Sonnet notes 4

Sonnet 6, line 5; “That use is not forbidden usury;”

This starts a six-line diatribe about childbearing and usury, arguing that there is nothing wrong with breeding yourself to make another thee. These lines interrupt the argument of Sonnets 5 and 6 (a double sonnet) that, like flowers that leave their essence behind after summer (in the form of perfume, or rosewater), the Young Man should leave evidence of his beauty behind as well—a child. At first glance, it looks like these lines are coming out of nowhere, that perhaps Shakespeare is just vamping—filling out six lines to make up the necessary fourteen. But where have we heard about usury before? It was Sonnet 4, when the poet called the Young Man a profitless usurer because Nature hadn’t given him his beauty, she just lent it to him, and by remaining single, he was wasting the loan, not putting it to good use. The Young Man must have responded to this. I hear him saying, “No, I am not a usurer, but I would be if I had a child, for then I would be putting Nature’s loan out for interest and that would be forbidden usury.” This is the poet’s complicated reply. “No,” he says, “it’s not forbidden usury if it’s a willing loan. You could have ten children and it would still be permissible.” (The Elizabethan attitude toward usury was complicated—lending money at interest was considered a sin, but some forms of lending were considered necessary commerce.) Sonnet 5 and 6 are part of a continuing conversation. We hear only one side of it; we are expected to infer the other.