Hello and welcome once again to The Beauty of Shakespeare! Today we are listening to Sonnet 2: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow.
This recording is dedicated to my friend Cathy (and this time remembered to mention in the actual recording of the poem).
Sonnet 2: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held. Then being asked where all thy beauty lies— Where all the treasure of thy lusty days— To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use If thou couldst answer "This fair child of mine Shall sum my count and make my old excuse", Proving his beauty by succession thine. This were to be new made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
And here is my first summarizing couplet…
When you are forty and your beauty’s gone At least your looks will linger on your son.
As I have mentioned, I will come up with these summaries independently with the aim of creating a larger collage poem. This is a huge experiment, and the lines will likely be edited or even rewritten but for the most part I am writing on the fly.
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