Sonnet 2

2

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,

Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,

Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:

Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise,

How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use

If thou couldst answer, ‘This fair child of mine

Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse’,

Proving his beauty by succession thine:

This were to be new made when thou art old,

And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.

General
This is the first sonnet to deal directly with a theme that preoccupies the speaker (and WS in other works): the role of time as tyrant and in particular its effects on beauty. It is also noteworthy (with Sonnet 4) for its ‘distinction between investment for profit and miserly self-defeating financial conservatism.’ (SB) The financial imagery of Sonnet 1 is re-asserted and intensified.

First quatrain
When the young man is forty years old, the beauty of his youth will be in tatters and of little value. Note the use of battle imagery: trenches/ field/ livery - this is not just an attack by age but also a personal attack by the speaker on the wastefulness of youth.

1. forty – really used to be many, as in biblical forty days and forty nights (Gen 7:4)
winters – rather than summers – accentuates the process of withering and loss of vitality.
2. Although field could be an agricultural one being furrowed by time, the use of besieged in line 1 & livery in line 3 rather suggests the language of battle. See other authors, but there is definitely a link then into the parable of the talents imagery used in the second quatrain.
3.proud: splendid, gorgeous
4.totter’d weed (Q): (a)tattered garment (b) a ragged weed, picking up on the botanical ref.

From the beginning, the sonnet takes on the personal 'I' and does not, as Sonnet 1, move from the general to specific- instead there is a strong sense that the speaker is moving in on his subject. The imagery is a mix of agricultural and war – the trenches have a resonance for us that would not have existed for WS, nonetheless the use of 'besiege', 'trenches' and 'field' suggest time as aggressor. There is a third image, linked to the agricultural and carried over from Sonnet 1 – that of the young man burying/hoarding his beauty out of sight – this prepares us for the second quatrain.

Second quatrain
Then when he is asked where all his beauty lies, if he is only able to point at his own ‘deep-sunken’ eyes it would be a great shame and unprofitable praise. He is being accused of selfishness – denying the world the perpetuity of his beauty.

5. lusty: (a)vigorous (b) sexually active
6. deep-sunken eyes: cf bright eyes in 1.5
treasure: note financial ref cf worth in line 4
7. all-eating: all-devouring/universally destructive cf.1.13-14. See also Arden note that time traditionally  devours all: tempus edax rerum. And sonnet 19 (x)
thriftless praise: note another financial ref (see line 7) = unprofitable commendation, as the youth has hoarded all his ‘treasure’ instead of putting it to good use. (Camb)

5-8: This quatrain alludes to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25: 14-30 : this is the passage from the Geneva Bible (1560)

14 "For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; 15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them; and he made five talents more. 17 So also, he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.' 21 His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.' 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.' 23 His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.' 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' 26 But his master answered him, 'You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.'

Third quatrain
How much better use of his beauty it would be it he could then answer that this fair child shall square my account and make reparation for my old age, proving his son to be legally his.

8. use: active deployment, with return (Burr); monetary interest;
9. proper use of beauty for treasure in procreation – see V&A (x)
deserved: would merit
11. sum my count: render a true audit of my ‘due’ to nature cf 4.12
 my old excuse: (a) the excuse I make when I am old (b) the excuse I habitually make (CB)
12 proving: demonstrating or discovering (KDJ)
 by succession: by inherited right

So – here speaker is putting forward the case for social good if young man procreates within marriage.

Sir Thomas Wilson: 'You have them that shal comfort you, in your latter daies, that shall close up your iyes, when God shall call you, that shall bury you...by whom you shall seme, to be new borne. For so long as thei shall live, you shall nede never bee thought ded your self...For, what man can be grieved, that he is old, when he seeth his awne countenance whiche he had beying a childe, to appere lively in his sonne?'
The Art of Rhetoric (1553) ed T J Derrick, (1982), pp.127-8

Couplet
This would mean that in old age he would be made anew, and see his own cold blood (with age) live vigorously in his son..

13. were: would be
14. Old people believed to become cold and dry – young believed to be hot and moist (Burr)

This picks up on narcissistic vision of Sonnet 1 and thereby plays to the young man’s vanity.

Links with other sonnets
8. 19.1/2: ‘Devouring time, blunt thou the lion’s paws, / And make the earth devour her own sweet brood.’
11. 4.12: ‘What acceptable audit canst thou leave?’

Links with other works by WS
10.V&A, 767-78: ‘Foul cank’ring rust the hidden treasure frets, / But gold that’s put to use more gold begets.’ This also echoes the parable of the talents.

Links with other authors
2. Michael Drayton The Shepherd’s Garland (1593), 2nd Eclogue, 46: ‘The time-plow’d furrows in thy fairest field.’
Samuel Daniel Delia (1592), 4.8: ‘Best in my face, how cares have tilled deep furrows’