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LECTURE -10
SHAKESPEARIAN SONNETS
SONNET - 65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?
O fearful meditation! Where, alack,
Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil or beauty can forbid?
O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
Structure
Sonnet 65 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form, abab cdcd efef gg and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The first line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter: × / × / × / × / × / Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, (65.1) / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus. The tenth line exhibits a rightward movement of the third ictus (the resulting four- position figure, × × / / , is sometimes referred to as a minor ionic): × / × / × × / / × / Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid? (65.10) 2
This figure may also be detected in lines eleven and fourteen, along with an initial reversal in line three.
Summary Sonnet 65 is another meditation on the passage of time. Time is personified as a person who can steal beauty, "Time's best jewel," and hide it in his treasure chest. The speaker asks, if nothing in the world—not metal or rock or earth or sea—is immortal, how can beauty, which is so delicate and weak, hope to survive the ages? What is strong enough to hold back Time's "swift foot"? How can the sweet breezes of summer hold out against the ravages of time when even rocks and steel gates weaken over time? How can the best thing in the world, beauty, be hid from the ravages of time? What can hold time back and prevent it from stealing beauty? Nothing can, unless, by a miracle, the speaker's love will still be remembered because of this sonnet's "black ink," or words.
Analysis Time, in Sonnet 65, is once again personified, as in sonnets 60 and 116. The reference to Time's "swift foot" in line 11 suggests that time is relentlessly advancing. Sonnet 65 is Shakespearean in structure and is another sonnet that bemoans mortality and the march of time, but, like sonnets 18, 55, and 60, it seems to hold the humanistic belief that only poetry can survive through the ages. Like Sonnet 55, Sonnet 60 acknowledges that nothing can last over time, not structures of metal or stone or even aspects of nature like the earth and sea. The problem that has been described over the course of three quatrains is given possible resolution in the final couplet, which expresses the hope the words of the sonnet will keep the memory of the beloved alive. And like many others of Shakespeare's sonnets, this sonnet celebrates beauty. Sonnet 65 continues the theme of the two sonnets preceding it, addressing the passage of time with the similar approach of how it destroys all earthly things. Sonnet 64 discusses the "lofty towers I see down-raz'd," the "brass" which is "eternal slave to mortal rage," or a victim to war, and the destruction of "the kingdom of the shore" by the "hungry ocean." Here again, "brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea" can escape the ravages of time.
Line 3 asks, "How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea," characterizing beauty as the plaintiff in a legal dispute. Time is thus characterized as an unfair tyrant, against which delicate beauty stands no chance in court. The legal terminology is continued in the following line with the use of the word "action." The idea of time's "rage" links Sonnet 65 to the previous sonnet. In Sonnet 64, "brass" is described as an "eternal slave to mortal rage." The term "rage" in association with time is also seen in Sonnet 13, which refers to the "barren rage of death's eternal cold."
Lines 6-8 present a metaphor of the seizure of a city, which would be the final destruction of war. In line 6, "the wreckful siege of battering days," refers to ruin and destruction with the term "wreckful," while "siege" implies the taking of a city. "Battering" calls to mind a battering ram, which is a huge beam of wood swung against the gates of a city to break them down and allow the attacking army to enter. The "rocks impregnable" in line 7 refer to the city's walls, which were thought to be impenetrable, and the "gates of steel" in line 8 are the gates of the besieged city. 3
Lines 10-12 pose three questions, which are answered in the final couplet. In line 10, "Time's best jewel" refers to the beauty of youth, and "Time's chest" is the place where Time eventually hides all youth: a coffin. Line 11's question, "Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?" suggests that Time has a "swift foot," or moves quickly, unstopped by even a strong hand held up helplessly against it. Line 12 asks how it is possible to stop time from destroying youth.
Sonnet 63 uses the same idea of the physical quality of the black ink being transformed into something alive: "His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, / And they shall live, and he in them still green." The word "green" implies youth or newness, as in the greenness of springtime. In the final couplet of Sonnet 65, the poet hopes, "That in black ink my love may still shine bright." In this case, the hope that the love will "still shine bright" is a comparison to the sun, which time obscures with clouds.
The opening quatrain of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65 asks how beauty can resist that power in nature which destroys brass, stone, earth, and the sea, since beauty is less durable and powerful than any of those. The earth and sea together cannot withstand death, the dismal (“sad”) state that overpowers everything in nature. In the third line, mortality becomes “this rage”—a violent anger, even a kind of madness, that opposes a most fragile supplicant, beauty. If the earth itself is no match for this force, beauty seems to have no hope of lasting, since its strength is no more than a flower’s.
The second quatrain repeats the opening question, beauty now characterized by another of nature’s insubstantial and temporary forms, “summer’s honey breath,” which the poet sees as the victim of an assault by a “wreckful siege” in the form of “battering days.” The “earth” alluded to in the opening line is represented here as “rocks impregnable,” and brass has been replaced by “gates of steel.” Neither of these substantial forms can withstand time’s battering and corrosive force. Though asking a question, the speaker implies that any resistance to time is doomed and, further, that natural things are in constant battle with a force that nothing survives, least of all something as evanescent as summer’s breath.
The third quatrain begins with an expostulation that expresses the poet’s feelings as he confronts the prospect of time’s onslaught: “O fearful meditation!” Even flight is futile, for beauty, now represented as a jewel, cannot escape being encased finally and forever in “Time’s chest.” Time is then characterized as the swift runner whose foot cannot be held back. No outside force—no “hand”—can or will reach out and rescue beauty from time’s onward thrust. At the close of the third quatrain, beauty is not only a doomed supplicant but also a helpless victim of time’s plundering. At this point, the poet appears to have accepted the inevitable annihilation of beauty by time’s relentless onslaught.
The final couplet offers hope, however—the written word. Mere ink, imbued with the poet’s love, offers the only defence against Time’s annihilating power, for the poet’s words have the miraculous ability to reflect beauty’s splendour in a timeless state.