Understand Shakespeare's language with this sonnet followed by a modern translation. This one's actually quite sweet.
When all my acting work got cancelled in the first lockdown, I decided to use the time to start learning all of Shakespeare's sonnets. I hope you find the modern translation afterwards entertaining. 115 down 39 to go!
This poem is both part of the Fair Youth Sonnets & part of the sequence from 87-126 known as the Fickle Youth Sonnets.
Sonnet 115 full text:
Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer.
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
But reckoning Time, whose millioned accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to th'course of alt'ring things -
Alas, why, fearing of Time's tyranny,
Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
Love is a babe; then might I not say so,
To give full growth to that which still doth grow?
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A small confession - • Understand Shakespeare...
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Intro music composed & recorded by Joel Goodman.
/ @eppingmusicschool