Sonnet 104

1. To me fair friend you never can be old,

2. For as you were when first your eye I eyed,

3. Such seems your beauty still: Three Winters cold,

4. Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,

5. Three beauteous springs to yellow Autumn turn'd,

6. In process of the seasons have I seen,

7. Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,

8. Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.

9. Ah yet doth beauty like a Dial-hand,

10. Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,

11. So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand

12. Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.

13. For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,

14. Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

Ere You were Born

Dedication: To Henry

Explaining to Henry at age 3 that in the three years he has watched him since his birth that his beauty is undiminished. Every June anniversary of his birth brings a new spring like feeling. He still has the same hue he did when first born. While he is to young and untaught to understand, the day he was born was any other standard of beauty's end.

1st Quatrain: (1-4)

In three years since I first saw you. I believe these lines refer to Henry being 3 years old. In line 2 where “eye I eyed” seems reference to an interaction with a baby and thus when he was born.

2nd Quatrain: (5-8)

In line 7, “Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d” is a comment that your every June on your birthday seems like spring. Line 8, again is a confirmation of the young Henry as he tell him he is “yet green”

3rd Quatrain: (9-12)

He goes on to tell him that the beauty embodied in him at birth is undiminished. Line 11, again references his “hue”, which would be appropriate for talking of a baby, still remains.

couplet (13-14),

In line 11, again he tells Henry how he is “age unbred” and finally in line 12 again refers to him being “ born”and tells him that his beauty has eclipsed all else.

Commentary:

The fifth sonnet to Henry and an important "dating" sonnet for two reasons, one it suggest the first 50 sonnets represent the first 3 years of the story told and thus likely June of 1574. Secondly in establishing Henry's age we once again have an important clue about time's arrow.

By placing our young child at his third birthday in the month of June. Again 3 years displays the arrow of time as measured since birth. Interestingly as well the poet is starting to address the boy at more regular intervals.

Without the connectedness a disjointed and mysterious sonnet in the mix. And this is a particularly meaningless sonnet by traditional reading. The phrase “first your eye I eyed” is a reference as the couplet alludes to that very time of his birth, as line 2 seems to me evocative of the interaction with a baby. As well when he was born with a baby’s hue also alluded to in line 11.

This sonnet also returns of the usage of “friend” to refer to the Henry which we also saw in 111 but which more importantly was seen back in 149 and 133 as discussed. And it is my belief that to mistake this poem as addressed to other than a child completely misses all the allusions made to youth of the subject and the nature as the subject as still having the essence of a new born. And of course while none of the preceding to Henry (126, 111, 108, 106) might contain overt references to a him being a child nor do they contradict it. And I would offer that on further review all and particularly 106 can better be understood as to a young child.

Stephen Booth calls eye I eyed a “self conscious rhetorical gimcrack” but at least he recognized the oddity of it. Perhaps if he understood it as an interaction with a former newborn he might have found it more appropriate. KDJ remarks that this sonnet is meant to reflect the irony of another adult person not really changing in three years. In contrast I argue that this three year period is marked by drastic changes and celebration of a birth.


Note:

In regard to the Dial-hand of line 9 Shakespeare made many references to clocks and dials (3 in the Sonnets) even anachronistically and they were available but extremely rare and expensive in Elizabethan times. Here is somewhat relevant discussion of clocks, time and Shakespeare. But the importance of time to Shakespeare and his methodology for reflecting on it I believe reflects both this scenario and the identity of the man behind the pen. I've included images both of Anne Boleyn's personal clock and a sun dial from this time. Early clock dials only indicated the hour.