Theme: Young Man
Content: A plea to the subject to have children and not confine his beauty to himself. A sonnet rich in metaphor and imagery echoing repeated Biblical instructions for mankind to propagate, such as Genesis 9:1: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth".
From fairest creatures
we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's
rose might never die,
- “We wish those who are beautiful to propagate their beauty to keep beauty alive.”
- The propagation of Creatures is echoed in increase.
- The reference to rose may be a pun on the subject's name who may have been Shakespeare's patron: Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton.
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory;
- “An heir will perpetuate your memory after you have naturally died.”
- Clear encouragement for the subject to bear children so that his beauty lives on.
- The rhyme of die with memory asserts that the subject's memory will die with him unless he has children.
- The expected pairing of decrease with increase is instead hardened with the more absolute decease.
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.
- “But you feed your urges yourself and avoid having children, and in doing so, are cruel to yourself.”
- Creatures and increase in Q1 now changes to contracted and cruel in Q2.
- The subject's fuel is self-substantial, feeding himself, instead of giving light and heat to others.
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.
- “You are currently the talk of the town but you will bury yourself within yourself if you fail to have children.”
- the world's fresh ornament is surely inspired by Spenser's Prothalamion published in 1596 celebrating the marriage of the Ladies Somerset in which they are referred to as "the worlds faire ornament".
- herald may be a pun on the subject's name if Henry Wriothesley. herald may be a pun on Harold, an alternative for Henry as in "Cry God, for Harry, England and St. George" from Henry V.
- The subject's bud is effectively still-born, failing to flower into beauty's rose of Q1. A possible reference to the subject's sexual organ in bud too.
Pity the world, or else this glutton
be:
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
- "Pity the world by having children or feed on your own desires."
- The author's gluttony contrasts with the famine that the subject causes in Q2.
- The introduction of gluttony, as one of the Seven Deadly Sins introduces the prospect of serious consequences to the subject's actions.
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net