Sonnet 17: Who Will Believe My Verse In Time To Come Poem by William Shakespeare

The weapons that defeat the scythe of time That through Earth eternalise our places That carry beauty ever forward from our minds Are our children and such poetry of graces For while the living stand alone, each every one They are in truth the verse itself, as either daughters, or as sons

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in ITALIAN: Chi mai crederebbe in futuro ai miei versi se fossero ricolmi dei tuoi eccelsi pregi? Eppure, lo sa il cielo, non sono che tomba che la tua vita celano, e solo meta' dei tuoi tesori additano. Potessi io ritrarre la bellezza dei tuoi occhi e in nuovi versi enumerare le tue grazie, l'eta' futura direbbe: Sono menzogne di poeta, mai sì celesti tratti toccarono volti umani. E i miei scritti, ingialliti dal passare del tempo, sarebbero dileggiati come farneticare di rimbambito, e le meritate lodi come eccessi di fantasia, rime esagerate di vecchia cantilena. Ma se un tuo bimbo allora vivesse, tu due volte vivresti: in lui e nel mio canto.

This is the final 'procreation' sonnet, in which the youth is urged to have a child so that he may live (forever?) both in that child, and in the verse which the poet writes celebrating his beauty. If you do not have a child, argues the poet, there will be no proof that you were as beautiful as I claim you to be, and my verse will be disbelieved. The memory of you will be distorted, and the descriptions of you which adorn this page will be scorned like the speech of babbling old men, or the worn out ideas of a vanished age. Therefore take heed and prepare for the future and the threatened night of oblivion. shakespeares-sonnets.com/

8. Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.' touches = descriptions, strokes of a painter's brush (figuratively): ne'er touched = never belonged to, never were placed on, were never relevant to. 9. So should my papers, yellowed with their age, my papers - the papers on which my sonnets are written; the sonnets themselves. yellowed with their age - white paper discolours as it ages. There is probably a hint also of the yellowing of skin with age, as in old men, who figure in the next line. 10. Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue, Old men were proverbially thought to gabble endless nonsense (tongue = speech) . Justice Shallow depicts the type in 2H.4.III.2. 11. And your true rights be termed a poet's rage true rights = the rights of praise which are your due because of your beauty; a poet's rage = the frenzied inspiration which drives a poet to create. In the ancient world there was not a great distinction made between a poet and a seer, the latter especially being thought to be inspired with divine fervour. Cassandra is probably the original, the prophetess seized by the inspiration of Apollo, but doomed never to be believed. At Delos the priestesses were thought to have inhaled sulphurous fumes which intoxicated them, and in such a state they uttered their prophecies. In Virgil Aeneas visits the Sybil in her cave on the coast of Euboean Cumae. 'Meanwhile the prophetess, who had not yet submitted to Apollo, ran furious riot in the cave, as if in hope of casting the God's power from her brain. Yet all the more did he torment her frantic countenance, overmastering her wild thoughts, and crushed her and shaped her to his will. So at last, of their own accord, the hundred tremendous orifices in the shrine swung open, and they carried through the air the answer which the prophetess gave.' (Aeneid Bk VI, Penguin translation) . Apollo was the god of prophecy, but also, with his lyre, the god of poetry. For poetry sprang originally from a religious tradition. The ancient traditions, through the learning of poets such as Spenser, Sydney, Drayton and Jonson, had permeated through to the consciousness of the age, and the poet's frenzy became a byword for poetic creation. 12. And stretched metre of an antique song: This was one of Keat's favourite lines. stretched metre suggests that the metre of the line in old poems was irregular, or perhaps too long. antique as well as meaning old, could have a secondary meaning of bizarre, odd, slightly insane. 13. But were some child of yours alive that time, But were some child = but if some child were. that time = at that time in the future when these verses are perused (and doubted) . 14. You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme. This is the final encouragement to the youth to have children, and it is set alongside his potential immortality through the poet's verse, as perhaps the better of the two alternatives.

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