Shakespeare Sonnet 7

‘Lo! in the orient when the gracious light’

Apr 2, 2007

The speaker employs a clever pun in Sonnet 7 as he metaphorically compares the young man's life to a daily trip of the great star across the sky.

First Quatrain

The speaker in Sonnet 7 “Lo! in the orient when the gracious light” begins his continuing entreaty of the young man to father a child by directing the young man to think about the passage of the sun through the day. When the great star of day appears in the morning as if waking up, people open their eyes in “homage to his new-appearing sight.” People on earth are pleased anew each day with what seems to be a fresh appearance of the sun that warms and makes all things visible, and earthlings intuit the sun’s “sacred majesty” when he first appears in the sky each morning.

Second Quatrain

And after the sun has risen and stands overhead, people continue to admire and adore him, and at this point, the speaker makes it clear that he is metaphorically comparing the young man’s youth to that of the daily sun rise and journey across the day. He says “Resembling strong youth in his middle age,” still people will love the sun’s and the young man’s beauty and treat him royally as he progresses on his “golden pilgrimage”—the sun’s literally golden diurnal journey across the sky and the young man’s brightest years from maturity to old age.

Third Quatrain

But when the sun is past his zenith and headed down behind the earth again, people no longer look at this bounteous beauty in the darkening that ensues; they avert their eyes and attention from the once lordly majesty that was the rising sun and sun at noon. And like the sun, when “feeble age” causes the young man to go tottering as an old man, folks who have admired his beauty will divert their attention; they will not want to pay homage to this old man; instead, they will “look another way.”

Couplet

In the couplet, the speaker bluntly informs the young man that if he allows his youth to fade away as the great star of heaven begins to fade afternoon, no one will be looking at the man anymore, unless he fathers an heir.

This sonnet employs a fascinating use of pun, a welcome additional poetic device, as well as a specific gender designation for the heir. The speaker heretofore has not called for a specific gender of the child he so much wants the young man to father; although it has always been implied that the heir would be male. In Sonnet 7, the speaker specifies that the young man will lose his immortality “unless thou get a son.”

The speaker has metaphorically compared the young man’s life journey to the sun’s travel across the sky during the day, and so it is quite fitting that he should employ the word “son,” which he no doubt deemed a very cute pun: sun and son. The reader can also appreciate the value of such a literarily clever device.