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. Sonnet 3 . (original language, but moderately updated) 01. Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest, 02. Now is the time that face should form another, 03. Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, 04. Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. 05. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb 06. Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? 07. Or who is he so fond will be the tomb, 08. Of his self love to stop posterity? 09. Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee 10. Calls back the lovely April of her prime, 11. So thou through windows of thine age shall see, 12. Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time. 13. But if thou live, remembered not to be, 14. Die single and thine Image dies with thee. |
. Sonnet 3 . (paraphrased) 01. Look into your mirror, and tell yourself, whom you see there, that 02. Now is the time for you to create another face like yours, 03. For - if you don't renew yourself soon - your own youthful return is something of which 04. You will defraud the world, and of which you'll deprive some prospective mother. 05. For, where is any woman who is so beautiful, that her maiden womb 06. She would deny, for conception with you, so handsome, as her husband? 07. Or, where is the man who is so foolish, and so fond of himself, alone, that he'd "dig his own grave" 08. In his self-love, to ensure he has no posterity? 09. You are an image of your mother, and when she looks at you 10. She recalls the lovely springtime of her life, 11. And if you have a child, when you look out the "windows" of your eyes, when you are old, you'll recall, 12. Despite your wrinkles, your own youth, your treasured time, (when you see your child.) 13. But if your purpose in life is not to be remembered, 14. Die unwed and childless, and your image, in both senses of the word, will die with you. |
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Sonnet 3 Gloss
L3: The word order needs considerable rearrangement for prose. L3: repair - (Note, to the right.) L5: uneared - (Note, to the right.) L7: fond - Both fond and foolish. (Double meaning.) Excessive self-fondness is foolishness. L7: tomb - (Note, to the right.) L9: thy mother's glass = a reflection of your mother. L10: April - (Note, to the right.) L12: golden time = most treasured years (first in fact, and then in memory.) L14: Image - Both yourself, as you're seen now, and then your prospective image in the form of a child. |
Sonnet 3 Notes
L3: repair Has double meaning. It means "make good," and also "return." (The latter comes from Latin 'repatriare' meaning to "return to the native land.") The "native land" for the addressee's beauty is the human world. The idea is that the addressee's beauty should continue to dwell, in beauty's "native land" of the world, after the addressee, himself, is gone to the "foreign land" of the grave. The addressee could keep his beauty dwelling in the world by having an heir. L5: uneared Has double meaning. The first is a straightforward fertility reference, like planting ears of corn. The second meaning refers to the womb having no ears to hear. This is more subtle. The Poet is saying that even though the woman's womb has no ears, it would "hear" the addressee's attractiveness as a mate, with whom to have a child. For the allusion to hearing, the line 6 word "tillage" is read as "tellage." To "tell" is to speak. Shakespeare punned between "till" and "tell." That is, for lines 6 and 7, the second meaning is: ~=~ 'For where is she so fair whose "unhearing" womb Disdains the "tellage" of thy husbandry?' =~=~= The original Shakespeare printings sometimes use a spelling of "tell" for "till." Below are examples from Hamlet. The numbers at the left of the lines below are the line numbers in the "Enfolded Hamlet," a link to which can be found on the Links page on this website. The spelling in the First Folio printing of Hamlet is shown first, and the Second Quarto spelling is shown second. 1585-6 My good friends, Ile leaue you ( till / tel ) night, 2910 ( Till / Tell ) our scale turne the beame. 3498 ( Till / Tell ) then in patience our proceeding be. L7: tomb There's allusion to the concept the Poet used elsewhere, of a person's body being his "earth." See Sonnet 146, line 1, for perhaps the clearest statement of the concept: "Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth." A Narcissistic person "buries himself in his own earth," so to speak. L10: April The birthday of William Herbert, the son of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, was April 8. It's hardly conclusive evidence, but the mention of "April" is compatible with the so-called "fair youth" of the first seventeen Sonnets possibly being William Herbert. (And if that's the case, the first seventeen Sonnets were probably written to be presented in April of 1597.) |
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