"Looke what thy memorie cannot containe, / Commit to these waste blacks, and thou shalt finde / Those children nurst, deliuerd from thy braine, / To take a new acquaintance of thy minde."
— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
By G. Eld for T[homas] T[horpe]
Date
1609
Metaphor
"Looke what thy memorie cannot containe, / Commit to these waste blacks, and thou shalt finde / Those children nurst, deliuerd from thy braine, / To take a new acquaintance of thy minde."
Metaphor in Context
77
THy glasse will shew thee how thy beauties were,
Thy dyall how thy pretious mynuits waste,
The vacant leaues thy mindes imprint will beare,
And of this booke, this learning maist thou taste.
The wrinckles which thy glasse will truly show,
Of mouthed graues will giue the memorie,
Thou by thy dyals shady stealth maist know,
Times theeuish progresse to eternitie.
Looke what thy memorie cannot containe,
Commit to these waste blacks, and thou shalt finde
Those children nurst, deliuerd from thy braine,
To take a new acquaintance of thy minde.
These offices, so oft as thou wilt looke,
Shall profit thee and much inrich thy booke.
THy glasse will shew thee how thy beauties were,
Thy dyall how thy pretious mynuits waste,
The vacant leaues thy mindes imprint will beare,
And of this booke, this learning maist thou taste.
The wrinckles which thy glasse will truly show,
Of mouthed graues will giue the memorie,
Thou by thy dyals shady stealth maist know,
Times theeuish progresse to eternitie.
Looke what thy memorie cannot containe,
Commit to these waste blacks, and thou shalt finde
Those children nurst, deliuerd from thy braine,
To take a new acquaintance of thy minde.
These offices, so oft as thou wilt looke,
Shall profit thee and much inrich thy booke.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
See Shake-speares Sonnets. Neuer Before Imprinted. (London: By G. Eld for T. T., 1609. <Link to Folger copy EEBO-TCP> <Link to Huntington copy in EEBO-TCP>
Reading Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 1997).
Reading Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 1997).
Date of Entry
08/24/2013
