10/10/2020

SONNET 73

Inglese:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.

     This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,

     To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Italiano:

In me tu vedi quel periodo dell’anno

Quando nessuna, o poche foglie gialle resistono

Su quei rami che tremano contro il freddo

Spogli archi in rovina dove, in ritardo, cantarono gli uccelli

In me vedi il crepuscolo di un giorno

Che dopo il tramonto svanisce ad ovest

E a poco a poco, la notte nera se lo porta via

Ombra di quella vita che tutto confina in pace

In me vedi l’indebolirsi di quel fuoco

Che si estingue fra le ceneri della sua gioventù

Come un letto funebre ove spirerà

Consumato da ciò che era il suo nutrimento

     Ciò che vedi in me, e più forte diventa il tuo amore

     Ama ciò che dovrai presto lasciare

Textual analysis of the poem:

Title: Reading the title I can understand that the sonnet is part of a composition. I can deduce this from the fact that its title is a number.  This sonnet is not part of the first eighteen and therefore is not part of the marriage collection.

Lay out: The sonnet is organized according to the Shakespearean scheme, that is, three quatrains and a rhymed couplet.  This is the typical rhyme-scheme of the English sonnet.  

Denotation and connotation: It is composed in iambic pentameter, a poetic metre that has five feet per line, and each foot has two syllables accented weak then strong. The sonnet is dedicated to a faith youth.  Like every Shakespeare sonnet, this one also refers to Nature.

In the first quatrain Shakespeare compares himself to winter, where everything tries to cope with the freezing cold that tries to destroy it. With this quatrain he wants to express how beauty tries to cope with the passage of time.

In the second quatrain he compares himself to the sun, which sets after a day, carried away by the night. With the phrase "Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest", he wants to make it clear that everything has an end, and the end of life is death or peace of soul. 

In the third quatrain Shakespeare using the metaphor of fire he speaks of beauty. The beauty that fades after youth. With the metaphor of the death-bed he wants to understand old age, because with old age the death of beauty occurs. Because its nourishment was youth, which not the passage of time has vanished.

In the rhyming couplet he says that we must love what we have now because very soon we will have to abandon it and none of us are ready to do it.

Interpretation: The message that Shakespeare wants to send with this sonnet is love what you have, because nature takes its course and slowly takes away all the good things in life.