Sonnet 54

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<	Sonnet 54	>
O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give. The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour, which doth in it live. The canker blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses: But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade; Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall vade, my verse distills your truth.
–William Shakespeare

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Shakespeare's sonnets

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11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
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31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40
41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50
51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60
61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70
71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79	80
81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90
91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	100
101	102	103	104	105	106	107	108	109	110
111	112	113	114	115	116	117	118	119	120
121	122	123	124	125	126	127	128	129	130
131	132	133	134	135	136	137	138	139	140
141	142	143	144	145	146	147	148	149	150
151	152	153	154

Shakespeare's Sonnet 54 uses an extended metaphor to develop the theme of the beauty of the beloved and the preservative power of verse.

1 Paraphrase
2 Source and analysis
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Paraphrase

Beauty itself seems more beautiful when it is accompanied by honesty. We love the rose for its looks, but its beautiful smell endears us to it even more. The dog rose (or canker-eaten rose) looks as beautiful as a genuine rose, but because that beauty is solely in appearance, dog-roses live unadmired and die alone. Not so with roses: sweet smells arise from their sweet deaths. And so of you, beautiful youth; when your beauty and youth die, my poetry will still display the truth of you.

[edit] Source and analysis

Edmond Malone was the first to identify the "canker rose" with the dog-rose. His conjecture is generally accepted, although George Steevens notes that this comparison makes nonsense of line 5, as the dog-rose is far lighter in color than the rose. Almost alone, George Wyndham argues that "canker rose" refers, rather, to a canker-eaten rose (as in 35).

Henry Charles Beeching noted verbal parallels to a scene in Hamlet.

Stephen Booth perceives a pun on "dye" in line 11's "die".

Quarto's "by" in line 14 is almost universally amended to "my"; however, "by" is defensible if "distill" is intransitive.