Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out

Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

   O, none, unless this miracle have might,

   That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

At first view, this poem is a conflict of opposites. One is hit by the power of all the negative presented by Shakespeare, that provokes helplessness. This formal sonnet withholds a condensed but complex reflection, that one has to decrypt from every word:

“Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

But sad mortality o’er-sways their power”

One whole precious verse is dedicated only to the enumeration of come elements of our world that connote solidity, and power.Elements that man has close to no power over. And yet the second verse begins with “but”, and one simple word is used to overpower the strongest elements of the world: “mortality”. The balance of power is transmitted even just through this subtle nuance: the weaker power is spread out in four different elements over one verse, andmortality’s most extreme power is put into one single but haunting word.

“How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?”

When one starts thinking about things that are so immense in comparison to us, but that our determined human mind dares to wish control, rage is the feeling that arouses. Beauty easily touches man deeply, but that is because beauty is alive, and so, by definition, mortal. And so, to pose the problem of this poem at the end of the first quatrain, Shakespeare asks this first rhetorical question: beauty doesn’t stand a chance in a battle against mortality, beauty is ephemeral.

“O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out

Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,”

Straight onto another desperate interrogation, Shakespeare hold on to his image of beauty as a flower: honey is made out of the sweetest part of the flower. Similarly to “summer”, honey’s golden colour is brought to mind, a colour that connotes a preciousness close to beauty’s. However, summer may be the season of sunshine, pleasure, and ease, but it will undeniably be put to an end by winter’scold and dead leaves. Thus, the unstoppable cycle of the season is an illustration of the helplessness of man to preserve beauty, as the passing of time brings it to a fatal end. It is even depicted here as a lost war, causing pain and devastation, that one can even hear in the brutal sonorities such as “wrackful” and “batt’ring”.

“When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?”

Again, the poet is flooded by his rage, and now addresses it directly to “time”, this human concept that extinguishes all beauty and pleasure as it steps forwards. Here, Shakespeare shows the weakness in the element of “stone” that he had first presented as powerful, and that is the irresistible effect of time on it. With this second quatrain we have progressed through to see the sad ephemeral aspect not only of alive beings, but of anything that is part of the evolution process of the world.

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?

These desperate feelings are getting the better over the poem now, and the poet shares his vertigo as he continues to dig for an answer to his impossible quest. He now calls for a magic key to unlock his problem, he wants to find the heart of time, the heartbeat that gives time’s unutterable pace, to finally seize it and obtain the universal power he is striving for. But how?

“Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?”

The tone of these verses is now tragic, time’s curse has been thrown, and it walks towards us with a step that no force can hold back. Shakespeare is looking for a tool, a method, and even for a sign of hope that his will could be accomplished somehow. And with only one couplet left in this sonnet, we are still stuck in front of these questions.

   “O, none, unless this miracle have might,

   That in black ink my love may still shine bright.”

It is with “unless” that Shakespeare beats mortality. This conceit ultimately finds the light in pure darkness: writing is the key that makes Shakespeare alive today, now, immortal even after his death. He has played with us throughout his poem, transmitting the immensity of time’s power and our ridicule weakness in comparison,and waiting until the very end to relieve us by showing us his triumph over mortality, his atemporal writing.