Sonnet 4: Thy unused beautyUnthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy? Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free. Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live? For having traffic with thyself alone, Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive. Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone, What acceptable audit canst thou leave? Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee, Which, used, lives th' executor to be.William Shakespeare |
June 2015 |
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Although the sonnet is obviously meant to continue the theme of procreation, it suggests the possibility of a broader interpretation: the uselessness and ultimate deadliness of not giving in general, not returning to the world (“Nature”) what was “lent” to one to give further. So the image is a figure curled into itself — somewhat ambiguous between having traffic with thyself alone and a gesture of deep despair which comes from being disconnected from the world. On the pictorial level, the figure is ambiguous between being three-dimensional, “realistically” integrated into its environment, and isolated from it, flat, profitless. This painting is still in-progress. |
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