I recently finished a book by a famous medium, Concetta Bertoldi, called “Do Dead People Watch You Shower?” The book answered many questions about life and death and in between. I was struck by her explanation that we are indeed reincarnated into different bodies and different situations because we are meant each time to learn a certain “life lesson”. She explains that we are not new souls, but we are the same soul living different lives each time we are sent to earth by God. (And by the way, apparently dead people do watch us shower…those we knew are always with us in spirit.)
This is why upon reading Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 I was reminded of this book about life beyond death and the pressure of time and aging on all of us. I felt that although the literal reading of this poem would be to conclude that Shakespeare is implying that life ends when you die, there is not necessarily a definitive end to you once you die.
Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
All of the metaphors in this poem are nature related—the cycle of fall to winter, the cycle of twilight to night, and of fire to ashes. Looking at these on a less literal level, you can see that these are associated with Mother Nature, Father Time, and the cycle of life. You can either see these cycles as ending at winter or night or ashes, or you can see them as the coming of spring, the coming of dawn, and the rebirth of a phoenix. While the poem is rather pessimistic and there is an impending sense of doom and death, it seems Shakespeare was more concerned with the loss of youth, time, and love than of death itself.
The focus of this poem is time. Time creeps slowly up on us and when we finally realize it, many years have passed and we have lost that youth we once prized. I love the line: “Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest” (8). What is Death’s second self? Could it be a name for the Grimm Reaper? Father Time? Sleep? Night? Quite possibly it means all of those things. We are all fascinated with time and aging and the timeline that is our life. We make plans to do certain things before a certain age because we only live once. But do we really? We are broken harted when we a loved one has passed, but are they entirely gone? Or are they with us in spirit? It’s up to you whether we live once or whether we are reincarnated.
Suppose we did live more than once. Would that make you any less fearful of time and death? Shakespeare’s Sonnet 59 says,
“If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which labouring for invention bear amissThe second burthen of a former child.”
This sonnet addresses the possibility of reincarnation and the possibility that nothing is entirely new and nothing ever completely dies. This is what makes time so ambiguous.
While it isn’t clear whether Shakespeare really believed in reincarnation or life after death, his Sonnet 73 inspired me to question metaphors for death and time he used in his sonnet. His sonnet included cycles of life and death and the pressure of time on life and love. Depending on how you want to look at it, Shakespeare's sonnet is either a pessimistic view on death, or a realization that love and life are cycles that end in death but starts again in life. Whether or not Shakespeare was actually afraid of dying and of time eventually consuming him, he should not have been because he obviously lives through his timeless writing today and for many years to come.
This is why upon reading Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 I was reminded of this book about life beyond death and the pressure of time and aging on all of us. I felt that although the literal reading of this poem would be to conclude that Shakespeare is implying that life ends when you die, there is not necessarily a definitive end to you once you die.
Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
All of the metaphors in this poem are nature related—the cycle of fall to winter, the cycle of twilight to night, and of fire to ashes. Looking at these on a less literal level, you can see that these are associated with Mother Nature, Father Time, and the cycle of life. You can either see these cycles as ending at winter or night or ashes, or you can see them as the coming of spring, the coming of dawn, and the rebirth of a phoenix. While the poem is rather pessimistic and there is an impending sense of doom and death, it seems Shakespeare was more concerned with the loss of youth, time, and love than of death itself.
The focus of this poem is time. Time creeps slowly up on us and when we finally realize it, many years have passed and we have lost that youth we once prized. I love the line: “Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest” (8). What is Death’s second self? Could it be a name for the Grimm Reaper? Father Time? Sleep? Night? Quite possibly it means all of those things. We are all fascinated with time and aging and the timeline that is our life. We make plans to do certain things before a certain age because we only live once. But do we really? We are broken harted when we a loved one has passed, but are they entirely gone? Or are they with us in spirit? It’s up to you whether we live once or whether we are reincarnated.
Suppose we did live more than once. Would that make you any less fearful of time and death? Shakespeare’s Sonnet 59 says,
“If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which labouring for invention bear amissThe second burthen of a former child.”
This sonnet addresses the possibility of reincarnation and the possibility that nothing is entirely new and nothing ever completely dies. This is what makes time so ambiguous.
While it isn’t clear whether Shakespeare really believed in reincarnation or life after death, his Sonnet 73 inspired me to question metaphors for death and time he used in his sonnet. His sonnet included cycles of life and death and the pressure of time on life and love. Depending on how you want to look at it, Shakespeare's sonnet is either a pessimistic view on death, or a realization that love and life are cycles that end in death but starts again in life. Whether or not Shakespeare was actually afraid of dying and of time eventually consuming him, he should not have been because he obviously lives through his timeless writing today and for many years to come.
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