| SONNET 3 |
PARAPHRASE |
| Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest |
Look in your mirror and tell the face you see |
| Now is the time that face should form another; |
That now is the time it should form another [create a child]; |
| Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, |
If you do not renew yourself, |
| Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. |
You rob the world, and prevent some woman from becoming a mother. |
| For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb |
For where is the woman whose unploughed womb |
| Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? |
Would frown upon the way you plough your field? |
| Or who is he so fond will be the tomb |
Or who is he so foolish to love himself so much but let |
| Of his self-love, to stop posterity? |
Himself perish? [To make a tomb of self-love and not have a child to carry on your beauty] |
| Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee |
You are the mirror of your mother, and she is the mirror of you |
| Calls back the lovely April of her prime: |
And in you she recalls the lovely April of her youth: |
| So thou through windows of thine age shall see |
So through your own children you will see your youth |
| Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time. |
Despite the wrinkles caused by age. |
| But if thou live, remember'd not to be, |
But if you live your life avoiding being remembered, |
| Die single, and thine image dies with thee. |
You will die single [and childless], and your image will die with you. |
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