Sonnet 6: Then Let Not Winter’s Ragged Hand Deface
Sonnet 6: Then Let Not Winter’s Ragged Hand Deface - form Summary
Shakespearean Sonnet's Procreative Turn
This is a Shakespearean sonnet that uses the sonnet's three quatrains and final couplet to argue for procreation as a way to preserve beauty against time and death. Each quatrain develops the practical and moral case for 'breeding another' to continue the self in posterity, and the lineation builds to a compact admonition in the closing couplet that frames procreation as resistance to mortality.
Read Complete AnalysesThen let not winter’s ragged hand deface In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled. Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-killed. That use is not forbidden usury Which happies those that pay the willing loan; That’s for thyself to breed another thee, Or ten times happier, be it ten for one, Ten times thy self were happier than thou art, If ten of thine ten times refigured thee; Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart, Leaving thee living in posterity? Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.
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