1. Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend,
2. Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?
3. Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
4. And being frank she lends to those are free:
5. Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse,
6. The bounteous largess given thee to give?
7. Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
8. So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
9. For having traffic with thyself alone,
10. Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive,
11. Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
12. What acceptable Audit canst thou leave?
13. Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee,
14. Which used lives th' executor to be.
Unused Beauty
Dedication: To Elizabeth
A lengthy questioning of Elizabeth on why she abuses the bounty she has been provided and continues to abuse and not provide for succession. Telling her that if she takes Henry’s secret to the grave she’ll be an executioner of sorts.
1st Quatrain: (1-4)
Asking Elizabeth about her selfishnes in the wasting of beauty's legacy (Henry) in lines 1 and 2. Further scolding her in reminding that Nature gave her Henry and telling her that this was but a loan in line 3. I believe he is telling her that this loan was not to be generating interest as well in line 4.
2nd Quatrain: (5-8)
Continuing to play off of Henry as a loan, asking her why she is mizerly in not sharing him and abuses this wealth in line 5. Referring again to Henry as the "bounteous largess" given to her in line 6.Again alluding to the interest she charges on Henry by holding him and playing on her heirless state in line 7. Asking why she holds Henry in the second part of line 7 and compares him to a vast sum in the first half of line 8. Finishing line 8 asking why she can't live off this wealth alluding to her imminent death.
3rd Quatrain: (9-12)
Telling of how she will not listen to others in line 9. Telling her that she deceives herself for herself in line 10. Asking her how can she die heirless in lines 11 and 12.
couplet (13-14),
Telling her that by "using" Henry in this way she entombs him with her at her death while in her remaining life lives to be shortly his executioner.
Commentary:
This sonnet is interesting in the sense that it is not an argument for recognizing Henry but a statement of what is to come and thus implicitly an argument. The first question posed by this sonnet should be more understandable when apparent that thy “beauty’s legacy” represents Henry and not either a hypothetical baby to come or an act of spending a metaphorical aspect of thyself on thyself as some might argue.
Additionally the audit to be left is a key and illustrates that the legacy and the audit are tied together and the “bounteous largesse” to abuse reinforces this. Also while the sonnet is generally understood as an appeal to procreate these same themes I would point out are actually reflective of the subject being asked to use what she already has. The reference lastly to the “unused beauty” hopefully will finalize this point. Finally again the poet impelling the subject with such a state of urgency hopefully reveals that this poem makes much better sense to a woman both near the end of her life and incapable of producing another but for the possibility of recognizing a child produced much earlier.