Sonnet 11: “Folly, age, and cold decay!”

As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow’st,

In one of thine, from that which thou departest,

And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow’st,

Thou may’st call thine, when thou from youth convertest.

Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,

Without this folly, age, and cold decay,

If all were minded so, the times should cease,

And threescore year would make the world away.

Let those whom nature hath not made for store,

Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish,

Look whom she best endow’d, she gave thee more,

Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish.

     She carv’d thee for her seal, and meant thereby,

     Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

“…Note the lists in lines 5, 6, and 10. Shakespeare’s contemporaries could use lists like these in the most boring ways to fill in lines. But these lists are anything but boring —wisdom, beauty, increase; folly, age, decay; harsh, featureless, rude. Simple antitheses in lines 5 and 6, yet that cold decay is startling! Sonnet 11 feels like a throwback to earlier sonnets with its detached tone and lack of emotion—except for that cold decay in line 6 and the harsh, rude, barren line 10. What’s going on? Did the request in the couplet of Sonnet 9 offend Y.M.? Was the softening in Sonnet 10 insufficient to appease him? Is Sonnet 11 an attempt to mend fences? Even the meter is conciliatory, softened as it is with six feminine endings and otherwise regular lines—except for line 10. (See discussion of meter.) But the harshness of line 10 is directed not toward Y.M. but toward others—those whose features are not made for store. Does W. succeed? Is Y.M. mollified? These are important questions. We have come to expect Y.M. to be someone who might need to be mollified by W. And we expect W. to be someone who wants not only to get him to marry and have a child, but to remain in his good graces— to please him. Let’s read on and see how he makes out.”

—Shakespeare’s Sonnets Among His Private Friends, p. 39 (publication date Oct. 1, 2021)