|
SONNET 3 |
PARAPHRASE |
|
Look in thy glass, and tell
the face thou viewest |
Look in your mirror and tell the face you see |
|
Now is the time that face
should form another; |
That now is the time it should form another [create a child]; |
|
Whose fresh repair if now
thou not renewest, |
If you do not renew yourself, |
|
Thou dost beguile the world,
unbless some mother. |
You rob the world, and prevent some woman from becoming a mother. |
|
For where is she so fair
whose unear'd womb |
For where is the woman whose unploughed womb |
|
Disdains the tillage of thy
husbandry? |
Would frown upon the way you plough your field? |
|
Or who is he so fond will be
the tomb |
Or who is he so foolish to love himself so much but let |
|
Of his self-love, to stop
posterity? |
Himself perish? [To make a tomb of
self-love and not have a child to carry on your beauty] |
|
Thou art thy mother's glass,
and she in thee |
You are the mirror of your mother, and she is the mirror of you |
|
Calls back the lovely April
of her prime: |
And in you she recalls the lovely April of her youth: |
|
So thou through windows of
thine age shall see |
So through your own children you will see your youth |
|
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time. |
Despite the wrinkles caused by age. |
|
But if thou live, remember'd
not to be, |
But if you live your life avoiding being remembered, |
|
Die single, and thine image
dies with thee. |
You will die single [and childless], and your image will die with you. |