#sonnet3_by_williamshakespeare
#sonnet3_themes
#sonnet3_linebyline_analysis
#sonnet3_structure_meter
#rhyme_scheme_sonnet_3
#Look_in_thy_glass_and_tell_the_face_thou_viewest
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Archaic words : • Archaic words |THOU | ...
SONNET & ITS TYPES: • SONNET (SHAKESPEAREAN ...
ALLITERATION & CONSONANCE : • Alliteration and conso...
ASSONANCE & CONSONANCE: • Assonance and consonan...
ARCHAIC WORDS : • Archaic words |THOU | ...
METAPHOR : • SIMILE & METAPHOR | SI...
ENJAMBMENT : • Enjambment with notes ...
PERSONIFICATION: • PERSONIFICATION | THE ...
METER/IAMBIC PENTAMETER: • Meter in Poetry | Iamb...
Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live rememb’red not to be,
Die single, and thine image dies with thee.
Drawing on farming imagery, the poet focuses entirely on the young man's future, with both positive and negative outcomes. However, the starting point for these possible futures is "Now," when the youth should "form another," that is, father a child.
The sonnet begins with the image of a mirror - "Look in thy glass" - and is repeated in the phrase "Thou art thy mother's glass." Continuity between past, present, and future is established when the poet refers to the young man's mother, who sees her own image in her son and what she was like during her youth, "the lovely April of her prime," a phrase that recalls the images of spring in Sonnet 1. Likewise, the young man can experience a satisfying old age, a "golden time," through his own children.
The negative scenario, in which the young man does not procreate, is symbolized in the poet's many references to death. In lines 7 and 8, the poet questions how the young man can be so selfish that he would jeopardize his own immortality. The reference to death in line 14 stylistically mirrors the death imagery in the final couplets of the preceding sonnets, including the phrases "the grave and thee" in Sonnet 1 and "thou feel'st it cold" in Sonnet 2.
Glossary
uneared : untilled.
tillage : cultivated land.
Sonnet 3 is part of William Shakespeare’s collection of 154 sonnets, which were first published in a 1609 quarto. The poem is a procreation sonnet within the fair youth sequence, a series of poems that are addressed to an unknown young man. Particularly, Sonnet 3 focuses on the young man’s refusal to procreate.