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Sonnet 73 by Wiliam Shakespeare
Sonnet 73 by Wiliam Shakespeare
Sonnet 73 Analysis
Poetry is a common medium for people to express love. Sonnets are almost
always about love. William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 is no exception. Senti-ments of
love along with those of against and death are expressed through the use of figurative
language. The poem is organized in such a way that, as it progresses, the reader feels the
author approaching death as the use of carefully chosen meta-phors that give Sonnet 73
such powerful imagery. In the beginning of the poem the author uses the metaphor of
autumn to stand for his progression in years. Just like the leaves change and fall from
the trees, the author has changed and lost his youth. The author next states a compari-
son of his aging to a sunset: In me thou seest the twilight of such day/ As after sunset
fadeth in the west (lines 05-06). Here sunset represents dying. The next metaphor
compares night, which occurs after sunset, to death. Which by and by black night doth
take away/ Death's second self that seals up all in rest (07-08).It is important to note that
the author has changed his focus from aging, to dying, to death, and narrowed his scope
to the close of one day (05). In the final quatrain the author speaks of a deathbed of
ashes (10-11). These ashes can be interpreted as the ashes of his youth. Those ashes had
once been the fuel of the man's youth, that which provided his youthful energy. But
now, they are now the place where the dying fire of his youth and strength dwindles to
nothingness. It is the final couplet of Sonnet 73 that first mentions love. The entire
poem is written to someone, probably a lover or a loved one. The last two lines,
however, seem to appear to sum up the relationship: This thou perceiv'st, which makes
thy love more strong// To love that well, which thou must leave ere long (13-14). Here
the author is saying that even though he is so close to death, the lover still loves him.
The author's advanced stage on life actually makes the love more strong (13), even
though the lover knows that the author will not be around much longer. Although the
author spends much of the sonnet speaking of aging, dying, and death, there is still an
element of love. The poem addresses a lover of the author through figurative language
and metaphors. The organization of the poem makes a steady progression from images
of aging, to dying, to death, and ulti-mately to love. Sonnet 73 is a love poem with
images of aging and death.
The speaker in sonnet 73 employs three different metaphors to describe his aging
process: a tree, a day, and a fire; his purpose is to emphasize the strength of love.
In the first quatrain of Shakespeare Sonnet 73, the speaker addresses a beloved,
remarking that she may see that he is aging. He compares his body to a tree losing its
leaves: “yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang.” His hair is thinning, and the few
strands he has left are turning gray with age. The gray hair that once was brown is
likened to yellow leaves that once were green.
And like the tree’s branches trembling in the cold breezes of winter coming on, his own
limbs shiver more easily at the change of warm to cold weather. Even his poetry is
becoming “[b]are ruin’d choirs,” though it used to be filled with beautiful expression
akin to the songs of “sweet birds.”
After comparing his aging to a tree in late autumn, he then compares the aging process
to a day, and he is in the “twilight of [that] day,” the time when the sun “fadeth in the
west.” As the sun sinks lower, nighttime comes and brings sleep in the normal day’s
activities.
But for this speaker who is approaching his last earthly days, night becomes “black
night” which not only will extinguish his life, but also will “take away” “Death’s second
self,” or sleep. He will not even be able to rest after black night has stolen his life.
In the third quatrain, the speaker again introduces a new metaphor: this time he
compares his ebbing life to a fire that “on the ashes of his youth doth lie.” His youth
once burned brightly, but now his flame is dwindling, and the very things that fed his
youth’s flame are being consumed by the low-burning fire of old age.
The Couplet: “This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more
strong”
Nevertheless, his beloved still offers him love and that love is even stronger. Knowing
that they must part at death, which is fast approaching, motivates the beloveds to
cherish their love and time together precisely because their time is short.
SONNET LXXIII
73
Hat time of yeeare thou maiſt in me
T behold,
When yellow leaues,or none,or
fewe doe hange
and
Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird,
And sing our bondage freely. Cym.III.3.42-4
Elsewhere the meaning is that of a group of
singers, presumably choristers, as in this from
2H6:
myself have limed a bush for her,
And placed a quire of such enticing birds,
That she will light to listen to the lays,
2H6.I.3.86-8
In Midsummer Night's Dream it is used to
mean a company of friends or gossips:
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and
laugh,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
MND.II.1.51-6.