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. Sonnet 59 . (original language, but moderately updated) 01. If there be nothing new, but that which is, 02. Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled, 03. Which laboring for invention bear amiss 04. The second burden of a former child? 05. Oh that record could with a backward look, 06. Even of five hundred courses of the Sun, 07. Show me your image in some antique book, 08. Since mind at first in character was done, 09. That I might see what the old world could say, 10. To this composed wonder of your frame, 11. Whether we are mended, or where better they, 12. Or whether revolution be the same. 13. Oh sure I am the wits of former days, 14. To subjects worse have given admiring praise. |
. Sonnet 59 . (paraphrased) 01. If there is nothing new under the sun, but everything that exists 02. Has already existed, at an earlier time, how our brains are fooled, 03. When we poets work hard for creativity, but only produce accidentally, and without knowing it, 04. A duplicate of some earlier writer's "child." 05. Oh, if only written records, of verse, were available, so that I could look back, 06. Even as far as five hundred years, and I could 07. See your likeness portrayed in an antique book, of poetry, 08. After thoughts, about you, were first written down, in verse, so 09. That I might see what those poets of that older world had to say 10. About the wonderful composition of your human form, and 11. Whether we poets are now improved, or whether that earlier generation was better, and in what way, 12. Or whether, despite the centuries that have passed, we're still the same. 13. Ah, but I am sure that the poets of earlier times 14. Wrote admiring praise about subjects less praiseworthy than you. |
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Sonnet 59 Gloss
L2: beguiled = fooled. L3: invention = creativity. L4: burden = birth (figuratively speaking.) L4: child - A poetic figure of speech for a newly-written poem. L6: five hundred - (Note, to the right.) L8: mind = perception. L8: character = detailed description with words. L9: the old world - Of poets. The English poets of those olden times. L10: composed = entire; overall. Refers to how the addressee is "put together." Provides wordplay on composition in writing. L10: frame = form. The Poet is wondering what earlier poets might have composed to praise the wonder of the addressee's form, under the stated premise that the addressee had an earlier existence. L11: where - Both "where" and "whether." In the Poet's time, "where" could be used as an abbreviation, or short form, of "whether." In this instance, both words are intended. Reference is both to "whether" the imagined earlier generation of poets was better, and also "where," in what way, they may have been better. L13: wits = poets. |
Sonnet 59 Notes
In Sonnet 59, the Poet begins with the premise that "there's nothing new under the sun." That idea implies that his addressee for this Sonnet lived at an earlier time, and was praised by poets of that earlier time. Based on that premise, the Poet wishes he could look back through records, going back to perhaps the time of the Domesday Book, to see what those earlier poets wrote about the addressee, in his earlier life. The Poet wonders, is he only fooling himself, in his attempts to be creative, and merely repeating the same praise of the addressee that other poets wrote centuries earlier? Is the Poet a better poet, (in praising his addressee,) than those earlier poets were, or is he a worse poet, and how is he better or worse, or is he the same? He doesn't know. He's confident, however, that poets of earlier times praised subjects who were less praiseworthy than his addressee for this Sonnet. That is not faint praise. It's high praise to say someone could withstand historical comparison against others, and be better than most. ------- L6: five hundred The mention of 500 years might be because of the Domesday Book of A.D. 1086, (especially since the Sonnet goes on to mention "antique book.") The year 1600 would have been 514 years since the Domesday Book, so the time period during which the Shakespeare Sonnets were written was quite close to being 500 years after the population of England was surveyed in detail. There's also a way in which the crowning of William the Conquerer after his victory at the Battle of Hastings, 1066, can be viewed as marking the beginning of "the world" of England, as Shakespeare knew it, particularly with respect to the English aristocracy. If the addressee of this Sonnet is a nobleman, his House could go back no further than William I, some 500 years earlier, because William crushed and deprived the Anglo-Saxon earls. So while a period of 500 years doesn't relate to the actual beginning of writing, and certainly not to the beginning of the history of England, there's a way in which it marks the start of "the world" (so to speak) of Shakespeare's England, after the victory of William I, and the associated events. |
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