The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English (Translated) (1127 page)

If there be nothing new, but that which is

Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,

Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss

The second burden of a former child!

O, that record could with a backward look,

Even of five hundred courses of the sun,

Show me your image in some antique book,

Since mind at first in character was done!

That I might see what the old world could say

To this composed wonder of your frame;

Whether we are mended, or whether better they,

Or whether revolution be the same.

O, sure I am, the wits of former days

To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

If there is nothing new and if everything that is

Has been before, then our brains are being tricked

When, working to write something new, we only

Write what has been written before!

Oh, if I could look back over the record

To even five hundred years ago,

I wonder if I’d find the likeness of you in an old book,

Written when letters were first formed!

Then I could see what the writers in the past would say

About the beauty of your body,

And whether we write better now, or whether they did,

Or if it’s really just about the same.

I am fairly certain that the poets of olden days

Gave high praise to subjects less deserving than you.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,

Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,

Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

In the same way waves make their way toward the pebbled shore,

The minutes we have hurry to their end,

Each one changing place with the one before it,

As all work together to move forward in a sequence.

Birth, once in the spotlight,

Crawls toward old age, where—once it is crowned—

Faces a crooked path as it fights its way to glory.

Time, having given its gift, now destroys it.

It sharply pierces the decoration of youth

And digs furrows in beauty’s forehead;

It feeds on the exceptional specimens of nature—

Nothing exists that its scythe will not mow down:

Still, it is my hope that my poems will survive

And praise your worth, despite Time’s cruel hand.

Is it thy will thy image should keep open

My heavy eyelids to the weary night?

Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,

While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?

Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee

So far from home into my deeds to pry,

To find out shames and idle hours in me,

The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?

O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:

It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;

Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,

To play the watchman ever for thy sake:

For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,

From me far off, with others all too near.

Is it your intent that your image should keep

My heavy eyelids open during the weary night?

Do you desire me to lose sleep,

While visions of you ridicule me?

Is it your spirit that you send to me

While you are far from home to see what I am up to?

To find out things I might be embarrased about during my idle hours?

Is this due to the depth and substance of your jealousy?

Oh, no. Your love for me, though deep, is not that deep:

It is my love for you that keeps me awake at night,

My own true love that will not let me sleep.

I play the constant watchman for your sake:

For you, I watch while you wake somewhere else

Far away from me, with someone else too near.

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye

And all my soul and all my every part;

And for this sin there is no remedy,

It is so grounded inward in my heart.

Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,

No shape so true, no truth of such account;

And for myself mine own worth do define,

As I all other in all worths surmount.

But when my glass shows me myself indeed,

Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity,

Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;

Self so self-loving were iniquity.

'Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,

Painting my age with beauty of thy days.

The sin of self-love takes possession of my eyes,

And all of my soul and every part of me.

There is no remedy for this sin—

It is so deeply established in my heart.

I think that no face is so pleasing as mine,

No body so well proportioned, no virtue so accountable.

And so for myself I define my worth,

Which exceeds the worth of others, by far.

But when I look into my mirror and see

How beaten, broken and aged with time and sun I am,

My self-love shifts and I feel the opposite:

To love myself would be simply wicked.

It’s you I praise when I praise myself,

Beautifying my age with your youth.

Against my love shall be, as I am now,

With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'er-worn;

When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow

With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn

Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night,

And all those beauties whereof now he's king

Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight,

Stealing away the treasure of his spring;

For such a time do I now fortify

Against confounding age's cruel knife,

That he shall never cut from memory

My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:

His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,

And they shall live, and he in them still green.

In anticipation of the time when my love will be as I am now—

Crushed and worn-out by Time’s damaging hand—

When hours have weakened his blood and filled his forehead

With lines and wrinkles, and when his youthful morning

Has traveled into the steep night of old age,

And all of those beauties in which he is now in command

Are vanishing or have vanished out of sight,

Stealing away the treasure of his youth—

In anticipation of that time I am trying to strengthen

Him against the destructive edge of age’s cruel knife

So that he will never be cut from memory.

My sweet love’s beauty will remain even if time takes his life:

His beauty will be seen in these black, inked lines,

And as long as these lines exist, he will remain young.