Shakespeare Sonnet 1

'From fairest creatures we desire increase'

Mar 6, 2007

The speaker in the Shakespeare "Marriage Sonnets" has one goal in mind, to persuade a young man that he should marry and produce beautiful heirs.

The Marriage Sonnets

Shakespeare sonnets 1-17 are called the “marriage sonnets”; the speaker in each of these sonnets is trying to persuade a young man to marry. It is likely that the young man is Henry Wriothesley, the third earl of Southampton, and he is being encouraged to marry Elizabeth de Vere, the oldest daughter of Edward de Vere, 18th Earl of Oxford, whom many scholars now believe to be the real writer of the works attributed to William Shakespeare.

First Quatrain

In the first quatrain of Shakespeare Sonnet 1, the speaker explains to the young man that humanity’s wish is that pleasant people will reproduce progeny: “From fairest creatures we desire increase.” The speaker likens the young man’s beauty to a rose, whose beauty will never die if he produces little roses or children. He reminds the young man that he will age and “by time decease” but if he produces a child, his memory will be able to live on: “His tender heir might bear his memory.”

Second Quatrain

In the second quatrain, the speaker chides the young man saying he is only interested in his own beauty; he is conceited and self-indulgent: “But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes, / Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel.” And according to the speaker, the young conceited man is causing “a famine where abundance lies”: instead of there being one young person of such beauty, there could be many, if only the young adult would marry and produce others that would be as beautiful as he is. And in being so selfish, the young man is his own enemy and ultimately being cruel to himself: “Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.”

Third Quatrain

The speaker tries to convince the young man of his selfishness by reminding again him that as only one person, “only herald to the gaudy spring,” he is hiding his value: “Within thine own bud buriest thy content.” He calls the young man a “tender churl” and reminds him that he is wasting himself by continuing to remain so self-important: “And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.”

The Couplet

In the couplet, “Pity the world, or else this glutton be, / To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee,” the speaker asks the young man to take pity on the world, because he is consuming what the world should have by lavishing all his attention on himself. And then the speaker reminds the young man that if he does not produce heirs he will find himself alone with grave in the end.