Sonnet 123: No! Time, Thou Shalt Not Boast That I Do Change
|
No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change.
Thy pyramids, built up with newer might, To me are nothing novel, nothing strange, They are but dressings of a former sight: Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old, And rather make them borne to our desire Than think that we before have heard them told. Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present, nor the past, For thy records and what we see doth lie, Made more or less by thy continual haste. This I do vow, and this shall ever be: I will be true despite thy scythe and thee. |
|
|
No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change.
|
No! You, Time, will not ever be able to boast that you have made me change. Because, as is here implied, but as the closing couplet is going to spell out, I will be true in spite of you.
This emphatic opening both sets up a well-worn premise, namely that time ultimately destroys and thus in an ultimate way changes everything, and it also anticipates the conclusion of the argument, which is that this does not apply to me, because I am and will forever be steadfast in my love. |
|
Thy pyramids, built up with newer might,
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; They are but dressings of a former sight: |
Your pyramids, even those that have been constructed more recently, either with the help of new technology and techniques, or commissioned and financed by new powers and for a different purpose, to me don't represent anything new, they are not something that attracts my admiration or my wonder; in fact as far as I'm concerned, they are just new iterations or newly dressed versions of what I have seen before.
'Pyramids' to Shakespeare as to us, are of course ancient burial structures in Egypt, most famously Giza, and any similar monument in antiquity. But unlike us today, Shakespeare and his contemporaries also called tall obelisks or steeple shaped columns 'pyramids', and such were employed in the ceremonial decorations in London for the procession welcoming King James VI of Scotland, now King James I of England, to London on 15 March 1604. Katherine Duncan-Jones in her Arden edition of the Sonnets speaks of "a vast rainbow" which was supported by, and here she draws on Ben Jonson who was there for us to witness this, "two magnificent pyramids of 70 foot in height, on which were drawn his majesty's several pedigrees in England and Scotland." This may be significant, as Shakespeare may here directly be referring to this event, which would make his comparative aloofness, so as not to say disdain, towards pyramids, be they now ancient or 'built with newer might', all the more pronounced. |
|
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old, |
The time we have on this earth is short, and because of this we tend to admire the old things that you foist, Time, upon us...
When in the last sonnet 'date' meant 'the end' or indeed 'the end of time', still and always with a sense of the time spent until that end comes about, here the meaning of the word tilts further towards the period itself, with its end nonetheless of course also being implied. 'Foist upon' in Shakespeare's day carries a sense more of 'deceive' or 'cheat', rather than our 'force upon'. The term originally stems from playing games, specifically with cards or dice, where to foist an extra ace or a Fulham die into play would mean to underhandedly manipulate the game in your favour. So Shakespeare here wilfully reinforces his contempt for time and the way time treats us. |
|
And rather make them borne to our desire,
Than think that we before have heard them told. |
...and not only to we admire these old things that you, Time, foist upon us, but we will also then rather make them out to be, or accept them as, what we wanted anyway, what we desire, than think of them as old things of which we have often heard spoken before.
This segue into narration to us may seem a little odd: we would probably expect Shakespeare to say something along the lines of 'than think that we before did them behold', or similar. But here it may help us to remind ourselves that we today live in era of unprecedented visuality. We are inundated with, arguably overwhelmed by, imagery. We have access to pictures of everything that exists and visualisations of anything we can imagine. Be it real or fantasy, we can look at it; we can now get an AI platform to draw us a detailed image of whatever we are able to formulate as a text prompt, within seconds. Shakespeare lives in an age of words. Yes, pictures exist, but they are rare by comparison. Such full colour images as there are are paintings and drawings and perhaps tapestries. They can be found mostly in rich people's houses, in palaces, and in churches. An illuminated bible may have deeply coloured historiated initials, but handling them, looking at them, would be an exceptional privilege and for the literate only. The majority of people did not have access to books, atlases, or illustrations. They would need to hear descriptions of pyramids or of majestic processions. We today, in fact, don't have any pictures of King James's triumphal parade left to us, only eyewitness accounts. And so although to us a little startling, to Shakespeare's listener or reader, "that we before have heard them told" would not seem strange. |
|
Thy registers and thee I both defy
Not wondering at the present, nor the past, |
I defy both you, Time, and your records or your chronicles of what has happened through you, and I do so not giving any thought or worry about the present or the past...
We have come across 'register' to mean 'record' before, there as a verb, in Sonnet 108: What's in the brain that ink may character Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit? What's new to speak, what now to register That may express my love or thy dear merit? And here in light of the pyramids and possibly obelisks introduced right at the beginning, these 'registers' may well be meant to include not only writings but also monuments and structures that serve to impress people and to remind them of the past. |
|
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste. |
Because your chronicles, your records of events and also what we actually still see of days gone by in the form of monuments, statues, graves, pyramids, they all lie, being continually enlarged, exaggerated, glorified and also diminished, erased, indeed down-razed, as we have seen in several of these sonnets, by your incessant, never-ending haste.
In other words, you, Time, move so fast, and you never stop, and in this restless progression of yours, you give us these chronicles, these stories, these monuments, and they are all in their own way falsified through you, because as you keep moving, so you keep eating away at that which has substance and so our understanding of events keeps changing. You are in fact entirely unreliable: I don't trust you and that's why I defy you, in the way as follows: |
|
This I do vow, and this shall ever be:
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee. |
This I vow, and this shall forever be the case: I will be true to my love in spite of you and your scythe which seeks to cut down everything in its path.
This were defiance indeed, were it to succeed, and we shall look at the significance of what is being expressed here, and how it is being expressed, in just a moment. |
Sonnet 123 is the first in a final group of three sonnets that speak the penultimate words on William Shakespeare's relationship with his young man. The last word isn't truly spoken at all, it sits silent in a pair of empty brackets where normally the closing couplet of Sonnet 126 would be, but before he addresses his lover there directly, as 'my lovely boy', and warns him of the all-consuming force of time once more, Shakespeare with this sonnet speaks to Time itself and declares his resolute defiance, by and through love.
Three times in a row now, Shakespeare will talk about his love for his young man, rather than to him directly, and three times in a row now he will say 'no'. First to time, then to the power of politics and the vagaries of fortune, then to ostentation and pretence, moving his rejection down one quatrain each time and reinforcing his confidence, his conviction with each poem.
Time with 'his scythe and crooked knife' has played a part in these sonnets throughout. It is a figure that looms large in Shakespeare's life, as perhaps it should do, since it moves so quickly, so implacably, so, indeed, cruelly, and takes away what we are and what we love so very fast.
If, as is now widely assumed, this sonnet belongs to the earliest phase of King James's reign and does in fact, as there are reasonable indications that it may, refer to his welcome procession in London, then that places its composition in or soon after 1604.
This is when William Shakespeare turns 40. It is also the year he is first mentioned in court records as a 'royal servant': it is a time in Shakespeare's life when he is doing well and his company of players has attained the highest level of patronage there is, that of The King. But it is also a time when time makes itself felt. If 40 is a big reminder for us today that our days are numbered, that the middle of life has been or is about to be reached, and that those around us too are getting on, some beginning to succumb to failing health, then this was much more acutely the case 400 years ago, when, as we saw, the life expectancy of your average Londoner stood at around 30.
If the timing of the sonnet is even vaguely correct, then Shakespeare will by now have a daughter, Susannah, who is coming of age at 21, and one, Judith, who will do so in a year's time, while his only son, Hamnet, would also be turning 21 soon, had he not died in August 1596, at the age of eleven.
If the young man at the heart of this relationship is Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, then he will soon be turning thirty, and he will be married, with two daughters so far. If the young man is William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, then he is now around 24 and either already married or soon to marry the mother to his future children. It could be someone else whom we know less about: he too would have to be entering a comparable phase in his life approximately now. It is, whichever way we look at it, a momentous time, not least because of the radical changes in political circumstances that have recently taken place.
Shakespeare mentions time in its chronological sense some 70 times in these sonnets, all of them within the Fair Youth section, not once in the context of the Dark Lady. It makes an entrance right from the start, with Sonnet 1:
But as the riper should by time decease
His tender heir might bear his memory.
Sonnet 3 tells the young man that now is the time to produce an heir and calls this "thy golden time," Sonnet 5 speaks of "never-resting time," and Sonnet 11 warns him that if all people were minded not to have children then "times should cease." Sonnet 12 is all about time, and concludes:
And nothing gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence.
Sonnet 15 declares time to be wasteful and finds Shakespeare himself "in war with Time for love of you," because "As he takes from you, I engraft you new." This is the first time Shakespeare suggests that he with his verse can prevent his young lover from falling prey to time. He immediately backtracks though and asks, in Sonnet 16:
But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time,
And fortify yourself in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme.
Those means once more being the young man's own powers of reproduction. Sonnet 17 asks "who will believe my verse in time to come | If it were filled with your most high deserts," and Sonnet 18 famously, gloriously, has finally done with offspring altogether and instead declares:
Nor shall death brag thou wandrest in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou growst:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
The idea that Shakespeare's verse will give his younger lover eternal life is now established, and it it will find reiteration, in one way or another, often: In Sonnet 19, where time is given the epithets 'devouring', 'swift-footed', and 'old'; in Sonnet 55, where time is 'sluttish'; in Sonnet 60 where time first makes the gift of beauty, of youth, of life, and then "doth his gift confound;" in Sonnet 63, where time has an 'injurious hand' and where it is age that now comes with a "cruel knife." Sonnet 64 makes no mention of the power of Shakespeare's verse but poignantly describes the thought of how time eradicates everything "as a death which cannot choose | But weep to have that which it fears to lose." But Sonnet 65 again already wonders what in the world can be so strong as to stop the decay of time and speaks of the young man as 'time's best jewel' which from 'time's chest' must be hid, concluding that the only hope of such as thing happening is, once more, "That in black ink my love may still shine bright." And in Sonnet 100, Shakespeare implores his Muse to return to give the young man "fame faster than Time wastes life."
Beyond these, 'time' appears in 21 of the other sonnets we have seen so far, and in Sonnet 73 Shakespeare memorably reflects not on 'time' itself but meditates:
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves or none or few do hang
Upon those bows which shake against the cold:
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
Sonnet 123 is hardly unique then in dealing with the ravages of time. It is unique in that it is the first sonnet, and almost unique in that together with Sonnets 124 and 125 it is one of only three sonnets, that no longer invokes the poet's art, his writing, his verse, his sonnet as the thing that will conquer time, but William Shakespeare's love itself.
And this completes and seals the shift we have seen in progress since Sonnet 104: "To me, fair friend, you never can be old." It is a progression that goes from acknowledging that you too have in fact aged, though not in my eye, and not, perhaps, as much as I have, to telling the world in Sonnet 105, that "all alike my songs and praises be | To one, of one, still such and ever so," to Sonnet 107, which, as we saw, may be pivotal for its historical reference and significance, and speaks of a love that was imperilled, maybe imprisoned, but now, "with the drops of this most balmy time" enjoys new freedom and rejuvenation.
Sonnets 109 and 110 for the first time openly confess to Shakespeare's own infidelities but are both emphatic in asserting, "nothing this wide universe I call | Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all," and they establish – once and for all, I am inclined to say – the young man as "A god in love, to whom I am confined," a sentiment and assertion that builds to the celebrated climax of Sonnet 116: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds | Admit impediments." After that, we get three sonnets that seek to explain how Shakespeare himself came to the infidelities he has just confessed to, and Sonnet 120 then draws a line beneath it all: "Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me."
And having spoken of a 'marriage of true minds' and dealt with the 'impediments' someone might bring against it, now, with Sonnet 123 William Shakespeare pronounces a promise in the language of just such a union, although it be addressed, and maybe tellingly so, rather than to his young man directly, to never-resting, devouring time itself:
This I do vow, and this shall ever be:
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.
The two sonnets that follow will elaborate on this theme, and the rest, safe for twelve exquisite lines in the incomplete but for it all the more perfect Sonnet 126, is silence. Except: it isn't quite. The young man will make an appearance at least thrice more in what then comes next, which is the sequence of sonnets that concern themselves with the woman generally known as the Dark Lady.
Three times in a row now, Shakespeare will talk about his love for his young man, rather than to him directly, and three times in a row now he will say 'no'. First to time, then to the power of politics and the vagaries of fortune, then to ostentation and pretence, moving his rejection down one quatrain each time and reinforcing his confidence, his conviction with each poem.
Time with 'his scythe and crooked knife' has played a part in these sonnets throughout. It is a figure that looms large in Shakespeare's life, as perhaps it should do, since it moves so quickly, so implacably, so, indeed, cruelly, and takes away what we are and what we love so very fast.
If, as is now widely assumed, this sonnet belongs to the earliest phase of King James's reign and does in fact, as there are reasonable indications that it may, refer to his welcome procession in London, then that places its composition in or soon after 1604.
This is when William Shakespeare turns 40. It is also the year he is first mentioned in court records as a 'royal servant': it is a time in Shakespeare's life when he is doing well and his company of players has attained the highest level of patronage there is, that of The King. But it is also a time when time makes itself felt. If 40 is a big reminder for us today that our days are numbered, that the middle of life has been or is about to be reached, and that those around us too are getting on, some beginning to succumb to failing health, then this was much more acutely the case 400 years ago, when, as we saw, the life expectancy of your average Londoner stood at around 30.
If the timing of the sonnet is even vaguely correct, then Shakespeare will by now have a daughter, Susannah, who is coming of age at 21, and one, Judith, who will do so in a year's time, while his only son, Hamnet, would also be turning 21 soon, had he not died in August 1596, at the age of eleven.
If the young man at the heart of this relationship is Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, then he will soon be turning thirty, and he will be married, with two daughters so far. If the young man is William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, then he is now around 24 and either already married or soon to marry the mother to his future children. It could be someone else whom we know less about: he too would have to be entering a comparable phase in his life approximately now. It is, whichever way we look at it, a momentous time, not least because of the radical changes in political circumstances that have recently taken place.
Shakespeare mentions time in its chronological sense some 70 times in these sonnets, all of them within the Fair Youth section, not once in the context of the Dark Lady. It makes an entrance right from the start, with Sonnet 1:
But as the riper should by time decease
His tender heir might bear his memory.
Sonnet 3 tells the young man that now is the time to produce an heir and calls this "thy golden time," Sonnet 5 speaks of "never-resting time," and Sonnet 11 warns him that if all people were minded not to have children then "times should cease." Sonnet 12 is all about time, and concludes:
And nothing gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence.
Sonnet 15 declares time to be wasteful and finds Shakespeare himself "in war with Time for love of you," because "As he takes from you, I engraft you new." This is the first time Shakespeare suggests that he with his verse can prevent his young lover from falling prey to time. He immediately backtracks though and asks, in Sonnet 16:
But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time,
And fortify yourself in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme.
Those means once more being the young man's own powers of reproduction. Sonnet 17 asks "who will believe my verse in time to come | If it were filled with your most high deserts," and Sonnet 18 famously, gloriously, has finally done with offspring altogether and instead declares:
Nor shall death brag thou wandrest in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou growst:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
The idea that Shakespeare's verse will give his younger lover eternal life is now established, and it it will find reiteration, in one way or another, often: In Sonnet 19, where time is given the epithets 'devouring', 'swift-footed', and 'old'; in Sonnet 55, where time is 'sluttish'; in Sonnet 60 where time first makes the gift of beauty, of youth, of life, and then "doth his gift confound;" in Sonnet 63, where time has an 'injurious hand' and where it is age that now comes with a "cruel knife." Sonnet 64 makes no mention of the power of Shakespeare's verse but poignantly describes the thought of how time eradicates everything "as a death which cannot choose | But weep to have that which it fears to lose." But Sonnet 65 again already wonders what in the world can be so strong as to stop the decay of time and speaks of the young man as 'time's best jewel' which from 'time's chest' must be hid, concluding that the only hope of such as thing happening is, once more, "That in black ink my love may still shine bright." And in Sonnet 100, Shakespeare implores his Muse to return to give the young man "fame faster than Time wastes life."
Beyond these, 'time' appears in 21 of the other sonnets we have seen so far, and in Sonnet 73 Shakespeare memorably reflects not on 'time' itself but meditates:
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves or none or few do hang
Upon those bows which shake against the cold:
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
Sonnet 123 is hardly unique then in dealing with the ravages of time. It is unique in that it is the first sonnet, and almost unique in that together with Sonnets 124 and 125 it is one of only three sonnets, that no longer invokes the poet's art, his writing, his verse, his sonnet as the thing that will conquer time, but William Shakespeare's love itself.
And this completes and seals the shift we have seen in progress since Sonnet 104: "To me, fair friend, you never can be old." It is a progression that goes from acknowledging that you too have in fact aged, though not in my eye, and not, perhaps, as much as I have, to telling the world in Sonnet 105, that "all alike my songs and praises be | To one, of one, still such and ever so," to Sonnet 107, which, as we saw, may be pivotal for its historical reference and significance, and speaks of a love that was imperilled, maybe imprisoned, but now, "with the drops of this most balmy time" enjoys new freedom and rejuvenation.
Sonnets 109 and 110 for the first time openly confess to Shakespeare's own infidelities but are both emphatic in asserting, "nothing this wide universe I call | Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all," and they establish – once and for all, I am inclined to say – the young man as "A god in love, to whom I am confined," a sentiment and assertion that builds to the celebrated climax of Sonnet 116: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds | Admit impediments." After that, we get three sonnets that seek to explain how Shakespeare himself came to the infidelities he has just confessed to, and Sonnet 120 then draws a line beneath it all: "Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me."
And having spoken of a 'marriage of true minds' and dealt with the 'impediments' someone might bring against it, now, with Sonnet 123 William Shakespeare pronounces a promise in the language of just such a union, although it be addressed, and maybe tellingly so, rather than to his young man directly, to never-resting, devouring time itself:
This I do vow, and this shall ever be:
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.
The two sonnets that follow will elaborate on this theme, and the rest, safe for twelve exquisite lines in the incomplete but for it all the more perfect Sonnet 126, is silence. Except: it isn't quite. The young man will make an appearance at least thrice more in what then comes next, which is the sequence of sonnets that concern themselves with the woman generally known as the Dark Lady.
This project and its website are a work in progress.
If you spot a mistake or if you have any comments or suggestions, please use the contact page to get in touch.
To be kept informed of developments, please subscribe to the email list.
If you would like to donate, you can do so here. Thank you!
If you spot a mistake or if you have any comments or suggestions, please use the contact page to get in touch.
To be kept informed of developments, please subscribe to the email list.
If you would like to donate, you can do so here. Thank you!