Music is the new image in Sonnet 8, from flowers to seasons and even the
mighty sun, the Fair Youth has refused to yield. Will it be music to perform
the elusive task of convincing the steadfast youth to finally have children.
The first line, "Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?"
seems to refer to the message the persona has been trying to relay all along. A
sweet melody, ear candy he portrays the gospel of having offspring as and yet
the Fair Youth listens ever disapprovingly.
Why? Shakespeare asks does the Fair Youth insist on interpreting the
plea for reproduction negatively. Is it not only logical that the Youth's
beauty and that of his children can only be positive just as "joy delights
in joy."
Lines 3 and 4 pose the question of why the Youth took upon the mantle of
beauty in the first place seeing as he cannot do what is required, to bear
offspring. The theme of deception suddenly pops up as it once seemed the Youth
was happy with the gift of beauty and yet now his behavior only reflects
otherwise.
The second quatrain serves as the gist of the sonnet. It casts the image
of an orchestra, all the entwined melodies combining in smooth unison just as a
family is meant to be. Use of the compound, "well-tuned" conjures the feeling of perfection supposedly
pervading the image of the 'true concord' a perfection which can exist in the
Fair Youth's life if the concord is fittingly completed by the presence of a
child. Even with such an analogy, the persona seeks to cater for the doubt that
might still linger by addressing it before-hand by affirming that this whole
message, pleading, imploring is naught but a sweet chiding. If by any chance
the Youth was to become defensive, Shakespeare has created the impression that
this is at most just an expression of advice albeit a strong and intricately
constructed one.
Direct reference to marriage in "one string sweet husband to
another," just about spells out what the persona requires from the Fair
Youth, what the World needs him to do
and quite possibly what he should just do. Line 11 puts as plainly as possible,
a happy family of three, sire(Youth), a child and a 'happy mother.' One is
forced to wonder whether this mother would be happy just like any other after
bearing a child or is this to be some form of extra happiness to be drawn
solely from bringing into the world, the one child who's birth is so eagerly anticipated.
As is characteristic of Shakespeare's sonnets, the final couplet gives a
rather categorical conclusion, one that might be somewhat harrowing for the
Fair Youth, some might say hyperbolical but as in all the Sonnets before this,
it is one that invokes quite an element of food for thought.
"Thou single wilt prove none," the Fair Youth's very existence
will come to no fruition if he is to remain single. In a broad sense there
would be no memory of him. No legacy, no trace of there ever having been that
inexplicable beauty. Now a traceless existence, one without any resultants is
probably no existence at all yet all can be solved by having offspring.