Sonnet 4

Hello! This is Zina and welcome to the The Beauty of Shakespeare—sister project to

The Beauty of Things

—where I will be reading all of William Shakespeare’s sonnets in order, and then I will be summarizing each poem in an original heroic couplet written by yours truly. Those couplets will be put together in order at the end of this project to make a large collage poem. 

I hope to quicken the pace of putting these sonnets out into the world. I honestly was not sure if anyone would be interested in this but it looks like people are so I am feeling like this may be a worthwhile endeavor. 

Today’s poem is Sonnet #4, and it is dedicated to Doug, whom I have known for a long time and has been a great supporter of all of my writing, well before Substack and mostly when it was just emails. I probably would not be here on Substack if it were not for his encouragement. 

Sonnet 4

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And being frank, she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
For, having traffic with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
   Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
   Which usèd lives th’ executor to be.

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Okay, now for the hard part of this project. Reducing this lovely sonnet into a couplets Dear Lord, what have I gotten myself into? Well, first, what is this poem about? Shakespeare is using money terms in order to make an argument about beauty: that beauty, like money, should be invested and not hoarded—Meaning that a beautiful person should have children so as to create more beauty, just as money that is invested generates more money through interest.

Fair Youth, if you do not invest this grace,
You’ll see this hoarded beauty fall to waste. 

Thank you for listening. I look forward to sharing the Sonnet 5 very soon.

So in the words of Sonnet 87:

Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing…