Sonnet 68

Thus is his cheeke the map of daies out-worne,

When beauty liv'd and dy'ed as flowers do now,

Before these bastard signes of faire were borne,

Or durst inhabit on a living brow:

Before the goulden tresses of the dead,

The right of sepulchers, were shorne away,

To live a second life on second head,

Ere beauties dead fleece made another gay.

In him those holy antique howers are seene,

Without all ornament, it selfe and true,

Making no summer of an others greene,

Robbing no ould to dress his beauty new;

And him as for a map doth Nature store,

To shew faulse Art what beauty was of yore.

Commentary

Address to time and nature in praise of his beloved's beauty

Changes to the original text: line 7, 'scond' changed to 'second'; end of line 12, comma changed to semi-colon.

In the first quatrain, the poet observes that his beloved's cheek is as a map of the old times, when beauty lived and died like a flower, unlike nowadays when cosmetics (bastard signes of fair) are used to spruce up the fading beauty.

In the second quatrain, the poet gives an example of this sprucing up, citing the custom of cutting the hair of dead people, traditionally the right of the grave (right of sepulchers), to use on a living person's head (second life on second head).

In the third quatrain, the poet praises his beloved's beauty as natural ( it selfe and true), in the old style (those holy antique howers), not created by robbing the old / dead.

The final couplet, the poet reamrks that probably Nature is keeping his beloved to show what beauty used to be in times gone by (yore).

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