Sonnet 13: “Barren rage of death’s eternal cold!”

O that you were your self, but love you are

No longer yours, than you your self here live,

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give.

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination, then you were

Your self again after your self’s decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honor might uphold,

Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day,

And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?

     O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,

     You had a Father, let your Son say so.

“…This looks like another response to something Y.M. has said. I imagine something like this: ‘I understand what you are saying. You think marriage and children are important. Perhaps it’s right for you. But that’s you—I am my own self and maybe that’s not for me.’ W. then expands on the meaning of self to prove Y.M.’s folly…

“We also have something new in Sonnet 12: W. raises concern about Y.M.’s father. We have heard about the world, about Nature, about his mother—now it’s an appeal to doing for himself what he has done for his father. Isn’t this a bit surprising? Shouldn’t this have been the primary concern along—perpetuating the father’s line? Why has this taken so long? Was it the elephant in the room? Note the difference in tenses between this sonnet and Sonnet 3. In Sonnet 3, W. said to Y.M., thy art thy mother’s glass, meaning that she is still alive. Here, he says, You had a father, implying he is no longer alive. I imagine W. saying, in effect, ‘I really didn’t want to say this, but if you don’t do something, what would your father think of you!’ And he seems to say it reluctantly.”

—Shakespeare’s Sonnets Among His Private Friends, p. 42-43 (publication date Oct. 1, 2021)