SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS Sonnet 1 Fairest Creatures

From fairest creatures we desire increase

我们渴望最美生灵世代繁衍

That thereby beauty's rose might never die

以便玫瑰般美丽永不消散

But as the riper should by time decease

但开透的玫瑰需及时凋零

His tender heir might bear his memory

他年轻的子嗣会承载记忆

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes

但你，只与自己的明眸订情

Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,

将自身作燃料以供养你生命之光

Making a famine where abundance lies

以致丰饶之地饥馑

Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel

你与自己为敌，过分美好也将带来残暴

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament

你该是这世间鲜活的装饰

And only herald to the gaudy spring

却只播报这明媚春光

Within thine own bud buriest thy content

你含苞未放就已埋葬自身

And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding

你这懦弱鄙夫，把自我生命消耗

Pity the world, or else this glutton be

可怜可怜这个世界吧，不然这该有多浪费

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee

吞食这世间应得之物，让它随你与坟墓自毁

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Comment & Interpretation

The theme of this sonnet is procreation. The poet puts forward that we desire the fairest creatures may increase so that roselike beauty may never die out. But his friend is too self-centered to marry, thus refusing to reproduce his beauty. The poet here is making his first try to persuade his friend to abandon his foolish idea, and he should leave an heir to carry his memory. But his friend is concerned only with his own beauty.

Time is powerful and it will destroy everything in the end. A lot of people in the Elizabethan Age lamented about the power of time and felt helpless before its power. They sought various ways to defeat time to achieve immortality. However, none of them treated the theme in the same way as Shakespeare did: to achieve immortality through marriage.

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