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Or shall I live your Epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortall life shall have,
Though I (once gone) to all the world must dye,
The earth can yeeld me but a common grave,
When you intombed in mens eyes shall lye,
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall ore-read,
And toungs to be, your beeing shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead,
You still shall live (such vertue hath my Pen)
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
Commentary
Commentary
Address to his beloved
Address to his beloved
Changes to the original text: end of line 8, comma changed to full stop; line 14, 'breaths' changed to 'breathes'
In the first quatrain, the poet asks which of them will die first. If it is the young man, he asserts that he (the young man) will live on, if it is the poet, then all the parts of the poet will die. Not exactly correct, since, in this case, the poet (Shakespeare) is well remembered.
The second quatrain continues this (erroneous) idea, claiming that the poet will be forgotten in a common grave, while the young man will be 'intombed in men's eyes', a much more stately fate.
The third quatrain continues in the same vein, asserting that the young man will be made immortal by the poet's verse.
The final couplet affirms once again that the young man will live on in the 'mouths of men' (where breath most breathes).
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