Sonnet 3/III "Look in thy glass"

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
"Now is the time that face should form an other,"
Whose fresh repair, if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live rememb'red not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.


Quatrain 1

1 Look in / thy glass / and tell / the face / thou viewest,
2 "Now is / the time / that face / should form / another,"
3 Whose fresh / repair, / if now / thou not / renewest,
4 Thou dost / beguile / the world, // unbless / some mother.

Quatrain 2

5 For where / is she / so fair / whose un/ear’d womb >
6 Disdains / the til/lage of / thy hus/bandry?
7 Or who / is he / so fond / will be / the tomb >
8 Of his / self-love / to stop / poste/rity?

Quatrain 3

9 Thou art / thy mo/ther’s glass, // and she / in thee >
10 Calls back / the love/ly Ap/ril of / her prime;
11 So thou / through win/dows of / thine age / shalt see,
12 Despite / of wri/nkles, // this / thy gol/den time.

Couplet

13 But if / thou live / remem/b'red not / to be,
14 Die si/ngle // and / thine i/mage dies / with thee.


Q1 imagines the FY's soliloquy upon his own face; in Q2, the S cannot imagine the FY's not finding a partner. Q3 compares the FY to his own procreative mother. The C offers a hypothetical curse upon the FY.

3.1-4

The opening trochee of line 1 emphasizes the imperative mood of the first verb, coordinated with a second which commands the FY to look at himself in a mirror and provides him with a one-line soliloquy to his face. The demonstrative adjective--"that face" (it can be performed as iamb, trochee or spondee)-- alienates the FY from his own beautiful face so that he can reproduce it. The "face" functions as an instance of synecdoche, substitution of part for whole or whole for part, "the Figure of Quick Conceit." Notice that, if one delivers "that face" as an iamb, the stress is on the body part; as a trochee, on its singularity; as a spondee, on both equally.

Hypotaxis is what we would call subordination; parataxis, coordination. The grammar and syntax of the relative clause of lines 3-4, when it is interrupted by a dependent clause (hypotaxis)—“if thou not renewest”—is strange and interesting. I believe that there is an ellipted "of" before "[w]hose." The paratactic, parallel isocolon (phrases or clauses of equal length) in line 4 with its two verbs ("beguile" and "unbless") allows for ellipsis: "Thou dost beguile the world, [and thou dost] unbless some mother." The caesura after "world" and the asyndeton of the ellipted coordinate conjunction hammers the privative "un." Notice yet another such privative in line 5: "unear’d." The S envisions the FY's failure to reproduce as a kind of anti-genesis.

3.5-8

The S organizes the quatrain by means of two, parallel rhetorical questions: Where is she so fair; who is he so fond? The spondees of "so fair" and "so fond" confirm the parallelism. The metaphor within each rhetorical question is quite distinct: The "she" is a field disdaining to be tilled by the FY and his seed; the "he" is a self-loving suicide. Antithesis and rhyme allow for a choice between womb or tomb. The S’s use of the metaphor of the FY’s narcissism as a tomb alludes to the Gospels’ understanding that the only way to transcend the tomb is through salvation (see Matthew 27.60). Here, the S believes that sexual reproduction alone can achieve transcendence. Later, he will allow that poetry can. Nowhere in the FY portion of the sequence does he discuss conventional Christian salvation. WS is either ironizing his S's paganism, or not.

W observes that "tillage of thy husbandry" is a pun, though he under-emphasizes its vulgarity. The S's attitude toward heterosexual love, whether here or in the DL sonnets, is not just bawdy; it's often dehumanizing. The FY is at least a human farmer; the hypothetical woman is a field.

3.9-12

The S likens the FY to the young man’s mother, who sees herself in him. (Notice that the patriarchal argument is now qualified: children resemble their mothers, too.) The glass or mirror of line 1 in which the FY views his face becomes the glass of a child reminding his mother of her earlier loveliness. The S repeats the seasonal metaphor for age—winter—yet varies it: the FY’s mother can "call back" or recall her lovely spring, specifically April. "Calls back" can be performed as an iamb, a trochee, or a spondee—each bringing a different sonic effect and meaning. In the simile of the FY’s situation with his mother's, the nostalgic glass becomes a window through which the FY may view his earlier youth, a portal to a lost, now recoverable time of beauty, the stressed "this" bringing the FY back to the present time, the golden time, during which he deliberates his future.

3.13-14

V argues that the poem's deep structure is that Q1-3 concern life, and the C, death, the coordinate conjunction "but" the hinge between the two. The hypothetical proposition of the couplet is peculiar since the if-clause (the antecedent) represents an event after the then-clause (the consequent). The S suggests that a consequent can precede its antecedent, a logical impossibility. This is why, no doubt, B allows that line 13 can mean not only "in such a way that you will not be remembered," but also "with the intent of being forgotten." Yet its primary meaning is futuristic. The logical impossibility collapses temporal frames so that the FY can see what his present actions are doing to his future life after death. He is destroying his own "image."

This image of beauty exists within him now, but it can only survive him if he reproduces it. The image is a kind of Platonic form, yet the form is dependent upon actions of its current instantiation. "Die" may have a trace of the imperative in it, a kind of curse, as V points out. WS comes upon Platonism in Hoby's translation of Castiglione's Book of the Courtier, specifically in Bembo's great speech on love in Book 4, where Castiglione channels Plato's Symposium through a discussion of the beloved's face.