Sonnet 6/VI "Then let not winter's ragged hand"

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer ere thou be distill’d:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beautie’s treasure ere it be self-kill’d.
That use is not forbidden usury
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one.
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigur’d thee.
Then what could death do if thou should’st depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-will’d, for thou art much too fair
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.


Quatrain 1

1 Then let / not win/ter’s rag/ged hand / deface >
2 In thee / thy sum/mer // ere / thou be / distill’d:
3 Make sweet /some vi/al; // trea/sure thou / some place
4 With beau/tie’s trea/sure ere / it be / self-kill’d.

Quatrain 2

5 That use / is not / forbid/den u/sury
6 Which hap/pies those / that pay / the wil/ling loan;
7 That’s for / thy self / to breed / ano/ther thee,
8 Or ten / times hap/pier, // be / it ten / for one.

Quatrain 3

9 Ten times / thy self / were hap/pier than / thou art,
10 If ten / of thine / ten times / refi/gur’d thee.
11 Then what / could death / do if / thou should’st / depart,
12 Leaving / thee li/ving in / poste/rity?

Couplet

13 Be not / self-will’d, // for thou / art much / too fair >
14 To be / death’s con/quest and / make worms / thine heir.


Q1 is a distilled summary of Sonnet 5; Q2-3 develop the economy of reproduction; the C concludes with his thesis.

6.1-4

The “then”—a conjunctive adverb—signifies consequence, so indicating that this sonnet follows upon the last. Sometimes, the S’s sonnets are continuous; sometimes, discrete. Like the Psalms, they are sometimes so continuous as to seem parts of one double or triple sonnet. As B puts it, Sonnet 5 is practically “the second-half of a 28-line unit." The season of death is personified by its “hand,” here a terrifying vandal of the FY’s “summer,” the season of life now a metaphor for the FY’s beauty. The tenor is deliberative as the S pleads with the FY, but he is not arguing that the FY should not age—that is an impossibility—but, instead, he should not age before being “distilled”—the process already explained in 5.13-14. The spondee of line 3’s opening—especially when attended by the imperative mood of the verb combines both the deliberative—“[m]ake”—and the epideictic “sweet,” and the caesura provides a pause of hoped-for wonder of the FY’s impregnation of some woman. The repetition of “treasure” from 2.6 repeats and deepens the Gospel intertext, even if the FY’s treasure is only his beauty. The rhyme of “distilled” and “self-killed” offers the FY the disjunct of two options, but the spondee of "self-killed" provides a sonic antithesis, one whose emphasis on “self” repeats the accusation of narcissism.

6.5-12

The next eight lines ring the changes upon the economic metaphor of reproduction. The FY’s selfish waste of his semen is now a form of usury. As B points out, usury, “lending money at interest, was no longer illegal in England, [but] it was still considered sinful.” The sin is that of greed. The relative pronoun, “[w]hich,” is not restrictive, but goes back to the “use” that is not usury; it “happies” or makes happy--anthimeria uses a word normally used as one part of speech as another--those who are willing to give a free loan of their semen, which, paradoxically will pay back great interest—more FYs—making him happier still. The S represents the rate of interest here with a tedious extension of “ten”: this excess is WS treating the S with some irony, for the S’s refigurings are often repetitive. B points out that “refigure” means duplicated through number (142), but, of course, the S’s own poetic mathematics “refigures” the FY through a repetition (re-) of the figure (rhetorical figure): “Ten times” is repeated and emphasized as a spondee (the interest rate in England at the time was 10%, but the S’s here is, as B points out 1,000%). Of course, the S is envisioning a ten-fold increase—ten children will have ten children, who will have ten of their own, and so on, imagining apparently that the FY’s exponentially increasing beauty will not only live on, but increase in scope. What are we to make of the hyperbole here. After all, some of the children will be daughters who will, given the weird patriarchy imagined here, reproduce their husband’s looks, not their father’s or grandfather’s. And where did the FY’s beauty come from? Be that as it may, the appeal is again to the FY’s capacity to challenge death through the immortality of procreation. The trochaic reversal—“do if”—stresses death’s powerlessness in the face of the FY’s procreation of himself, “[l]eaving thee living,” the alliteration relating as cause and effect the reproduction and the immortality. B explains that “leaving” puns not only on making leaves, but also on subtracting one figure from another. The trochee stresses the FY’s freedom to choose to leave his narcissism behind by leaving children behind.

6.13-14

Again in the imperative mood, the S commands that the FY be not “self-willed,” willing himself to isolation—notice the accord of “self-killed” and “self-willed.” (CB points out that Quarto has “selfe-wild,” allowing a pun which reminds the FY of his savage obstinacy.) The FY’s beauty is “too fair” for the FY to succumb to the death he can vanquish. If he will not refigure himself through children, his only heirs will be worms. The poetic reminder that death is a matter of worms is given chilling force here since they are now seen, through comparison, as the FY’s children. They will bear, not his memory (1.4), but his flesh, now no longer fair, but merely worm food, nourishing worms to reproduce only themselves. As K points out, conquest is opposed to inheritance in early modern law—property not passed on through inheritance is “conquered”—so the metaphor of conquest becomes that of inheritance. V points out that the poem’s exhortation fits the pattern found in homily: negative (1-1), positive (3-12), negative (13-14).