Monday, May 17, 2010

What this poem by shakespeare mean?What is the initial message?

Sonnet V





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 cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,


Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:


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.

What this poem by shakespeare mean?What is the initial message?
"Those hours, that with gentle work did frame


The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,"





Time, that made your lovely face that everyone looks at....





"Will play the tyrants to the very same


And that unfair which fairly doth excel:"





Will be cruel to that same face. Now its features are beautiful, but in the future, they won't be.





"For never-resting time leads summer on


To hideous winter and confounds him there;"





Time keeps moving on. Summer's great, but the same time that gives us summer will bring nasty, bitter winter.





"Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,


Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:"





In winter, sap, which makes a tree grow and live, will freeze and the tree will be bare and will have no beauty.





"Then, were not summer's distillation left,


A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,"





Perfume ("liquid prisoner...in walls of glass") allows the beauty of the flowers of summer to live on.





"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."





But even though a flower will lose its physical beauty, it's beauty will live on in the smells of perfumes made from the flower.





*Maybe* he leave it for us to continue the thought: A woman's beauty, once gone, is gone forever. People won't want to look at her, men won't love her, etc. That's just my take on it.





http://nfs.sparknotes.com/sonnets/sonnet...





Go with DEKE! He has it right (except I think the "liquid" is perfume and not wine). But it doesn't really matter, because, after reading Deke's answer, either wine or perfume could stand for love. I missed that completely.
Reply:"i want to f u untill u quiver and squeal" is an interpretation of it
Reply:The general theme of this section of sonnets is "time destroys beauty, but love continues".


The "liquid prisoner" I assume is wine, and Shakespeare is stretching the metaphor by referring to the grapes as flowers.





Is this enough to get you started?

Crooked Teeth

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