23/10/2020

SONNET 3

Inglese:

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 unear’d 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 shall see
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.

     But if thou live, remember’d not to be,
     Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

Italiano:

Guardati allo specchio e di’ al volto che vedi
che è ormai tempo per quel viso di crearne un altro,
se non rinnovi ora la sua giovane freschezza
inganni il mondo e rinneghi la gioia d’ogni madre.

Vi è forse donna tanto pura il cui illibato grembo
disdegni il seme della tua virilità?
O forse uomo tanto folle da voler essere la tomba
del suo proprio amore per non aver progenie?

Tu sei lo specchio di tua madre e come lei in te
ricorda il leggiadro aprile della sua primavera,
così dai vetri del tuo crepuscolo tu rivedrai
a dispetto delle rughe, questo tuo tempo d’oro.

     Ma se invece vuoi vivere senza esser ricordato,
     muori celibe e la tua immagine morirà con te.

Textual analysis of the poem:

Sonnet 3 belongs to the collection of the soul-cold Marriage Sonnet and therefore the sonnet is one inviting the Faith Youth to get married and have a child.

Considering the lay-out the rider recognises the typical Elizabethan structure that is it is arranged into three quatrains and a rhyming couplet. It follows that sense the intelligent rider knows that the structure is meant to develop three different aspect of the same problems he or she will be curios to dig into the text to see how the different littered devises chosen by the poem contribute to mean.

Rite from the start, the speaking voice expresses his insistent resorting the imperative mood “look”, “tell”. Sense the lyrically invites the F. Y. To become a way of his beauty he wants him to look at himself in the mirror because not only does the mirror reflect his apeiron’s it can also be interpreted has a metaphor to say that the F.Y. mast come to turns with his identity and future life. Pentation helps to meaning and provides the pace of reading. Indeed, the first to line and with e-same colon does creating a brake to a rider on the text. “Now” is place in cheap position so that its meaning is particularity raven to make sense of the message of the so cold “Marriage sonnet”. The semantic feel of time passing is present in all the sequence of sonnet. “Now”, “time” together hint at the moment the F.Y. is living and his better I live in line three where the speaker uses the expression “fresh repair” that underlines the age of the beloved. In addition, references to the physical aspect of the F.Y. a presented with words like “the face” and “another” does using a synodic (= la parte per il tutto) but considering the connotative velour the sensitive reader man associate (quotation=citazione) form the physical aspect of the F.Y.; the child he would generate his sad to be (forma passiva = è detto essere) “repair” and ends the line with the verb “renewest”. The speaking voice makes use of an if-clause that anticipate the consideration that “the world” will suffer a lot of beauty if the F.Y. doesn’t think of the way to remain to posterity. The valuate of if-clause is beloved to make a choice. The parallelise “fresh” and “renewest” both suggest the idea of something full of vitality, to aspects of the F.Y. beauty.

In the second quatrain a good reader may notice the presence of the letter "O", which serves to articulate the words well and give a more prolonged voice effect. Moreover we can see the continuous repetition of interrogative pronouns such as: "where", "whose" and "who". This makes us immediately understand that the quatrain that we will read will be asked in the form of a question, it can be a single question, or as in this case two questions that take up the same topic, that is the beauty of Faith Youth. Indeed, the second quatrain begins with the speaking voice asking a question to Faith Youth. The speaking voice asks Faith Youth if he thinks there is a woman who might be able to spoil the seed of his manhood. With this Shakespeare wants to imply that Faith Youth is so beautiful that nothing could spoil its beauty.In the third and fourth lines of the second quatrain the speaking voice asks another question to the F.Y.. The narrator wants to make it clear to the F.Y. that if he doesn’t have children his beauty will die with him, and this will only be his fault because he wanted to have someone to pass on something as rare as his.

In the third quatrain the speaking voice to tread more on the subject, takes as an example the mother of the F.Y.. It uses the metaphor of spring, because it is the month in which the flowers begin to bloom and nature begins to revive after months of freezing winter. Furthermore, Shakespeare wants the F.Y. understand that also for him it would be a positive thing to see his beauty in his children, because in this way he will be able to realize the luck he had and that he was able to pass on. Shakespeare insists on making his beloved understand that time passes and that what is now will no longer be. We can see how the sound of the letter "S" is repeated, this serves to make the reader understand the harshness and firmness with which Shakespeare expresses what he says.

In the rhyming couplet the speaking voice it almost seems that she has given up, given up in trying to win the F.Y. in having a child and therefore to carry on this beauty that nature has given him.  More precisely in the first line of the rhyming couplet, the speaking voice gives a final decision to the F.Y. and this decision is expressed in the second line of the rhyming couplet, where there is the choice for the F.Y. not to have children, to die and take his image with him. Furthermore, we can notice the massive presence of punctuation, which serves to create pauses for reflection, so that the reader can understand the true meaning of the message.

In this sonnet, the poet is urging the fair youth to preserve something of himself and something of the image he sees in the mirror by fathering a child, "Now is the time that face should form another". The message is reiterated in the last lines of the poem: "But if thou live, remember'd not to be,” “Die single, and thine image dies with thee." Not only will the youth die, but so will his image the one in his mirror, and also his image that may be seen borne by his yet to be child.