Shakespeare Sonnet 3

'Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest'

Mar 13, 2007

Sonnet 3 of the "Marriage Sonnets" focuses on the young man's image in the mirror. Again the speaker appeals to young man to marry and reproduce to bequeath his beauty.

First Quatrain – “Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest”

In the first quatrain, the speaker commands the young man to look at himself in a mirror and tell himself, “the face thou viewest," that the time is ripe to produce another face that resembles his own. And that if he fails to reproduce another face like his own, he will be, in fact, cheating others, especially the mother of that new infant. The speaker is playing on the young man’s sympathy by insisting that the lad’s failure to become a father will “unbless some mother,” or keep some mother from the blessings of giving birth the new life.

Second Quatrain - “For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb”

The speaker, as he often does, employs questions to convince the young man that the speaker’s insistence that the lad reproduce is not only reasonable but also the only moral and sensible thing to do. In the second quatrain, the speaker asks the lad if he thinks there could possible be any young lady so perfectly appointed that she would not welcome the opportunity of becoming the mother of the young man’s lovely offspring. Then referring to the young man’s reluctance again, the speaker asks if there could be any gentleman so self-absorbed that he would stop a succeeding generation from being born.

Third Quatrain – “Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee”

The speaker then appeals to the young man’s sense of connection to his own mother, telling him that he reflects the beauty of his own mother, and because she was fortunate enough to have given birth to the young man, she is able to remember her own youth when she looks at him. Therefore, it logically follows that when the young man becomes an old man, he will be able to remember his own “April” or “prime” when looking into the face of his own child.

The Couplet

The speaker, throughout this sonnet, has focused on what the young man sees in the mirror, his image of youth, reminding him of his mother’s image of youth that he reflects; therefore, the speaker has focused sharply on that “image.” He then draws the inevitable conclusion that if the lad chooses to remain single and especially if he decides to “Die single”; then the ugly truth is that “thine image dies with thee.” The speaker appeals to the young man’s desire for immortality, and the speaker seems to desire that immortality even more than the young man does.