wildsweetone
i am what i am
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- Feb 1, 2002
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Can anyone tell me what this line from Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 means please?
'Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.'
'Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.'
Shakespeare - Sonnet 73
- Thread starter wildsweetone
- Start date
When you read the entire sonnet, the themes of aging and death are intertwinned, the visual is enhanced by the early lines of the sonnet which mention autumn leaves, in other words, the aging of all natural things. "Deaths second self..." is a reference to the aging process where the body enters a state of suspension before Death lay's claim.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Last edited:
dr_mabeuse
seduce the mind
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- Oct 10, 2002
- Posts
- 11,528
In my reading,
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
"Death's second self" is the night or the sleep that goes with it, and "seals up all in rest". The idea of sleep as being a little death, and of death being an industrial-strength version of sleep is, of course, pretty common.
But you know, the poem also gives the sense that the author's talking about himself as death. There's always been something romantic and seductive about the idea of death, kind of the ltimate seduction, and I think one of the reasons the poem works is that you get the subtextual feeling that the author is enfolding the beloved in his cloak, preparing to take her (him?) away. In any case, for me it has a strong feeling of making someone surrender.
---dr.M.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
"Death's second self" is the night or the sleep that goes with it, and "seals up all in rest". The idea of sleep as being a little death, and of death being an industrial-strength version of sleep is, of course, pretty common.
But you know, the poem also gives the sense that the author's talking about himself as death. There's always been something romantic and seductive about the idea of death, kind of the ltimate seduction, and I think one of the reasons the poem works is that you get the subtextual feeling that the author is enfolding the beloved in his cloak, preparing to take her (him?) away. In any case, for me it has a strong feeling of making someone surrender.
---dr.M.
gauchecritic
When there are grey skies
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- Jul 25, 2002
- Posts
- 7,076
By dr Mabeuse
That was intensely funny.
This is the first time I've read this sonnet and my first impression is that the author is questioning why someone should love him as much as that when he is obviously old and not long for this world.
"Death's second self" is, I agree, the night time when everyone sleeps and thereby are 'dead to the world'. That verse is again descriptive of his own age and that he is in the "twighlight" of his years.
On the whole: So deep a love for maturity is doomed to a short life.
Amazing, the different things people pick from the same piece.
Gauche
Dr.M & Gauche
My first take on reading the single line was as you say, 'sleep' is 'Death's second self...'
The first verse has me leaning toward aging, the gentle decline into dotage, surrender of youth as one moves inescapably closer to death. The first line of the second verse reinforces the notion of aging. The first four lines of the final verse speak to me to be about the decline of bodily form.
As you say Gauche, we all 'read' things different, that is the beauty of the written word.
NL
My first take on reading the single line was as you say, 'sleep' is 'Death's second self...'
The first verse has me leaning toward aging, the gentle decline into dotage, surrender of youth as one moves inescapably closer to death. The first line of the second verse reinforces the notion of aging. The first four lines of the final verse speak to me to be about the decline of bodily form.
As you say Gauche, we all 'read' things different, that is the beauty of the written word.
NL
G
Guest
Guest
It was lovely for me to read everyone's comments. Gauche is right about the speaker's doubts re. being loved at a mature age. Sleep's likeness to a death is found throughout many of the plays, so that's how I read it here.
Like Gauche I also larfed loud at Mab's metaphor .
Perdita
p.s. It's been established that this and other sonnets were written to 'you young man' (vs. 'the dark lady').
Like Gauche I also larfed loud at Mab's metaphor .
Perdita
p.s. It's been established that this and other sonnets were written to 'you young man' (vs. 'the dark lady').
champagne1982
Dangerous Liaison
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2002
- Posts
- 7,671
I did a little research on this sonnet and I've come up with a few thoughts.
Shakespeare was, at most, 36 years old when Sonnet 73 was written. Although not a young man, he was not ancient, even though he was definitely past middle age for an Elizabethan Englishman. I'm guessing this because most people believe that the sonnets were completed by the year, 1600 and The Bard was born in April, 1564.
In Sonnet 73, he is definitely discussing the passing of youth and perhaps even mourning the loss of all that youth implies.
I think this sonnet in it's entirety has given so much to literature. Reading it is like being present at the birth of all of elderhood's autumnal cliches. TY for bringing it to my attention.
Shakespeare was, at most, 36 years old when Sonnet 73 was written. Although not a young man, he was not ancient, even though he was definitely past middle age for an Elizabethan Englishman. I'm guessing this because most people believe that the sonnets were completed by the year, 1600 and The Bard was born in April, 1564.
In Sonnet 73, he is definitely discussing the passing of youth and perhaps even mourning the loss of all that youth implies.
I think that instead of grabbing a single line to analyze, you should also decide what "black night" is a metaphor of. I believe that here, he is using it to symbolize death. Sleep as death is an image he also uses in MacBeth, which makes sense, being a poet, he would harken back to what he'd written and use what works, or at the very least, try to improve upon it.
I think this sonnet in it's entirety has given so much to literature. Reading it is like being present at the birth of all of elderhood's autumnal cliches. TY for bringing it to my attention.
G
Guest
Guest
Well, I could not help but research this and was delighted with the sites I found. Here I found--
<<<
Sonnets 71-74 are typically analyzed as a group, linked by the poet's thoughts of his own mortality. However, Sonnet 73 contains many of the themes common throughout the entire body of sonnets, including the ravages of time on one's physical well-being and the mental anguish associated with moving further from youth and closer to death. Time's destruction of great monuments juxtaposed with the effects of age on human beings is a convention seen before, most notably in Sonnet 55.
The poet is preparing his young friend, not for the approaching literal death of his body, but for the metaphorical death of his youth and passion. The poet's deep insecurities swell irrepressibly as he concludes that the young man is now focused only on the signs of his aging, as the poet surely is himself. This is illustrated by the linear development of the three quatrains. The first two quatrains establish what the poet perceives the young man now sees as he looks at the poet: those yellow leaves and bare boughs, and the faint afterglow of the fading sun. The third quatrain reveals that the poet is speaking not of his impending physical death, but the death of his youth and subsequently his youthful desires -- those very things which sustained his relationship with the young man.
Throughout the 126 sonnets addressed to the young man, the poet tries repeatedly to impart his wisdom of Time's wrath, and more specifically, the grim truth that time will have the same effects on the young man as it has upon the poet. And, as we see in the concluding couplet of Sonnet 73, the poet has this time succeeded. The young man now 'senses' the importance of his own youth, which he will be forced to 'leave ere long' (14).
Some critics assume the young man 'perceives' not the future loss of his own youth, but the approaching loss of his dear friend, the poet (for more on this see notes below). This would then mean that the poet is speaking of his death in the literal sense. However, the poet clearly lives on well after Sonnet 73. He writes eighty-one more sonnets, fifty-three of which are addressed to the young man. Moreover, it would follow from this reading that the poet is dying of old age, but nowhere is it revealed that he is elderly. If we assume that the sonnets are even remotely autobiographical, it becomes relevant that Shakespeare was still a young man himself at the time Sonnet 73 was written. It is generally accepted that all 154 sonnets were composed before 1600, so Shakespeare would have been no older than thirty-six. Granted, a man of thirty-six was not deemed as young by Renaissance standards as by our own, but it seems unlikely that he would be awaiting his own death simply because of his age.
NOTES
time ... year 'that time of year' being late autumn or early winter.
When ... hang Compare the line to Macbeth: "my way of life/is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf" (5.3.23).
Bare ruin'd choirs 'Bare ruin'd choirs' is a reference to the remains of a church or, more specifically, a chancel, stripped of its roof and exposed to the elements. The choirs formerly rang with the sounds of 'sweet birds'. Some argue that lines 3 and 4 should be read without pause -- the 'yellow leaves' shake against the 'cold/Bare ruin'd choirs'. If we assume the adjective 'cold' modifies 'Bare ruin'd choirs', then the image becomes more concrete -- those boughs are sweeping against the ruins of the church. Some editors, however, choose to insert 'like' into the opening of line 4, thus changing the passage to mean 'the boughs of the yellow leaves shake against the cold like the jagged arches of the choir stand exposed to the cold'. Noted 18th-century scholar George Steevens commented that this image "was probably suggested to Shakespeare by our desolated monasteries. The resemblance between the vaulting of a Gothic isle [sic] and an avenue of trees whose upper branches meet and form an arch overhead, is too striking not to be acknowledged. When the roof of the one is shattered, and the boughs of the other leafless, the comparison becomes more solemn and picturesque" (Smith 148).
black night 'black night' is a metaphor for death itself. As 'black night' closes in around the remaining light of the day, so too does death close in around the poet.
Death's second self i.e. 'black night' or 'sleep'. Macbeth refers to sleep as 'the death of each day's life' (2.2.49).
>>>
It's very academic but I read this stuff simply to help my own thinking and imagination, then I take or leave it. I also appreciate learning more about the time and place of the writing.
I like these sites as well (one & two).
Excuse my effusiveness, I love to talk about and share Shakey with others. - Perdita
<<<
Sonnets 71-74 are typically analyzed as a group, linked by the poet's thoughts of his own mortality. However, Sonnet 73 contains many of the themes common throughout the entire body of sonnets, including the ravages of time on one's physical well-being and the mental anguish associated with moving further from youth and closer to death. Time's destruction of great monuments juxtaposed with the effects of age on human beings is a convention seen before, most notably in Sonnet 55.
The poet is preparing his young friend, not for the approaching literal death of his body, but for the metaphorical death of his youth and passion. The poet's deep insecurities swell irrepressibly as he concludes that the young man is now focused only on the signs of his aging, as the poet surely is himself. This is illustrated by the linear development of the three quatrains. The first two quatrains establish what the poet perceives the young man now sees as he looks at the poet: those yellow leaves and bare boughs, and the faint afterglow of the fading sun. The third quatrain reveals that the poet is speaking not of his impending physical death, but the death of his youth and subsequently his youthful desires -- those very things which sustained his relationship with the young man.
Throughout the 126 sonnets addressed to the young man, the poet tries repeatedly to impart his wisdom of Time's wrath, and more specifically, the grim truth that time will have the same effects on the young man as it has upon the poet. And, as we see in the concluding couplet of Sonnet 73, the poet has this time succeeded. The young man now 'senses' the importance of his own youth, which he will be forced to 'leave ere long' (14).
Some critics assume the young man 'perceives' not the future loss of his own youth, but the approaching loss of his dear friend, the poet (for more on this see notes below). This would then mean that the poet is speaking of his death in the literal sense. However, the poet clearly lives on well after Sonnet 73. He writes eighty-one more sonnets, fifty-three of which are addressed to the young man. Moreover, it would follow from this reading that the poet is dying of old age, but nowhere is it revealed that he is elderly. If we assume that the sonnets are even remotely autobiographical, it becomes relevant that Shakespeare was still a young man himself at the time Sonnet 73 was written. It is generally accepted that all 154 sonnets were composed before 1600, so Shakespeare would have been no older than thirty-six. Granted, a man of thirty-six was not deemed as young by Renaissance standards as by our own, but it seems unlikely that he would be awaiting his own death simply because of his age.
NOTES
time ... year 'that time of year' being late autumn or early winter.
When ... hang Compare the line to Macbeth: "my way of life/is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf" (5.3.23).
Bare ruin'd choirs 'Bare ruin'd choirs' is a reference to the remains of a church or, more specifically, a chancel, stripped of its roof and exposed to the elements. The choirs formerly rang with the sounds of 'sweet birds'. Some argue that lines 3 and 4 should be read without pause -- the 'yellow leaves' shake against the 'cold/Bare ruin'd choirs'. If we assume the adjective 'cold' modifies 'Bare ruin'd choirs', then the image becomes more concrete -- those boughs are sweeping against the ruins of the church. Some editors, however, choose to insert 'like' into the opening of line 4, thus changing the passage to mean 'the boughs of the yellow leaves shake against the cold like the jagged arches of the choir stand exposed to the cold'. Noted 18th-century scholar George Steevens commented that this image "was probably suggested to Shakespeare by our desolated monasteries. The resemblance between the vaulting of a Gothic isle [sic] and an avenue of trees whose upper branches meet and form an arch overhead, is too striking not to be acknowledged. When the roof of the one is shattered, and the boughs of the other leafless, the comparison becomes more solemn and picturesque" (Smith 148).
black night 'black night' is a metaphor for death itself. As 'black night' closes in around the remaining light of the day, so too does death close in around the poet.
Death's second self i.e. 'black night' or 'sleep'. Macbeth refers to sleep as 'the death of each day's life' (2.2.49).
>>>
It's very academic but I read this stuff simply to help my own thinking and imagination, then I take or leave it. I also appreciate learning more about the time and place of the writing.
I like these sites as well (one & two).
Excuse my effusiveness, I love to talk about and share Shakey with others. - Perdita
dr_mabeuse
seduce the mind
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2002
- Posts
- 11,528
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
The question is, what what is it that nourished him that now consumes him? It's got to be his love for the object of the poem. By putting that in, Bill pulls off a big metaphor flip and makes this poem that's ostensibly one about old age and death into one that's also about dying for love.
---dr.M.
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
The question is, what what is it that nourished him that now consumes him? It's got to be his love for the object of the poem. By putting that in, Bill pulls off a big metaphor flip and makes this poem that's ostensibly one about old age and death into one that's also about dying for love.
---dr.M.
wildsweetone
i am what i am
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2002
- Posts
- 6,809
Wow, you're all so helpful! Thank you.
This is my first foray into 'understanding' something Shakespeare has given to us.
I wonder if this Sonnet can be likened to what we know of 'simple' mid life crisis, or perhaps depression from a finished love affair...?
Can the depression from a mid life crisis be so great as to reduce a person's mind to make comparisons with death?
True enough, Shakespeare must have been in his early 30s when he wrote this, but as the information says, he went on to write many more Sonnets after 73.
I clearly see black night as a metaphor with death.
Death's second self = sleep
I can see that now, thank you.
I saw dr.M's meaning myself in the writing, which made me think perhaps Shakespeare had gone through a failed love affair and the resulting depression had him writing of death.
I'd just like to say, for my first attempt into looking at something Shakespeare wrote, you guys are helping me a great deal. I'm glad I had the courage to ask.
This one Sonnet is fascinating. I think I may have a lifetime of Shakespeare reading to catch up on.
I wonder if in reading this Sonnet we each of us read into the work something of our own experiences. Is that a normal thing for reading poetry?
Perdita, I'd just like to say, this is the first time I've sat and read from beginning to end one of your informative posts. I think it's written in good english that I didn't find difficult to understand, and short enough paragraphs that didn't make my eyes spin with pain. Thank you. Very helpful.
This is my first foray into 'understanding' something Shakespeare has given to us.
I wonder if this Sonnet can be likened to what we know of 'simple' mid life crisis, or perhaps depression from a finished love affair...?
Can the depression from a mid life crisis be so great as to reduce a person's mind to make comparisons with death?
True enough, Shakespeare must have been in his early 30s when he wrote this, but as the information says, he went on to write many more Sonnets after 73.
I clearly see black night as a metaphor with death.
Death's second self = sleep
I can see that now, thank you.
I saw dr.M's meaning myself in the writing, which made me think perhaps Shakespeare had gone through a failed love affair and the resulting depression had him writing of death.
I'd just like to say, for my first attempt into looking at something Shakespeare wrote, you guys are helping me a great deal. I'm glad I had the courage to ask.
This one Sonnet is fascinating. I think I may have a lifetime of Shakespeare reading to catch up on.
I wonder if in reading this Sonnet we each of us read into the work something of our own experiences. Is that a normal thing for reading poetry?
Perdita, I'd just like to say, this is the first time I've sat and read from beginning to end one of your informative posts. I think it's written in good english that I didn't find difficult to understand, and short enough paragraphs that didn't make my eyes spin with pain. Thank you. Very helpful.
Virtual_Burlesque
Former Ecdysiast
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2004
- Posts
- 4,083
JCSTREET said:
... tickling his muse with a feather?
