The Fair Youth is still resisting and Shakespeare
persisting. Each time from a considerably different angle, metaphor or image.
Sonnet 5 takes us to a perfumery but not before progression of seasons is
referenced.
Line 1 introduces the major theme of this poem : Time. The
Fair Youth is implored to look back at “hours of gentle work,” supposedly
strenuous hours whose employment in vain would be simply tragic. Such “lovely”
countenance engineered with the utmost vigilance over time should not then be
destroyed (play the tyrant) by the ‘mere’ entity that is time especially as it
is all avoidable only by having offspring.
There is an interestingly noticeable peculiarity in Shakespeare’s description of time. Calling
it or the concept a “tyrant” does reflect an extra level of antagonism almost
seeming totally extreme. Could it be that the persona is getting ever closer to
exasperation or has personal issues with time? In line 4 it seems that time
will ravage the beauty to the extent beyond the average, an unfair state
probably developing into what may be thought of as punishment.
Line 5 brings fourth the invincibility of time,
“never-resting,” the only entity beyond the reach of depreciation as it in turn
facilitates the whole process. This tireless beast as it seems could be likened
to the likened to the Grim Reaper endlessly escorting beauty , souls,
everything to a less desirable place. A place where the Fair Youth is ugly and
there is no heir to sit upon his former throne of beauty.
Personification of time into an imploring, coaxing
individual renders Summer powerless to escape the clutches of time. Like a
sheep to the slaughter (Fair Youth’s beauty), Summer is blindly led to his
demise but then again the persona seeks to enlighten Summer on his path to the
end. Like a sooth-sayer the persona has put together this warming and yet the
Fair Youth seems to see it worthwhile to resist.
Once shining and glistening features supposedly become pale
and blood-shot according to life 7. “Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves
quite gone,” and then when beauty is overcome, “bareness” is left to pervade
the world. A harrowing thought considering the worth of this beauty, the “
beauty where every eye doth dwell.”
Alas do not despair for the scents of Summer are still with
us. Scents collected in Summer’s prime preserved to be enjoyed when Summer
meets its end. Scents meant as a metaphor for the offspring the Fair Youth
should have now in the time of fertility.
If not for the perfumery, Summer would be forgotten and the
same path awaits beauty if no preservation is done relatively soon. Failure to
do this, all will soon be forgotten. The double negative induced by the pun in
“nor,no,” serves to stress the serious nature of the situation and the surety
than beauty will be lost to us all forever.
Sonnet 4 and 5 have a rather clear difference in terms of
the nature of metaphors used. They seem to point to two distinct professions
that is finance and perfumery. Could this be in an way associated to what the
Fair Youth was interested or involved in. Sonnet 6 might shed more light as it
forms a diptych with Sonnet 5 though the distillatory trope which appears in
this poem recurs in Sonnets 54, 74 and 119.
