Sonnet 4: “Profitless usurer”

Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend

Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy?

Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,

And being frank she lends to those are free.

Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse

The bounteous largesse given thee to give?

Profitless usurer why dost thou use

So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?

For having traffic with thy self alone,

Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,

Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,

What acceptable Audit canst thou leave?

     Thy unus’d beauty must be tomb’d with thee,

     Which usèd lives th’executor to be.

“The tone darkens throughout Sonnet 4, dominated by negative references to Y.M.: he is unthrifty, a niggard, profitless. This, despite the more frequent positives: loveliness, thy beauty’s legacy, beauteous, bounteous largesse, thy sweet self, beauty. The context demands this: he is unthrifty with his loveliness, spends his beauty’s legacy on himself, he is a beauteous niggard, abuses his bounteous largesse, cheats himself, and lets his beauty go unused….

“W.’s argument is more insistent in this sonnet. It lasts thirteen lines—the admonition to do what is required is saved for the last line. Y.M. now seems conceited, W. more exasperated. Is this just a philosophical argument, a ploy on the part of W. to convince Y.M.? At any rate, we’re learning more about these characters in our drama. The relationship is developing.”

—Shakespeare’s Sonnets Among His Private Friends, p.24-25 (publication date 10/1/21)