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Sonnet XIII

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) · 1609

iambic pentameter · English sonnet · 14 lines · from The Sonnets

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O! that you were your self; but, love you areNo longer yours, than you yourself here live:Against this coming end you should prepare,And your sweet semblance to some other give:So should that beauty which you hold in leaseFind no determination; then you wereYourself again, after yourself’s decease,When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,Which husbandry in honour might uphold,Against the stormy gusts of winter’s dayAnd barren rage of death’s eternal cold?O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,You had a father: let your son say so.

Words in this poem

honour n.
Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. [OE. honor, honour, onour, onur, OF. honor, onor, honur, onur, honour, onour, F. honneur, fr. L. honor, honos.]

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

Sonnet XIII is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shakespeare's Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #1041; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.

Cite as: William Shakespeare, Sonnet XIII, in The Sonnets (1609), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shakespeare-sonnets/sonnet-13.html, id L00031.

Form and metre

Sonnet XIII is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.

See other English sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.

Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.

Rhyme words, stanza by stanza

The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.

  1. 1 ABABCDCDEFEFGG areA · liveB · prepareA · giveB · leaseC · wereD · deceaseC · bearD · decayE · upholdF · dayE · coldF · knowG · soG
Scansion, line by line

Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.

LineSyl.Stress
O! that you were your self; but, love you are10··········
No longer yours, than you yourself here live:10·/˘···˘/··
Against this coming end you should prepare,10···/˘···˘/
And your sweet semblance to some other give:10···/˘··/˘·
So should that beauty which you hold in lease10···/˘·····
Find no determination; then you were10··˘·˘/˘···
Yourself again, after yourself’s decease,10˘/˘/··˘/˘/
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.10···/˘·····
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,10········˘/
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,10·/˘˘·/˘·˘/
Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day10···/˘··/˘·
And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?10·/˘···˘/˘·
O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,10··········
You had a father: let your son say so.10···/˘·····

On this poem

" Note you and your instead of thy, thine, and the address my love for the first time" (Dowden). Elsewhere Dowden remarks: " In the first fifty sonnets, you is of extremely rare occurrence, in the second fifty you and thou alternate in little groups of sonnets, thou having still a preponderance, but now only a slight preponder- ance ; in the remaining twenty-six, you becomes the ordinary mode of address, and thou the exception. In the sonnets to a mistress, thou is invariably employed. A few sonnets of the first series, as 63-68, have " my love," and the third person throughout. Thou and you are to be considered only when addressing friend or lover, not Time, the Muse, etc. Five sets of sonnets may then be distin- guished : 1. Using thou. 2. Using you. 3. Using neither, but be- longing to a thou group. 4. Using neither, but belonging to a you group. 5. Using both (24)." In his larger ed. Dowden adds a tabular classification of the Sonnets under these five heads.
Notes from the edition 7

Notes by William J. Rolfe, Shakespeare's Sonnets (New York, 1905), Internet Archive scan

  1. Line 1 Yourself! That is, master of yourself ; as the context shows.
  2. Line 5 Beauty which you hold in lease. Malone compares Daniel's Delia, 47 : — " in beauty's lease expir'd appears The date of age, the calends of our death."
  3. Line 6 Determination. End ; the legal sense. On the passage, cf. V. and A. 171 fol.
  4. Line 9 So fair a house. The word house here seems to refer to the ancestral house, or family ; not, like the "beauteous roof" of 10. 7, to the bodily mansion.
  5. Line 10 Husbandry. Economy, thrift. Cf. Macb. ii. I. 4, Ham. i. 3. 77, etc.
  6. Line 13 Unthrifts ! See on 9. 9 above.
  7. Line 14 You had a father. Dowden compares A. IV. i. 1. 19 : "This young gentlewoman had a father — O, that 'had !' how sad a passage 't is ! " See on 10. 7 above.

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