Sonnet 4: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend
Sonnet 4: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend - meaning Summary
Beauty Wasted on Oneself
Shakespeare rebukes a beautiful person for hoarding their beauty instead of passing it on through offspring or generosity. The poem frames beauty as a loan from Nature that must be invested to produce return; refusing to procreate or share is likened to a selfish usurer who wastes capital. Only by using beauty to create life or benefit others can it survive beyond death and serve as an executor of Nature’s gift.
Read Complete AnalysesUnthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy? Nature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free. Then, beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse, The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums yet canst not live? For having traffic with thyself alone, Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive. Then how when nature calls thee to be gone, What acceptable audit canst thou leave? Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee, Which usèd, lives th’ executor to be.
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