Sonnet 5/V "Those hours"

Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that unfair which fairly doth excel.
For never-resting time leads Summer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness everywhere.
Then were not summer’s distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.


Quatrain 1

1 Those ho/urs that / with gen/tle work / did frame >
2 The love/ly gaze / where ev'/ry eye / doth dwell >
3 Will play / the ty/rants to / the ve/ry same,
4 And that / un-fair / which fair/ly doth / excel.

Quatrain 2

5 For ne/ver-res/ting time / leads Sum/mer on >
6 To hi/deous win/ter, // and / confounds / him there,
7 Sap checked / with frost, // and lus/ty leaves / quite gone,
8 Beauty / o’er-snowed / and bare/ness e/v'rywhere.

Quatrain 3

9 Then were / not sum/mer's dis/tilla/tion left >
10 A li/quid pris/'ner pent / in walls / of glass,
11 Beauty's / effect / with beau/ty were / bereft,
12 Nor it, / nor no / remem/brance what / it was.

Couplet

13 But flow'rs / distill'd, // though they / with win/ter meet,
14 Leese but / their show; // their sub/stance still / lives sweet.


Q1-2 provide the fact of time’s effect upon its own beauty; Q3-C then provide a form of hope.

5.1-4

"[H]ours" is disyllabic and is spelled “howers” in Quarto. The sentence of Q1 provides its subject—"[t]hose hours"—then delays its first verb—"will play"—until after line 2's relative clause, the coordinate conjunction joining that verb to a second—"unfair." "And that unfair" is an instance of anastrophe or hyperbaton since the object precedes the verb. "Hours" is a metonym for time, and the enjambments of lines 1-2 and 2-3 enact time's insistence in both framing and tyrannizing beauty. "Unfair" is a neologism (and with "fairly" a form of polypteton). The S believes that there is a cosmic injustice in time's creation and destruction of beauty; it is because of his forensic complaint that he deliberates with the FY. For now, the FY's beauty excels others', and it does so justly. There is here a conflation of beauty and justice which will later be sundered. Q1’s temporal point of view is, according to V, “stereoscopic”: “did frame,” doth dwell,” and “will play” provide past, present and future actions of time, social world, and time, respectively. Notice that the two verbs of the main clause provide the past and future actions of time, both of which enclose the present effect of the beauty of the FY. Q1 is metrically regular, except for the spondees of "Those hours" and "un-fair": the grammatical subject and its second verb.

5.5-8

The next metonym for time—a season, not an hour—enlarges the unit of time, thus increasing the speed to decline, providing a mythically horrific pace. The epithet "never-resting" for time recounts the counter-law of beauty—the time that makes beauty mars it. The leading of summer (capitalized in Quarto), now personified as a person, into winter, where he is confounded and his beauty destroyed, is both natural yet diabolic. K notes that the enjambment of lines 5-6 makes the definition of "lead" as "lure" or "beguile" "initially latent, suddenly and shockingly primary." Lines 7-8 are full of spondees, enacting the apparently slow gravity of that destruction: "Sap checked," "quite gone" and "o'er-snowed." Alden in R remarks that line 7 is one of a number of "spondaic lines" in the sequence, and they often enact an elegiac tone. There is in the language here an almost allegorical myth of Beauty led by Time from Summer's Fair to Winter's Ruin: winter is "hideous" (here dissyllabic) .

5.9-12

"Summer’s distillation" and "liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass" are metaphors for immortal traces of the beautiful one left behind after he is confounded by time. Rose water outlasts the rose from which it comes. This distillation process is procreative, but it is hard not to hear already the other form of saving beauty's trace other than sexual reproduction—poetry—since a poem is also a distilled flower. (An anthology is literally a gathering of flowers.) As V puts it, "liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass" is "a self-reflexive figure literally picturing perfume, but analogically picturing the emotionally labile contents of any sonnet as they preserve their mobility within the transparent walls of prescribed length, meter, and rhyme." B points out that the last line of the quatrain must assume an ellipted verb phrase: "Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was [would exist]." The ellipsis, then, enacts the annihilation. According to Abbott, the double-negative emphasizes, it does not undo, the negation.

This sonnet is the first in which the S begins to think about an alternative to sexual reproduction; he goes from speaking of sexual reproduction to sexual and poetic, and from sexual and poetic reproduction to poetic alone. One presumes that he senses his own impossible rhetorical purpose in the "procreation sonnets" so early that he begins to seek an alternative, perhaps suggested by his own sonnets so far.

5.13-14

The spondee of the sonnet's last foot extends in time the distilled essence of the flower--"still lives sweet"--though the line reads perfectly well if "lives" is not stressed. The sibylant alliteration—“still lives sweet”—provides a delicate afterlife for the “sweet self” of the dying beauty distilled, either in children or in poetry, before death. V notes that "still" dwells within "distillation." (She has done an enormous amount of work in her commentary on such wordplay.) What, exactly, is the “substance” or essence of the FY distilled in child and poem? For the S, his beauty. V points out that the implicit exhortation—"So you, too, must be distilled before your winter comes”—is missing, thus generating the next sonnet. In rhetorical terms, it is an enthymeme: the conclusion is left to be inferred by the reader.

"Leese" is a common variant of "lose" in the period, but CB suggests that it may actually be "lease"; that is, the FY does not not own, he is only leasing, his beauty.

Sonnets 5-6 form a sub-unit within the sub-sequence of the procreation sonnets. It is one of the double sonnets: According to A, there are eight others doubles (15/16, 27/28, 44/45, 50/51, 67/68, 73/74, 89/90, 133/134) and one triple (91/92/93).