Sonnet notes 5

Sonnet 12, line 10: “thou among the wastes of time must go”

Among the wastes of time thou must go, Young Man. That’s the insistent message here. You’re headed for oblivion, hideous night, barren trees, your life wasted, thrown out with the trash. What is his only defense against Time’s scythe? Only breed to brave him. But though his breed may allow his beauty to live on, he is reminded that he will still be taken hence. This has been the theme all along—even though you must die, please have a child to make sure your beauty is perpetuated—but there’s something so insistent about the waste in this sonnet that makes the little word breed sound not quite as brave as it needs to be. Does the argument have less force now, twelve sonnets into the sequence?