Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime:
So thou through windows of thine age shall see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember’d not to be,
Die single, and thine image dies with thee.
Analysis :
In this sonnet, the poet is exhorting the 'fair youth' to marry and have a child, "Now is the time that face should form another", to immortalise his beauty. To ‘form again its shape’ is Shakespeare’s rendering of metamorphosis - compare Rom. 12.2, “be ye chaunged in your shape” [BB; koinè, “μεταμορφοùσθε”]; his choice of “forme” reflects Ovid’s “forma” used often of Narcissus.[2]
The message is reiterated in the last lines of the poem: "But if thou live, remember'd not to be, / Die single, and thine image dies with thee." Not only will the youth lose his attractive face in death, but also his reflection in the mirror, again hinting at the story of Narcissus.
The complexity of early modern spelling and the issues raised for editors are demonstrated by Sonnet 3. For example, “vn-eard wombe,” where “vn-eard” can and is intended to be heard as ‘uneared’ (unfecundated), ‘uneared’ (untilled), ‘unaired’ and ‘unheired’ is best carried by the quarto’s irregular spelling.[3]