgiveness.

But if his heart will not hold such pardon and joy, he will “avenge” himself upon it:

Methinks I could

Avenge my heart, lest it should neither hold.

 

Sixth Stanza:

Lord tap mine eyes, seeing such grace in thee

So little doth affect my graceless soul.

And take my tears in lieu of thanks of me,

New make my heart: then take it for thy toll.

Thy pardons then will make my heart to sing

It Mictham-David: with sweet joy within.

 

He end with a call to weep for his sin:

Lord tap mine eyes, seeing such grace in thee

So little doth affect my graceless soul.

“Tap mine eyes”, put a tap in my eyes to drain the tears in repentance for my sin.  This theme was taken up by Edwards (although I don’t have any knowledge that Edwards had ever seen Taylor’s poems; however, Taylor knew Edward’s father, thus there is a basis to see a continuity of thought):

 

True contrition may be known by the principle it arises from, and the effect it produces in the heart:

By the principle it arises from, and that is love to God and the Lord Jesus Christ. The sinner, thinking of the merciful nature of God, thinking of his great compassion and pity manifested to men, he sees that God is really exceeding merciful and compassionate. He wonders that God should so condescend to the children of men. He sees that really and truly God has shown an unparalleled goodness and a most sweet, condescending compassion in that act of sending his Son into the world. He admires the goodness of God herein; he wonders that so great and glorious a God should be so full of pity and compassion. What, the King of the Universe, the Infinite God, the Eternal Jehovah pity man at this rate?

Such thoughts as these make him to love God, and think him most excellent and lovely, that ever he should be so full of mercy and pity, that ever he should be so exceeding gracious; that ever so great a God, that has been so much affronted by proud worms, should be so full of goodness and astonishing clemency as to take pity on them, instead of punishing them, especially when he considers that he is one of those wretched rebels whom He so pitied. This makes him to love this so good God above all things in the world; his very soul is all drawn out: how doth it melt with such thoughts, how doth it flow in streams of love!

And then when he reflects on his sin, as [on] his vileness, on his disobedience to this so lovely God, his proud and contemptuous behavior towards him, how he dishonored him by his unreasonable, most ungrateful disobedience—that ever he should be so ungrateful and so vile: then what sorrow, what grief, what deep contrition follows! How doth he loathe himself; how is [he] angry with himself! See the motions that the penitent feels at this time excellently represented by the Apostle: 2 Cor. 7:11, “For behold this same thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you; yea, what clearing of yourselves; yea, what indignation; yea, what fear; yea, what vehement desire; yea, what zeal; yea, what revenge!”

I do not say that a true penitent’s thoughts always run exactly in this order, but I say that they are of this nature, and do arise from this principle.

Jonathan Edwards, “True Repentance Required,” in Sermons and Discourses, 1720–1723, ed. Wilson H. Kimnach and Harry S. Stout, vol. 10, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1992), 513–514.

He then proposes a solution to his trouble:

And take my tears in lieu of thanks of me,

New make my heart: then take it for thy toll.

First, God, take my tears of repentance, since I have not shown the joy which I should. Renew my heart:

Psalm 51:10–12 (ESV)

10          Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me.

11          Cast me not away from your presence,

and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

12          Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and uphold me with a willing spirit.

 

Then, when I have wept for my sins, I will rejoice in my present forgiveness:

Observe, gospel-tears are not lost, they are seeds of comfort; while the penitent doth pour out tears, God pours in joy; if thou wouldst be cheerful, saith Chrysostom, be sad: Psal. 126:5. ‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.’ It was the end of Christ’s anointing and coming into the world, that he might comfort them that mourn, Isa. 61:3. Christ had the oil of gladness poured on him, as Chrysostom saith, that he might pour it on the mourner; well then might the apostle call it ‘a repentance not to be repented of, 2 Cor. 7:10. A man’s drunkenness is to be repented of, his uncleanness is to be repented of; but his repentance is never to be repented of, because it is the inlet of joy: ‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.’ Here is sweet fruit from a bitter stock: Christ caused the earthen vessels to be filled with water, and then turned the water into wine, John 2:9. So when the eye, that earthen vessel, hath been filled with water brim full, then Christ will turn the water of tears into the wine of joy. Holy mourning, saith St. Basil, is the seed out of which the flowers of eternal joy doth grow.

Thomas Watson, “Discourses upon Christ’s Sermon on the Mount,” in Discourses on Important and Interesting Subjects, Being the Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton, & Co.; A. Fullarton & Co., 1829), 123–124.

A Michtam (or Miktam) is a title, probably a musical notation, in certain Psalms of David.

 

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 8 Notes

17 Tuesday Sep 2019

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35044841056_0bc4d58947_o

Detail of “The Musicians” (about 1595) by Caravaggio

[1]      Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?

[2]       Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

[3]       Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,

[4]       Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?

[5]       If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,

[6]       By unions married, do offend thine ear,

[7]       They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

[8]       In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.

[9]       Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

[10]     Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,

[11]     Resembling sire and child and happy mother

[12]     Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing;

[13]     Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

[14]     Sings this to thee: “Thou single wilt prove none.”

 

This sonnet continues the refrain, that it would be wrong to refrain from marriage and a child. Here, the overarching metaphor is the harmony of music. The object of the poem is hearing music, which should bring him pleasure; but the beautiful music is also unsettling him. Why? Because the music is a harmony of parts, a “marriage”, where one sound stands relation to the other sounds, like a husband and wife, like a father, mother and child. But the object, being single, cannot enjoy the harmony.

First Stanza

[1]       Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?

[2]       Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

[3]       Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,

[4]       Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?

 

The first two lines begin with an accented syllable:

MUSic to HEAR

SWEETS with SWEETS

The effect is to quickly demand the attention. It poses a question: Why does music sound unhappy to you? That does not make sense

Sweets with sweets war not – there is no discord in two sweet sounds.

Joy delights in joy.

Why is this music troubling you? Shakespeare is here mixing the themes of music and love. There is a missing pleasure in your hearing of this music.

Shakespeare will pick up this idea and develop as the introductory lines to the Twelfth Night:

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.

There is the same receiving of music, and yet the troubled receiving. The Duke’s love both craves and is cannot bear the musick.

Second Stanza:

[5]       If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,

[6]       By unions married, do offend thine ear,

[7]       They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

[8]       In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.

If there is a trouble in hearing the music, then the fault is not in the music, but in you who hear the music. The music is “true concord” and “well-tuned sounds”.  There is no fault described in the sound. But there is a fault somewhere, because sounds, “do offend thine ear”.

In the beginning of line 6, Shakespeare puns on the word “married” to introduce a new theme in this discussion of music and the pleasure in hearing music. The “true concord” of harmony is here said to be “unions married”.

The reason for the displeasure in the music is not in the music, but that the concord of the music “sweetly chide thee”. Why? Because being single, the harmony of parts, the marriage of the sounds beckons you to a similar marriage, but you are single.

There are endless speculations about the story behind these sonnets. But this particular sonnet seems to suggest a back story that Shakespeare is writing to someone who is hesitating at a marriage.

Third Stanza

[9]       Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

[10]     Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,

[11]     Resembling sire and child and happy mother

[12]     Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing;

In the third stanza, he speaks of the harmony brought about in the music by developing the sounds in terms of a family. One string is “sweet husband to another”. The musician strikes one string and then another, “by mutual ordering”. The concourse of the sounds creates a resemblance, as a sire and child and mother in order together bring about “one pleasing note”. The parts do all sing together to create beauty.

Couplet:

[13]     Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

[14]     Sings this to thee: “Thou single wilt prove none.”

The song is “speechless” because it is just music. The various notes are not many but “one”. And this harmony of notes without words is singing: If you will be single, you will be nothing.

Shakespeare Sonnet 7 (Notes)

14 Saturday Sep 2019

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Johann_Liss_006

 

The fall of Phaethon, Johann Liss,

[1]       Lo, in the orient when the gracious light

[2]       Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

[3]       Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

[4]       Serving with looks his sacred majesty;

[5]       And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,

[6]       Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

[7]       Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

[8]       Attending on his golden pilgrimage.

[9]       But when from highmost pitch with weary car

[10]     Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,

[11]     The eyes, ’fore duteous, now converted are

[12]     From his low tract and look another way.

[13]     So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon,

[14]     Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.

 

This sonnet develops a central metaphor of the sun’s progress across the sky, which each successive stanza taking a different part of the day: morning, noon, afternoon. The progress of the sun is used a proxy for the progress of one’s life. At the end, the sun sets and life ends. From this metaphor, Shakespeare draws a conclusion, you will be like the sun after it has set if you do not have a son.

First Stanza

[1]      Lo, in the orient when the gracious light

[2]       Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

[3]       Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

[4]       Serving with looks his sacred majesty;

 

The sun is developed in metaphoric language. In fact, Shakespeare never uses the

“sun” in the poem, apparently as a set up for the use of the word “son” in the final line.

 

The poem begins with “Lo” – Look! The rising sun draws all attention.

 

The sun rises in the “orient”, not the east. The orient, in Shakespeare time, was the land of magnificent treasure,

 

He kissed—the last of many doubled kisses—

(FTLN 0557)      [47]     This orient pearl.

 

 

Antony and Cleopatra Act I, Scene

After this, he was taken out of his chaire of Majestie, having upon him an upper robe adorned with precious stones of all sorts, orient pearles of great quantitie, but alwayes augmented in riches: it was in waight two hundred pounds, the traine, and parts thereof borne up by 6. Dukes, his chiefe imperiall Crowne upon his head very precious:

Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation Made by Sea or Overland to the Remote & Farthest Distant Quarters of the Earth at Any Time within the Compasse of These 1600 Yeares, vol. 2 (Medford, MA: E. P. Dutton & Co., n.d.), 271.

The sun gives a “gracious light” and “Lifts up his burning head”. The sun is a colossus which rises over the landscape. His light is gracious – he is a king. And the response is the response to a king:

 

each under eye

[3]       Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

[4]       Serving with looks his sacred majesty

 

All pay “homage” and do so by looking upon the “sacred majesty”.

 

Second Stanza

[5]       And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,

[6]       Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

[7]       Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

[8]       Attending on his golden pilgrimage.

 

The second stanza develops the image of the sun. He shows his strength by climginb up the “steep” “heavenly hill” of the sky. He power is such that even in middle age he has the beauty of youth. And he continues to receive homage by “mortal looks” which now “adore his beauty still”.

He progress is a “golden pilgrimage” which the mortals “attend” to.

Third Stanza

[9]       But when from highmost pitch with weary car

[10]     Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,

[11]     The eyes, ’fore duteous, now converted are

[12]     From his low tract and look another way.

At this point, the imagery of the sun shifts in two ways. First, it concerns the sun’s decline. Second, the sun is no longer climbing himself but now is in a car; which reminds us of  Phaethon who attempted to drive the chariot of the sun but veered wildly out of control and brought the sun too near the earth. 

Shakespeare does not make that precise point, but does allude to one who is too weak to control the sun.

But when from highmost pitch with weary car

[10]     Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,

At the height of trip, the sun in weakness: weary car, feeble age, reelth, loses control and the sun falls from the sky. Seemingly in the height of power, the sun is actually grown week.

And the response of the mortals is no longer to look but now to look-away:

[11]     The eyes, ’fore duteous, now converted are

[12]     From his low tract and look another way.

The language of homage and adoration, part kingly, part religious returns. The eyes no longer perform “duty” (like a subject). The mortals are “now converted.” With the swings in Shakespeare’s day between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism would have shown many “conversions”, thus, the language would have resonance.

The moral is obvious: you are beautiful now, but soon you will be weakened, your beauty gone – you will be like the falling sun where all look away.

 

Couplet

[13]     So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon,

[14]     Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.

The metaphor is drawn tight: you are like the sun. Yes you are at noon, but noon does not last. Everyone will look away from you in your age and weakness, “unless thou get a son”. The use of the “son” in the last syllable is purposeful, because he has studiously avoided the word “sun” throughout the poem.

You will fail like a failing “sun” unless you get a “son” – who himself be a new “sun.”

Some observations on Shakespeare Sonnet 6 (“Make worms thine heir”)

07 Saturday Sep 2019

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[1] Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
[2] In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled.
[3] Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
[4] With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-killed.
[5] That use is not forbidden usury
[6] Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
[7] That’s for thyself to breed another thee,
[8] Or ten times happier, be it ten for one.
[9] Ten times thyself were happier than thou art
[10] If ten of thine ten times refigured thee;
[11] Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
[12] Leaving thee living in posterity?
[13] Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair
[14] To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.
This sonnet picks up immediately upon the imagery of the preceding sonnet: summer must be “distilled” to last into the winter. It also picks up on the general theme of this series of sonnets, in calling upon the object of the poem to have a child. The distinction in this sonnet is in its monetary/investment imagery. The child is seen as an investment and an inheritance.

First Stanza
[1] Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
[2] In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled.
[3] Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
[4] With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-killed.

You will die. Winter will kill, or you will kill yourself (in killing your own beauty)

Winter is an actor who will deface your summer (your beauty, your youth). The language of “deface” puts an emphasis upon appearance rather than existence. Winter is vengeance that will come and will deface you. The fact of winter’s work is not question. Winter’s existence gives intensity and necessity to the task at hand:

When winter has come, it will be too late. Therefore, you must now distill you beauty, make a vial of this perfume of beauty (have a child)

Ere: before, archaic.

The poet uses treasure as a noun and a verb: first, “treasure thou some place”: make a place where treasure is kept. In your treasure, place your treasure.

In speaking of coming age taking away your treasure, you do not treasure your Shakespeare uses an idea which he will develop elsewhere; such as in Sonnet 75, “Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure”

Second Stanza
[5] That use is not forbidden usury
[6] Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
[7] That’s for thyself to breed another thee,
[8] Or ten times happier, be it ten for one.

Usury is charging interest on a loan. The legal conception is with us in the principle limiting the amount of interest one charge for a loan. The line contains a fine pun on “use” and “usury” must like treasure and treasure in the preceding stanza.

It is not an illegal act when you make a loan which causes happiness (“Happies”) in the one who pay the loan.

It is not wrong to lend yourself to the future when you willing to do so. In fact, the return you make on making this loan will exceed any cost. In fact, you will receive a ten-to-one return on bearing a child.

Third Stanza
[9] Ten times thyself were happier than thou art
[10] If ten of thine ten times refigured thee;
[11] Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
[12] Leaving thee living in posterity?

A desire for happiness routinely controls our decisions: it keeps us from acting and causes us to act. We value our own happiness.

So in this stanza the controlling concept is no longer interest on a loan, it is return on our action: this will pay us back in happiness.

Now we are back to the image of “winter” here called “death”.

Death obviously cannot cause you injury if you have left and are beyond death’s action “if thou shouldst depart”. The idea here is that once you have departed you are in fact dead.

The conception comes from Romans 7 where Paul explains that that the law (and death is the sergeant who enforces the law of God):

Romans 7:1–3 (ESV)
7 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

Death can only enforce its demands on you so far. But there is a way to surpass death.

Shakespeare takes this idea and applies it to children: if you have a child, you have (in a manner) bypassed death.
Couplet
[13] Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair
[14] To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.

The trouble which will destroy the object is his own pride: Be not self-willed.

Why should you not be so? You are too fair.

You must face this truth: you will die. Do not be conquered by death.

The poem end with a certain irony: if you do not have heir by birth, you will have an heir death. But this heir will not save you from death but will rather make you a prey to death. And thus, you will have an heir and you have face death.

This image of worms is used to good effect in Hamlet, where Hamlet speaks with the King about the King’s counselor – whom Hamlet has just killed:

Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?
At supper king
At supper where?
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A
certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at
him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We
fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves
for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is
but variable service—two dishes but to one table.
That’s the end.
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat
of a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that
worm.

The imagery of worms puts a certain bite upon the concept of death. The idea of “death”. One’s own death is an abstraction: but to make it concrete, the idea of one’s body being eaten makes death a more “real” thing.

Shakespeare Sonnet 4

21 Wednesday Aug 2019

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[1]       Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

[2]       Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?

[3]       Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,

[4]       And being frank, she lends to those are free.

[5]       Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

[6]       The bounteous largess given thee to give?

[7]       Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

[8]       So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?

[9]       For, having traffic with thyself alone,

[10]     Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.

[11]     Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,

[12]     What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

[13]     Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,

[14]     Which usèd lives th’ executor to be.

 

 

First stanza:

[1]       Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

[2]       Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?

[3]       Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,

[4]       And being frank, she lends to those are free.

 

The first two lines set up the basic conceit of the poem: the proper investment of human beauty. The argument of this poem is profoundly countercultural to present moment. Our lives are considered our own to dispose of as we each individually please (“it’s my life and I’ll do what I want”).

We can choose our own identity to the point of actual restructuring our bodies and changing our sex in the name of gender identity.

The arguments of sexual freedom in all its related issues ultimately rest upon the proposition of a profound human autonomy in the area of sexual practice (it is interesting that the very same people most insistent upon radical sexual freedom are the most insistent upon conformity in other aspects).

Here Shakespeare attacks an “unthrifty loveliness”: beauty being wasted, misspent. It is misspent because it devolves back upon the self: why dost thou spend/Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy”. This continues the thematic strand from the other sonnets on the aspect of humanity being one of continuity and unity: there is the lineal descent from and hopefully through the object of the poem; as well as the duty to, the unity with the rest of humanity.

Thus, there is something anti-human, something unnatural in seeking to spend one’s beauty on one’s self.

The autonomy of the self is further attacked by positing in relation to nature: Your beauty does not come from you: it has been lent to you by nature to used rightly:

Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,/And being frank, she lends to those are free.

You have been given something you did not earn: it was lent to you by nature (and nature ultimately leads to God).

The last concept “those are free”: not horders, move the conceit to the next stanza.

 

Second stanza:

[5]       Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

[6]       The bounteous largess given thee to give?

[7]       Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

[8]       So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?

This stanza then argues to the paradox of selfishness. You are given a great deal, but you hoard it (“niggard”); and in so doing abuse the wealth you were given. In fact, you are a usurer – which would normally result in a tremendous profit to the usurer, but in this case, it creates no profit. The irony of your hoarding is that are losing what you are hoarding: it does you no good to hoard this beauty, because not only is it unnatural and unhuman, it does you positive harm.

Compare this concept with the idea in our culture who refuses children because it will interfere with career or beauty? The one who spends the beauty youth on one’s own desire is an ideal. It is foolish to plunge into the great stream of human history: nothing is owed to the past or to the future. In fact, to bear children is either foolishness or evil.

So here is Shakespeare, a paragon of culture: here speaking directly against our current culture.

Third stanza:

[9]       For, having traffic with thyself alone,

[10]     Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.

[11]     Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,

[12]     What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

The final stanza turns to death: because sex and death are profoundly related and in direct competition. Birth is a race against death, and there is no ultimate Darwinian advancement. Death always works.

And so to the object: you are engaged in commerce, trade (traffic here means trade), but there is no other in your trade. You are seller and buyer, but is so doing, you are ultimately hurting yourself the most. You are deceiving yourself.

This then comes to judgment: when you die, what will be the profit of this life? You have done nothing.

Here, Shakespeare becomes even more counter cultural: not only is birth incumbent upon human beings, but without such birth, what have you actually done? What have you done to perpetuate life?

At this point, I think a word of kindness is appropriate. Many people through no fault of their own are unable to bear children. Shakespeare is not speaking to them. This is to one who is deliberately selfish. Shakespeare’s critique is of a self-centeredness which is far different than inability.

Moreover, even though it goes beyond scope of this narrow poem, it should also be known that Shakespeare world would have deep biblical roots, even among the less devoted. Shakespeare’s use of the Bible has been well documented. There are biblical promises to those without children:

Isaiah 56:4–5 (ESV)

4           For thus says the Lord:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,

who choose the things that please me

and hold fast my covenant,

5           I will give in my house and within my walls

a monument and a name

better than sons and daughters;

I will give them an everlasting name

that shall not be cut off.

 

And:

Isaiah 54:1 (ESV)

54 “Sing, O barren one, who did not bear;

break forth into singing and cry aloud,

you who have not been in labor!

For the children of the desolate one will be more

than the children of her who is married,” says the Lord.

The application of these passages being beyond the scope of this piece, I will not explain them beyond just point to the fact of such ideas in Shakespeare’s world.

Couplet

[13]     Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,

[14]     Which usèd lives th’ executor to be.

Your beauty will be buried. The final line means that if you used your beauty, it would remain behind to be your executor: If your beauty were used it would be your executor and deliver your estate to another.

But there may be an irony here (the line contains some ambiguity): It may be possible to read the final line as the tomb – which are are in fact using – is the only thing which lives and is your executor: delivering to your death your beauty.

Shakespeare Sonnet 2

05 Monday Aug 2019

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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

  1. 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.