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Sonnet 65 (Shakespeare) 1 Since brass, nor stone, nor boundless sea, 2 But sad mortality o'er-sways their power, 3 How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, 4 Whose action is no stronger than a flower? 5 O how shall summer's honey breath hold out, 6 Against the wreckful siege of batt " ring days 7 When rocks impregnable are not so stout, 8 Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays? 9 O fearful meditation! Where, alack, 10 Shall time's best jewel from time's chest lie hid?

11 Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back, 12 Or who his spoil o'er beauty can forbid? 13 O none, unless this miracle have might: 14 That in black ink my love may still shine bright. Withstanding Mortality through Verse Melissa ZyduckExplication #1 Sonnet 65 Carducci Feb. 21st, 2001 Sonnets are rhymed poems consisting of fourteen lines, the first eight making up the octet and the last six lines being the sestet. The basic structure of the sonnet arose in medieval Italy, its most prominent exponent being the Early Renaissance poet, Petrarch.

The appearance of the English Sonnet, however, occurred when Shakespeare was an adolescent, around 1580 (Moore and Charmaine 1). Although it is named after him, Shakespeare did not originate the English sonnet form. The English sonnet differs slightly from the Italian, or Petrarchan, Sonnet and the Spenserian Sonnet in that it ends with a rhymed couplet and follows the rhyme scheme (a bab cdc d eff gg). Thus, the octet / sestet structure can be alternatively divided into three quatrains with alternating rhymes and ending in a rhymed couplet. William Shakespeare's Sonnet 65 is part of a sequence of one hundred and fifty-four sonnets allegedly written sometime between 1592 and May of 1609 (Duncan 13; Moore and Charmaine 1). In sonnets 1 through 126, the speaker addresses a young man often referred to as the Youth, and in sonnets 127 through 154, a woman, or Dark Lady, is addressed Sonnet 65 is also part of a unit with Sonnet 64 (Best 1), the two coming together to form their own "fearful meditation" (9) on time and ruin reaping youth and beauty from the world and leaving only cold death (Cooney 3).

Shakespeare opens the poem with the speaker listing paradigms of the long-lasting substances "brass" and "stone" (1). "Earth" and "boundless sea" (1) are also long lasting, but are superior in that they are nearly limitless in extent. All of these elements, by their nature, should be capable of holding out against "sad mortality" (2), but none of them are free of its operations (Duncan, 240) as it "o'er-sways their power" (2). The speaker then asks how "shall beauty hold a plea" (3) against "this rage" (3); the yet unnamed force of time. "Rage" is used in two previous sonnets in similar context to exemplify the blind fury of time's destructiveness and to help suggest the madness of an unreasoning tyrant (Commentary 2). "And barren rage of death's eternal cold" is found in Sonnet 13, line 12, and "And brass eternal slave to mortal rage"; is found in Sonnet 64, line 4.

"Hold a plea" (3) has a legal sound to it, and helps give the reader the image of a subject defending itself before an enraged and absolute judge, who is clearly not about to take notice of the plea. It is interesting to not that in line 3 "rage" contains the problem that has caused the emotions: "age" (Davies 1). In this portion of the sonnet, "beauty" (3) is still a very general image, but the image gets clearer in line four where "beauty" is as weak and helpless as "a flower" (4) (Cooney 1). At this point of the sonnet, we are still more conscious of the lamenting tone of the speaker than of the items he is listing and of the question he poses. The legal terminology continues in line four with the word "action". Here, the legal action of beauty to prevent destruction is no more effective than a flower trying to stop the march of time (Commentary 3).

The metaphor ranges beyond the legalistic images and sets up the picture of the flower being trampled by the boot of time (Commentary 3). The speaker then goes on to ask "how shall summer's honey breath hold out / Against the wreckful siege of battering days" (5, 6) when not even "impregnable" (7) rocks or "gates of steel" (7) can. The sound of "summer's honey breath" (5) has a lovely, fresh appeal. Summer is personified to be the Beloved Youth, a sweet-smelling person (Cooney 1), whose breath can hardly "hold out" (6), an echo of "hold plea" (3) from above (Commentary 3), against the siege of time. With "the wreckful siege", Shakespeare gives the reader an image of warfare and a battering ram assailing the gates of a city (Commentary 3). The imagery in these lines is very subtle, and even 'visualize' is too crude a word for what the reader must do when taking in the lines.

The imagery used sits somewhere between abstraction and fully realized concreteness. The reader takes in the general meaning of the idea, while feeling the full force of the physical items, the battering ram and steel gates, in the poem (Cooney 1). The soft feel of line five contrasts with the warfare occurring in line six; one line setting up a comforting feeling, and the other destroying it. This is an excellent example of Shakespeare's ability to provide contrasting emotions that result in eloquent poetic flow (Sparano 1). Finally, in line eight, the enemy", time", is identified by name as it "decays" even "gates of steel."Decays" is not normally a transitive verb, and it is left unknown as to how exactly time decays everything (Commentary 3).

The poet then becomes more distraught in line nine, crying out "O fearful meditation!" He is distraught not only by the fears he has already stated, but the fears that he has yet to state (Commentary 3). The feelings being conveyed are more intimate and more intense as the speaker asks, "shall time's best jewel from time's chest lie hid?" Here time is personified again, but this time as a miser (Cooney 2) who hoards his best jewel, youth, away. The chest he locks that jewel away in is often perceived to be a coffin (Commentary 4). Youth is also stolen away in Sonnet 63, in which time steals "away the treasure of his spring" (8); spring usually representing youth and / or sexual prime in Shakespeare's works. To Shakespeare, youth was often the most prized asset of a person's life, aside from bearing children (Cooney 2). There can also be a double meaning in the jewel as a symbol for youth.

It can mean youth as a universal concept, or his Beloved Youth (Commentary 4). Aside from where time has hid his most prized jewel, the poet also wants to know "what strong hand can hold his swift foot back" (11). The hand and foot imagery suggests the possibility of not only tripping up time as it speeds on its way, but also the helpless of the hand raised in a futile at tempt to stop its progress (Commentary 4). Here, again, time is personified, this time as a speedy runner that cannot be stopped.

In line 10 "time" is reversed phonetically in "might" in line 13 (Davies 2). Again, the poet questions how to stop time's effects with "or who his spoil of beauty can forbid" (12). There are multiple meanings for the word "spoil" in this line. There are echoes of spoils of war from the previous sections, but also the spoiling of beauty. There is also the joint image of how the invaders of a town take their spoils of war by raping the women, spoiling them and their beauty (Cooney 2). In line 12 the poet again uses "O" for a transition, this time in "O none" to answer the questions presented in lines 11 and 12.

Every time "O" is used, in lines 5, 9, and 12, the speaker contemplates the affects of time more deeply than in the previous lines of the sonnet. The rising intensity with each passing "O" shows the increasing battle of the poet to deal with the idea of mortality and its inevitability destruction of everything (Sparano 1). The "O" is an effective transition for this poem because it is unlike any other word in the sonnet; it contains only one letter and one syllable, helping to offset it from the other words (Sparano 1). The very sound of "O" strikes the reader as a wail of distraught pity and sorrow, hailing what the speaker feels (Sparano 1).

In the last two lines of the sonnet the poet appeals to a "miracle" (13) that his writings might survive the wrath of time and that his "love may still shine bright" (14). "My love" is another double meaning, standing for both his love as an emotion and for his Beloved Youth (Commentary 4). The contrast in color in the last line, "That in black ink my love may still shine bright" poses the image of the written, or printed, text of the poem against the shining light of the beloved (Cooney 2). These last lines bring out the true theme of the poem: that through the written word things live on; more specifically, the Beloved Youth and his beauty live on. Although in this poem the faith in his ability to immortalize is much weaker than in other sonnets with the same theme. In Sonnet 65, the poet has a sense of threatened personal loss and the invincibility of time's advancing destruction.

Here, with the word "may" (14), the poet shows his doubt in the ability of his words to withstand the "wreckful siege" (6) of time. In other sonnets he is much more confident in his abilities. For example, in Sonnet 18 the poet says in Sonnet 18, lines 13-14, "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see / So long lives this, and this give life to thee". In that passage, there is no question of the poet's abilities to seal off time's destructive decay through his writing. Technically, Shakespeare does a wonderful job with both diction and the way the words sound together. He stays with the proper sonnet rhyme scheme, (a bab) with the words "sea", "power", "plea" and "flower".

The second quatrain is rhymed (cdc d) with the words "out", "days", "stout", and "decays". The third quatrain, rhymed (eff), ends in "alack", "hid", "back", and "forbid". The heroic couplet at the end rhymes its proper (gg) with "might" and "bright". But it is not just the rhymes that make up the sounds in Sonnet 65.

In lines 13 and 14 the consonance, repeated consonant sounds, of "m" work their way in like a mantra of hope with "miracle", "might", "my" and "may". In line 8 the sounds of "t" and "s" are repeated as if to reinforce how strong the gates themselves are: "gates... steel so strong... time... decays!" The "s" sound is also used in lines 1 and 2 to mimic the sound of the "boundless sea"; "Since brass... stone... boundless sea... sad... o'er-sways". Sounds of more than one letter also litter the poem. The "or" sound is repeated throughout the sonnet. "Nor" three times in line 1, "o'er-sways" in line 2, and "Or" begins both lines 11 and 12, making those lines anaphoric.

The sound "ac" also threads its way through the sonnet in the words "action" (4), "wreckful" (6), "alack" (9), "back" (11), and "black" (14). With the lone exception of Sonnet 145 (Moore and Charmaine 1), the meter of Shakespeare's sonnets is iambic pentameter, each line being comprised of five double-syllable iambic feet. Scansion of Sonnet 65 reveals that all the lines follow the standard iambic pentameter form of stressed-unstressed, except lines 6 and 10. In both these lines, there is an extra stressed syllable.

In line six this is scanned "Against / the wrack / full siege / of bat / te ring / days". Diction such as "power" (2), "rage" (3), "impregnable" (7), and "strong" (8), coupled with the connotation of warfare in the words "siege" (6), and "battering" (6) makes the reader feel that nothing short of a "miracle" (13) would be able to keep time at bay and allow the poet to preserve his Beloved Youth in verse. The inspiration for Sonnet 65 may have come from several sources. Shakespeare could have been thinking of the monasteries ruined in the reign of Henry V, with their crumbling towers and vandalized brass monuments (Best 1).

Another source of insight could be found in Horace's Ode 3.30. I have built a monument more lasting than bronze, Higher than the pyramids on their regal throne, Which neither the wasting rain, nor the north wind in its fury Could ever destroy, nor the innumerable Sequence of the years and swift time. -Horace; Ode 3.30 Whatever the inspiration, the "miracle" (13) that the poet sought happened; his words survived the "decays" (8) of "time" (8), and "in black ink" and in true English Sonnet form, making sure that (14) his love still shines "bright" (14).

Bibliography

Best, Michael. The Sonnets (4) That Time of Year: Sonnets 12, 18, 64, 65, and 73. Apr. 13 Feb. 2001 web / IS Shakespeare / Son Course / sonnets 4.
html. Cooney, Seamus. "Since brass, nor stone, nor earth... ". Commentary. May. 1997.
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html. Davies, Nigel. Critique of Sonnet 65. No update given. 18 Feb. 2001 web.
Duncan-Jones, Katherine, ed. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Italy: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1997.
Moore, Roger and Charmaine, Cordero. All Shakespeare: Shakespeare's Sonnets. Sep. 2000.
18 Feb. 2001 web sonnets / start.
s html. Sparano, Frank. Sonnet 65. No update given. 18 Feb. 2001 web.
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