Sonnet 9 by fyza hamid

Sonnet 9

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-11 06:02:40 UTC

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.

Analysis ( Line by line)

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-11 06:20:13 UTC

Line 1 : Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,

To wet a widow's eye = to cause your future wife to weep for you (if you should die after marrying her).

Line 2 : That thou consum'st thy self in single life?

That you waste away in bachelorhood. There is also a sexual meaning in consum'st.

Line 3 : Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

issueless = childless, without issue, without children.
shalt hap to = should happen to.

Line 4 : The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;

The world will wail thee = the world will mourn for you
like = as if it (the world) were; as if you, (the youth) were; the latter meaning is obviously not so relevant, but the youth, being unmarried, could be perceived as being in the same state as a widow.
a makeless wife = a wife without a mate, one who has been widowed.
make = companion or mate, spouse (obs.). The argument therefore is that, if the man does not marry, although he will not leave a widow behind him in the conventional sense, should he die, yet the world will be his widow instead, an even greater tragedy than if he were in fact married and with children. The world will mourn him as a makeless wife mourns her husband. The idea is expanded in the following lines.

Line 5 : The world will be thy widow and still weep

still = always, continually.

Line 6 : That thou no form of thee hast left behind,

That = because;
form of thee = copy or image of yourself, in the form of a child. See Sonnet 11:

" She carved thee for her seal, and meant therebyThou shouldst print more, not let that copy die."

Line 7 : When every private widow well may keep

private - as opposed to the public widow, which is the world. There is also a suggestion of ordinary, as well as ignoble, derived from the Latin privatus.

Line 8 : By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:

By children's eyes = by looking at her children. The eyes represented the whole person, so the children's eyes are the children themselves.

Line 9 : Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend

Look what = whatever, anything that. Some editors emend to Look! what etc. but it does not improve the sense. See Sonnet 77:

"Look what thy memory can not contain"

an unthrift = a prodigal person, a wastrel, one of extravagant expenditure. The line therefore expands to 'Everything that a prodigal chooses to spend in the world'.

Line 10 : Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;

Shifts but his place = Simply moves from one place to another.
his = its and refers to the money which the unthrift spends. its as possessive pronoun was not used by the Elizabethans. The money that the prodigal spends becomes available again through circulation. It merely shifts its place from one pocket to another.
for still the world enjoys it = the world continues to make use of it and to derive pleasure from it.
still = continually, always, as in line 5.

Line 11 : But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,

beauty's waste = the dissipation of beauty, beauty's squandering of itself (by existing and doing nothing and failing to procreate). In contrast to the prodigal's expenditure, beauty's waste does not recirculate. There is a sexual meaning, in which beauty's waste = semen. See the following line.

Line 12 : And kept unused the user so destroys it.

The contradiction in this line makes it difficult to interpret, because if something is unused there can be no user. One suggestion is that ;
user = prodigal OR
user = one who is entitled to use something. The more obvious meaning is the sexual one that the self-abuser (user) destroys his semen (beauty's waste) by not using it properly, and by not making some chaste maid fertile.

Line 13 : No love toward others in that bosom sits

There is no love in your heart towards others.
sits = exists, is present.

Line 14 : That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.

That picks up that bosom of the previous line, where it = that person, that heart. Hence the meaning becomes '...exists in that heart which, against itself etc.'
himself = itself.
such murd'rous shame = the shame of not begetting an heir. Rather excessive language for such a fault, one would think, but there is also the sexual innuendo where murderous shame means killing the seed by masturbation, and the exaggerated language thereby takes on a slightly humorous flavour.

Read.My.Lips

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-11 13:39:55 UTC

This is a video by a youtuber, read.my.lips

Synopsis (Version 1)

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-11 13:43:40 UTC

The poet asks if it is fear of making someone a widow that causes the young man to refuse to marry. The argument is unsound, says the poet, for a beautiful youth must leave behind him a form or copy of himself, otherwise the world itself will endure widowhood, and yet have no consolation for its loss. For it will not be able to view the young man resurrected in the eyes of his children. If he persists in this single obduracy, it is an unforgivable shame, showing lack of love to others and equivalent to murdering himself and all his heirs.

William Shakespeare

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-11 13:50:16 UTC

Extra - Modern Version!

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-11 14:39:01 UTC

Are you eating up your own life by remaining single because you’re afraid your widow will cry when you die?

Ah, if you happen to die childless, the entire world will mourn for you like a wife who’s lost her husband.

The world will be your widow and weep forever about the fact that you didn’t leave a copy of yourself.

But if you had left a wife behind, she’d have had her children to look at and remind her of her husband.

A person who wastes his money is just shifting money around—at least the money’s still in the world.

But if beauty is wasted, the world loses it forever: If a beautiful person doesn’t use his beauty, he destroys it.

The person who would commit such a murderous outrage on himself has no love in his heart for others.

Synopsis (Version 2)

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-11 14:49:54 UTC

Sonnet 9 is one of the "procreation sonnets," Sonnets 1-17. In these sonnets, the speaker tries to convince the fair lord, to whom the first 126 sonnets are addressed, to have children. Sonnet 9 takes the approach of suggesting a reason the fair lord might be reluctant to have children in the first line: "for fear to wet a widow's eye," or to leave behind a mourning widow when the fair lord inevitably dies. But the speaker points out over the course of the sonnet that this is a silly idea, since if he does not marry and leave children to replace his beauty, he will be, in effect, widowing the whole world.

The fate of an ordinary, "private" widow is discussed in lines 7-8: "When every private widow well may keep / By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind." The eyes here represent the entire person; the "children's eyes" are the children themselves. So by looking at her children, the widow is able to remember what her husband looked like when he was young and in his prime. In Sonnet 5, the fair lord's "gaze" was similarly used to describe his whole person.

In order to interpret lines 9-10, it must be noted that in the Elizabethan era, "its" was not used as a possessive pronoun. So in line 10, "his" refers to the money that is moving around from pocket to pocket. "Look what" means "whatever," or "everything," and an "unthrift" is a prodigal person, or someone who spends money unwisely. When a spendthrift spends money unwisely, it circulates among the people of the world even after his death.

In contrast, a spendthrift with "beauty" does not leave such a mark on the world after death. Lines 11-12 create a contrast between the spendthrift and the person who does not procreate, pointing out that "beauty's waste hath in the world an end." As in Sonnet 6, these lines contain a warning against masturbation, thought to be a waste of semen. In the seemingly contradictory line 12, the "user" is the fair lord, and the "unused" beauty is the semen that is not used to impregnate a woman.

The couplet that ends Sonnet 9 seems a bit intense as a scolding of the fair lord for not procreating, accusing him of committing "murd'rous shame" on himself. But this phrase can be seen as an extension of the masturbation innuendo; in wasting semen, it is as if he is murdering potential children. The speaker tells the young man that clearly he has "no love toward others" in his heart, if he acts so selfishly as to not bear children in his image for the world to enjoy. This accusation of selfishness is also apparent in Sonnets 1 and 3.

Extra - Procreation Sonnent!

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-16 02:14:21 UTC

The term procreation sonnets is a name given to Shakespearean sonnets numbers 1 until 17.

It is because they all argue that the young man to whom they are addressed should marry and father children, hence procreate. Throughout the procreation sonnets, Shakespeare usually argues that the child will be a copy of the young man, who will therefore live through his child.

man to whom they were written is a mystery, but the most frequently suggested individuals are Henry Wriothesley (W.H. backwards), and William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke. If the latter, it has been suggested that the 17 sonnets correspond in number to Herbert's age at the time.

Extra - Website Sonnet Project NYC!

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-16 02:26:22 UTC

Sonnet Project
There are many more sonnets that had been filmed by Sonnet Project NYC. Please check out their website.

The Brooklyn Bridge was the featured location for Sonnet 9, performed by Anton Rayn, directed by Sean Murray. The video was released on May 20, 2013.

#ShakespeareForEveryone

Extra - Further Explanation by Marissa Pinkney, English 405 !

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-16 02:43:44 UTC

You want to know more? Well, you may read this article by Marissa Pinkney. Enjoy!

Structure of the Sonnent

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-16 15:39:24 UTC

Shakespeare's sonnets are written predominantly in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.

A line of iambic pentameter flows like this;

taDA/taDA/taDA/taDA/taDA

For example;

{Is it} {for fear} {to wet} {a wi}{dow's eye,} (LINE 1)

In this sonnet, most of the lines have ten syllables EXCEPT for line 10, 12 and 13 which use 11 syllables.

Comment

fyzahamid54 — 2015-03-16 16:07:04 UTC

This sonnet refers to "impatient love". The narrator keep on pressuring the "man" to get married and have a child instead of wasting his semen by masturbating which was referred as a big sin.

The more I read this sonnet, the more it reminds me about how most of the parents from previous era (even until now) keep on pressuring their children to get married and have children. Some of them even to an extend, dare to "request" certain gender (male, of course).

Well, this sonnet might be a great sonnet to be read by those parents who longing for a grandchild.